Unwrapping Her Italian Doc (9 page)

‘Anton …’ She didn’t need to tell him she was coming, he was lost in it too, moaning, as her thighs clamped his head and she pulsed in his mouth. Anton reached for his cock on instinct. He was close to coming too. He raised himself up, and was stroking himself at her entrance. They were in the most dangerous of places, two people who definitely should know better.

Louise was frantically patting the dressing table behind her, trying to find a drawer, while watching the silver bead at his tip swelling and drizzling.

‘Here …’ She pulled out a foil packet and ripped it open. She slid it onto his thick length and there was no way they could make it to the bed, but Anton took a turn in the lucky chair and she leapt on his lap. His mouth sucked her breast through her bra as she wriggled into position.

She hovered provocatively over his erection, revel-ling for a brief moment in the sensation of his mouth and the anticipation of lowering herself. Anton had worked the fabric down and was now at her nipple, her small breast consumed by his mouth, and then his patience expired. His hands pulled her hips down and in one rapid motion Louise was filled by him, a delicious searing but, better still, his hands did not leave her. Her bedroom was like a sauna and the sheen on her body had her a little slippery but his hands gripped her and did not relent, for she would match his needs.

It had her feeling dizzy—the sensation of being on top while being taken. Louise rested her arms on his shoulders as he pulled her down over and over, and then his mouth lost contact with her breast as he swelled that final time. Her hands went to his head and she ground down, coming with him, squealing in pleasure as they
hit a giddy peak. They shared a decadent, wet kiss as he shot inside her, a kiss of possession as she pulsed around his length and her head collapsed onto his shoulder.

Louise kissed his salty shoulder as her breathing finally slowed down.

She could feel him soften inside her and she lifted her head and smiled into his eyes.

‘Ready for bed?’

A
FTER ONE HOUR
and about seven minutes of sleep they woke to Louise’s phone at six.

‘I thought you were off today,’ Anton groaned.

‘I am, but I’m going Christmas shopping.’

‘At six a.m.?’

‘I want to get a book signed for Mum so I have to line up,’ Louise said. ‘Stay,’ she said, kissing his mouth.’ Get up when you’re ready, or you can come shopping with me.’

‘I’ll give it a miss, thanks.’

‘Have you done your Christmas shopping?’

‘I’ll do it online. The shops will be crazy.’

‘That’s half the fun.’ She gave him a nudge. ‘Come on.’

She went into the shower and Anton lay there, looking up at the ceiling. He had a couple of things to get. Something for the nurses and his secretary and, yes, he might just as well get it over and done with.

‘We’ll stop by my place and I can get changed,’ Anton said, as she came out of the shower.

‘Sure.’ Naked, she smiled down at him and lifted her hair. ‘Check me for bruises,’ she said, while craning her
neck and looking down at her buttocks where his fingers had dug in, but, no, they were peachy cream too.

‘No need to check,’ Anton said, for he had been careful, knowing that she had her photo shoot coming up.

Neither could wait till it was over!

Louise dressed while Anton showered. She pulled on jeans and boots and a massive cream jumper and then she tied up her hair and added a coat.

Anton put on the clothes he had worn last night, though they were stopping by his place so he could get changed.

‘Ready to do battle?’ she asked, thrilled that Anton had agreed to come along with her. She was determined to Christmas him up, especially when they arrived at his apartment.

‘You really are a misery,’ Louise said, stepping in. She didn’t care about the view or the gorgeous furnishings in his apartment—what she cared about was that there wasn’t a single decoration. There were a few Christmas cards stacked with his mail on the kitchen bench but, apart from that, it might just as well have been October, instead of just over a week before Christmas.

‘Aren’t you even going to get a tree?’ Louise asked.

‘No.’

‘Don’t you have Christmas trees in Italy?’

‘Some,’ Anton said, ‘but we go more for nativity scenes and lights.’

‘You have to do something.’

‘I’m hardly ever here, Louise,’ Anton said.

‘It’s not the point. When you come home—’

‘I don’t like Christmas,’ Anton said, but then amended, ‘Although I am starting to really enjoy this one.’

‘What do you have to get today?’

‘I need to get something for my secretary,’ Anton said. ‘Perfume?’

‘Maybe,’ Louise said. ‘What sort of things does she like?’

Anton spread out his hands—he really had no idea what Shirley liked.

‘What sort of things does she talk about?’

‘My diary.’

‘God, you’re so antisocial,’ Louise said.

‘Oh, she likes cooking,’ Anton recalled. ‘She’s always bringing in things that she’s made.’

‘Then I have the perfect present,’ Louise said, ‘because I’m getting it for my mum. That’s what we’re going to line up for.’

It wasn’t just a book. The first twenty people had the option to purchase a morning’s cooking lesson with a celebrity chef. It was fabulous and expensive and with it all going to charity it was well worth it.

Celebrating their success at getting the signed books and cookery lessons, at ten a.m., having coffee and cake in an already crowded department store, they chatted.

‘If your mother can’t cook, why would you spend all that money? Surely it will be wasted?’

‘Oh, no.’ Louise shook her head. ‘If she learns even one thing and gets it right, my dad will be grateful for ever—the poor thing,’ she added. ‘He has to eat it night after night after night. I usually wriggle out of it when I go and visit. I’ll go over tomorrow and say I’ve just eaten, but you can’t do that on Christmas Day.’

‘How bad is it?’

‘It’s terrible. I don’t know how she does it. It always looks okay and she thinks it tastes amazing but I swear
it’s like she’s put it in a blender with water added, burnt it and then put it back together to look like a dinner again …’ She took out her list. ‘Come on, off we go.’

Louise was a brilliant shopper, not that Anton easily fathomed her methods.

‘I adore this colour,’ Louise said, trying lipstick on the back of her hand. ‘Oh, but this one is even better.’

‘I thought we were here for your sisters.’

‘Oh, they’re so easy to buy for,’ Louise said. ‘Anything I love they want to pinch, so anything I love I know they’ll like.’

Make-up, perfume, a pair of boots … ‘I’m the same size as Chloe,’ she explained, as she tried them on. ‘It’s so good you’re here, I’d have had to make two trips otherwise.’

Bag after bag was loaded with gifts. ‘I want to go here,’ Louise said, and they got off the escalator at the baby section. ‘I’m going to get something for Emily and Hugh’s baby,’ Louise said. ‘Hopefully it will be a waste of money and I can give it to NICU.’ She looked at Anton. ‘Do you think she’ll get to Christmas?’

‘I hope so,’ Anton said. ‘I’m aiming for thirty-three weeks.’

Louise heard the unvoiced
but
and for now chose to ignore it.

They went to the premature baby section and found some tiny outfits and there was one perk to being the obstetrician and midwife shopping for a pregnant friend, they knew what colour to get! Louise said yes to gift-wrapping and they waited as it was beautifully wrapped and then topped with a bow.

‘I’ll keep it in my locker at work,’ Louise said.

It was a lovely, lovely, lovely day of shopping, punctuated
with kisses. Neither cared about the grumbles they caused as they blocked the pavement or the escalators when they simply had to kiss the other and by the end Louise was seriously, happily worn out.

‘You want to get dinner?’ Anton offered.

‘Take-out?’ Louise suggested. ‘But we’ll have it at my place. I’m not going to your miserable apartment.’

‘I have to go back,’ Anton said. ‘I have to do an hour’s work at least.’

‘Fine,’ Louise conceded, ‘but we’ll drop these back at my place first and I’ll get some clothes.’

‘You won’t need them,’ Anton said, but Louise was insistent.

All her presents she put in the bedroom. ‘I can’t wait to wrap them,’ Louise said. ‘I’ll just grab a change of clothes and things, you go and make a drink.’

Louise grabbed more than a change of clothes. In fact, she went into her wardrobe and pulled out some leftover Christmas decorations and stuffed them all into a not so small overnight bag. She also took the tiny silver tree that she’d been meaning to put up at the nurses’ station but kept forgetting to take.

‘How long are you staying for?’ Anton asked, when she came out and he saw the size of her overnight bag.

‘Till you kick me out.’ Louise gave him a kiss. ‘I like to be prepared.’

Anton really did have work to do.

A couple of blood tests were in and he went through them, and there was a patient at thirteen weeks’ gestation who was bleeding. Anton went into his study and rang her to check how things were.

Louise could hear him safely talking and quickly set to work.

The little tree she put on his coffee table and she draped some tinsel on the window ledges and put up some stars, a touch worried she might leave some marks on his walls but he’d just have to get over it, Louise decided.

She took out her can and sprayed snow on his gleaming windows, and oh, it looked lovely.

‘What the hell have you done?’ Anton said, as he came into the lounge, but he was smiling.

‘I need nice things around me,’ Louise said, ‘happy things.’

‘It would seem,’ Anton said, looking not at her handiwork now but the woman in his arms, ‘that so do I.’

‘W
HAT HAPPENED LAST
Christmas?’ Anton asked, late, late on Sunday night. They’d started on the sofa and had watched half a movie and now they lay naked on the floor bathed by the light from the television. ‘You said it was tinsel-starved.’

She really would prefer not to talk about it. They had had such a lovely weekend but there were so many parts of so many conversations that they were avoiding, like IVF and Anton’s loathing of Christmas, that when he finally broached one of them, Louise answered carefully. There was no way she could tell him all but she told him some.

‘I broke up with my boyfriend on Christmas Eve.’

‘You said it was tinsel-starved before then, that you didn’t go to many parties.’

‘It wasn’t worth it.’

‘In what way?’

‘I know you think I’m a flirt …’

‘I like that about you.’

‘But I’m only really like that with you,’ Louise said. ‘I mean that. I used to be a shocking flirt and then when I started going out with Wesley … well, I got told off a lot.’

‘For flirting with other men?’

‘No!’ Louise said, shuddering at the memory. ‘He decided that if I flirted like that with him, then what was I like when he wasn’t there? I don’t want to go into it all, but I changed and I hate myself for it. I changed into this one eighth of a person and somehow I got out—on Christmas Eve last year. It took months, just months to even start feeling like myself again.’

‘Okay.’

‘Do you know the day I did?’ Louise asked, smiling as she turned to face him.

‘No.’

‘We were going to Emily’s leaving do and I saw you in the corridor and I asked you to come along …’

‘You were wearing red,’ Anton easily recalled. ‘You were with Emily.’

‘That’s right, it was for her leaving do. Well, even when I asked if you wanted to come along, I deep down knew that you wouldn’t. I was just …’ She couldn’t really explain. ‘I was just flirting again … sort of safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t go anywhere.’

‘But it has,’ Anton said.

‘I guess.’ Louise smiled. ‘Have you ever been married?’ Louise asked.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I just wondered.’

‘No,’ Anton said. ‘Have you?’

‘God, no,’ Louise said.

‘Have you ever come close?’

‘No,’ Louise admitted.

‘You and Rory?’

Louise laughed and shook her head. ‘We were only together a few weeks. Just when we started going out I
found that it was likely that I was going to have issues getting pregnant. It was terrible timing because it was all I could think about. Poor Rory, he started going out with a happy person and when the doctor broke the news I just plunged into despair. It wasn’t his baby I wanted, just the thought I might never have one. It was just all too much for him …’ She looked at Anton. ‘I think I was just low at that time and that’s why I must have taken my bastard alert glasses off. I’ve made a few poor choices with men since then.’ She closed her eyes. ‘None worse than Wesley, though.’

‘How bad did it get?’ Anton asked, but Louise couldn’t go there and she shook her head.

‘What about you?’ Louise asked. ‘Have you been serious with anyone?’

‘Not really, well, there was one who came close …’ It was Anton who stopped talking then.

Anton who shook his head.

He simply couldn’t go there with someone who might just want him for a matter of weeks.

‘C
AN YOU KEEP
a close eye on Felicity in seven?’ Anton asked. ‘She’s upset because her husband has been unable to get a flight back till later this evening.’

Felicity was one of Anton’s high-risk pregnancies and finally the day had arrived where she would meet her baby, but her husband was in Germany with work.

‘How is she doing?’ Louise asked.

‘Very slowly,’ Anton said. ‘Hopefully he’ll get here in time.’ He picked up a parcel, beautifully wrapped by Louise. ‘I’m going to give this to Shirley now. She’s only in this morning to sort out my diary before she takes three weeks off. Then I will be in the antenatal clinic. Call me if you have any concerns.’

‘Yes, Anton,’ Louise sighed.

Anton heard her sigh but it did not bother him.

Things were not going to change at work. In fact, he was more overbearing if anything, just because he didn’t want a mistake to come between them.

‘This is for you,’ Anton said, as he went into Shirley’s office. ‘I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work this year and to say merry Christmas.’

‘Thank you, Anton.’ Shirley smiled.

‘I hope you have a lovely break.’

He went to go, even as she opened it, but her cry of surprise had him turn around.

‘How?’

Anton stared. His usually calm secretary was shaking as she spoke.

‘How did you manage to get this—there were only twenty places.’

‘I got there early.’

‘You lined up to get me this! Oh, my …’

Anton felt a little guilt at her obvious delight. It really had been far from a hardship to be huddled in a queue with Louise, but it was Shirley’s utter shock too that caused more than a little disquiet.

‘I never thought …’ Shirley started and then stopped. She could hardly say she’d been expecting some bland present from her miserable boss. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she said instead.

God, Anton thought, was he that bad that a simple nice gesture could reduce a staff member to tears?

Yes.

He nodded to Helen, the antenatal nurse who would be working alongside him, and he saw that she gave a slightly strained one back.

Things had to change, Anton realised.

He had to learn to let go a little.

But how?

‘How are things?’ Louise asked, as she walked into Felicity’s room with the CTG machine.

‘They’re just uncomfortable,’ Felicity said. She was determined to have a natural birth and had refused an
epidural or anything for pain. ‘I’m going to try and have a sleep.’

‘Do,’ Louise said. ‘Do you want me to close the curtains?’

Felicity nodded.

Brenda popped her head in the door. ‘Are you going to lunch, Louise?’

‘In a minute,’ Louise said. ‘I’m just doing some obs.’ Both Felicity and the baby seemed fine. ‘I’ll leave this on while I have my lunch,’ Louise said about the CTG machine, and Felicity nodded. ‘Then later we might have a little walk around, but for now just try and get some rest.’

She closed the curtains and moved a blanket over Felicity, who was half-asleep, and left her to the sound of her baby’s heartbeat. Louise would check the tracing when she came back from her break and see the pattern of the contractions.

‘Press the bell if you need anything and I’ll be here.’

‘But you’re going to lunch.’

‘Yep, but that buzzer is set for me, so just you press it if you need to.’

‘Thanks, Louise,’ Felicity said. ‘What time are you here till?’

Louise thought before answering. ‘I’m not sure.’

Louise left the door just a little open so that her colleagues could easily pop in and out and could hear the CTG, then headed to the fridge and got out her lunch.

‘Fancy company?’ Louise asked Emily as she knocked on her open door.

‘Oh, yes!’ Emily sat up in the bed. ‘How was the party?’

‘Excellent.’

‘Why didn’t you text me all weekend?’

‘I did!’ Louise said.

‘Five-thirty on a Sunday evening suggests to me you were otherwise engaged.’

‘I was busy,’ Louise said, ‘Christmas shopping!’

‘You lie,’ Emily said.

‘Actually, I need to charge my phone,’ Louise said, because she hadn’t been back home since being at Anton’s. ‘Can I borrow your charger?’

‘Sure.’ Emily smiled. ‘That’s not like you.’

Louise said nothing. She certainly wasn’t going to admit to Emily her three-night fest with Anton. As she plugged in her phone and sat down, the background noise of Felicity’s baby’s heartbeat slowed. Louise was so tuned into that noise, as all midwives were, and she didn’t like what she had just heard.

‘Are you okay?’ Emily asked.

‘I think I’ve got restless leg syndrome.’ Louise gave a light response. ‘I’m just going to check on someone and then I’ll be back.’

She went quietly into Felicity’s room. Felicity was dozing and Louise warmed her hand and then slipped it on Felicity’s stomach, watching the monitor and patiently waiting for a contraction to come.

‘It’s just me,’ Louise whispered, as Felicity woke up as a contraction deepened and Emily watched as the baby’s heart rate dipped. She checked Felicity’s pulse to make sure the slower heart rate that the monitor was picking up wasn’t Felicity’s.

‘Turn onto your other side for me,’ Louise said to the sleepy woman, and helped Felicity to get on her left side and looked up as Brenda, alerted by the sound of the dip in the baby’s heart rate, looked in.

‘Page Anton,’ Louise said.

Even on her left side the baby’s heart rate was dipping during contractions and Louise put some oxygen on Felicity. ‘We’ll move her over to Delivery,’ Brenda said.

‘Have you heard from Anton?’

‘I’ve paged him but he hasn’t answered,’ Brenda said.

‘I’ll see if he’s in the staffroom.’

Louise raced around to check but Anton wasn’t there.

She paged him again and then they moved Felicity through to the delivery ward. They were about to move her onto the delivery bed but Louise decided to wait for Anton before doing that as she listened to the baby’s heart rate. The way this baby was behaving, they might be running to Theatre any time soon.

She typed in an urgent page for Anton but when there was still no response Louise remembered her phone was in Emily’s room. ‘Text him,’ Louise said to Brenda, and, ripping off a tracing, Louise left Felicity with Brenda and swiftly went to a phone out of earshot.

‘Are the pagers working?’ she asked the switchboard operator. ‘I need Anton Rossi paged and, in case he’s busy, I need the second on paged too, urgently.’

She then rang Theatre and, because she had worked there for more than five years, when she rang and explained they might need a theatre very soon, she knew she was being taken seriously and that they would immediately be setting up for a Caesarean.

‘I can’t get hold of Anton,’ Louise said, but then she saw him, his phone in hand, racing towards them. ‘Anton! Felicity’s having late decelerations. Foetal heart rate is dropping to sixty.’

‘How long has this been going on?’

‘About fifteen minutes.’

‘And you didn’t think to tell me sooner! Hell! If Brenda hadn’t texted me …’ Anton hissed, taking the tracing and looking at it in horror, because time was of the essence. With pretty much one look at the tracing the decision to operate was made. For Anton it was a done deal.

It was like some horrific replay of what had happened two years ago.

‘I paged you when it first happened,’ Louise said, but there wasn’t time for explanations now. As Anton went into the delivery room the overhead speakers crackled into life.

‘System error. Professor Hadfield, can you make your way straight to Emergency? Mr Rossi, Delivery Ward, room two.’

Anton briefly closed his eyes.

‘Mr Rossi, urgently make your way to Delivery, room two. System error—pagers are down.’

And so it repeated.

‘Is that for me?’ Felicity cried, terrified by the urgency of the calls overhead.

‘Hey …’ Louise gave Felicity a cuddle as Anton examined her. ‘It’s just that the pagers are down and so I had to use my whip a bit on Switchboard to get Anton here.’

‘Felicity.’ Anton came up to the head-end of the bed. ‘Your baby is struggling …’ Everything had been done. She was on her side, oxygen was on and she was still on the bed so they could simply speed her to Theatre. ‘We’re going to take you to Theatre now and do a Caesarean section.’

‘Can I be awake at least?’

‘We really do need to get your baby out now.’

‘I’ll be there with you,’ Louise said, as the porter arrived. ‘I am not leaving your side, I promise you. I can take some pictures of your baby if you like,’ Louise offered, and Felicity gave her her phone.

‘Can you let Theatre know?’ Anton said, before he raced ahead to scrub.

It took everything she could muster to keep the bitterness from her voice. ‘I already have, Anton.’

Louise and the porter whisked the bed down the corridor. There was no consent form to be signed—that had been taken care of at the antenatal stage.

‘I’m so scared,’ Felicity said, as they wheeled her into Theatre.

‘I know,’ Louise said, cleaning down her shoes and popping on shoe covers, then she put on a theatre hat and gown. ‘You’ve got the best obstetrician,’ Louise said. ‘I’ve seen him do many Caesareans and he’s brilliant.’

‘I know.’

The bed was wheeled through and Louise’s old colleagues were waiting. Connor and Miriam helped Louise to get Felicity onto the theatre table and she smiled when she saw Rory arrive. He was a bit breathless and as he caught his breath Louise spoke on. ‘You’ve got an amazing anaesthetist too. Hi, Rory, this is Felicity.’

Rory was lovely with Felicity and went through any allergies and previous anaesthetics and things. ‘I’m going to be by your side every minute,’ he said to Felicity. ‘Till you’re awake again, here is where I’ll be.’

‘I’ll be here too,’ Louise said.

Theatre was filling. The paediatric team was arriving as Rory slipped the first drug into Felicity’s IV.

‘Think baby thoughts,’ Louise said with a smile as Felicity went under.

Louise was completely supernumerary at this point. She was simply here on love watch for one of her mums. And so, once Felicity had been intubated, Louise simply closed her mind to everything, even bastard Anton. She just sat on a stool and thought lovely baby thoughts.

She heard the swirl of suction and a few curses from Anton as he tried to get one very flat baby out as quickly as possible.

Then there was silence and she looked up as a rather floppy baby was whisked away and she kept thinking baby thoughts as they rubbed it very vigorously and flicked at its little feet. She glanced at Rory as another anaesthetist started to bag him.

But then Rory smiled and Louise looked round and watched as the baby shuddered and she watched as his little legs started to kick and his hands started to fight. His cries of protest were muffled by the oxygen mask but were the most beautiful sounds in the world.

Louise didn’t look at Anton, she just told Felicity that her baby was beautiful, wonderful, that he was crying and could she hear him, even though Felicity was still under anaesthetic.

Anton did look at Louise.

She did that, Anton thought.

She made all his patients relax and laugh, and though Felicity could not know what was being said, still Louise said it.

He could have honestly kicked himself for his reaction but, God, it had been almost a replica of what had happened back in Italy.

‘He’s beautiful,’ Louise said over and over.

So too was Louise, Anton thought, knowing he’d just blown any chance for them.

Louise
was
beautiful, even when she was raging.

Not an hour later she marched into the male changing room and slammed the door shut.

‘Hey, Louise,’ called Rory, who was just getting changed. ‘You’re in the wrong room.’

‘Oh, I’m in the right room,’ Louise said. ‘Could you excuse us, Rory, please?’

‘We will do this in my office,’ Anton said. Wet from the shower, a towel around his loins, he did not want to do this now, but Louise had no intention of waiting till he got dressed. She was far, far beyond furious.

‘Oh, no, this won’t keep.’

‘Good luck,’ Rory called to Anton as he left them to it.

And then it was just Louise and Anton but even as he went to apologise for what had happened earlier, or to even explain, Louise got in first.

‘You can question my morals, you can think what you like about me, but don’t you ever, ever—’

‘Question your morals?’ Anton checked. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’

‘Don’t interrupt me,’ Louise raged. ‘I’ve had it with you. What you accused me of today—’

‘Louise.’

‘No!’ She would not hear it.

‘I apologise. I did not realise the pagers were down.’

‘I did,’ Louise said instantly. ‘When you didn’t come, or make contact, it was the first thing I thought—not that you were negligent and simply couldn’t be bothered to get here …’

Her lips were white she was so angry. ‘I’m going to speak to Brenda and put in an incident report about the pagers today, and while I’m there I’m going to tell her I don’t want to work with you any more.’

‘That’s a bit extreme.’

‘It’s isn’t extreme. I’ve thought about doing it before.’ She saw him blink in surprise. ‘Everything I do you check again—’

‘Louise …’ Anton wasn’t about to deny it. He checked on her more than the other midwives, he was aware of that. In trying to protect her, to protect
them
, from what had happened to him and Dahnya, he had gone over the top. ‘If I can explain—’

But Louise was beyond hearing him. She lost her temper then and Louise hadn’t lost her temper since that terrible day. ‘You don’t want a midwife,’ Louise shouted, ‘you want a doula, rubbing the mums’ backs and offering support. Well, I’m over it, Anton. Have you any idea how demoralising it is?’ she raged, though possibly she was talking more to Wesley than Anton. ‘Have you any idea how humiliating it is …?’

Anton took a step forward, to speak, to calm her down, and then stood frozen as he heard the fear in her voice.