staring down at her pale face and the brave smile she had pinned on it. Fear tore inside him. ‘Okay, tell me on the way to the hospital.’
‘There’s no need…’
‘I’ll come back for that bag you packed. Come on.’
He was at his finest. Strong, calm…utterly in charge of the situation and knowing exactly what to do. She felt safe.
‘Talk to me,’ was the first thing he said once they were both in the car.
For the first time he wished that he had bought her somewhere with less of the illusion of being in the country and more of the reality of being in the hub of things—maybe even next to a hospital.
‘I… Just a bit of pain,’ she said faintly. ‘My stomach.’
‘Contractions? Like Braxton Hicks?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I thought it might be a good idea to do some background research,’ Sergio told her gruffly.
She stared at his fierce averted profile in amazement.
‘It’s not that big a deal,’ he asserted, without glancing in her direction. ‘I like to know what I’m dealing with.’
‘I don’t know what it is, Sergio,’ she whispered, ‘but it just doesn’t feel right.’
‘Don’t talk,’ he urged in a low voice. ‘Try and breathe evenly. The last thing you want to do is hyperventilate because you’re panicked. I’m sure it’s nothing to be unduly concerned about.’
‘They hate you doing this.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Susie leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She was doing as he had told her to do, breathing evenly and thinking calming thoughts.
‘The hospital. They hate it when you show up and they have to send you away again because it’s a stupid false alarm. They’re always rushed off their feet. It’s a waste of their time when they have to pander to some pregnant woman who gets twitchy at the slightest…ouch…cramp…’
‘No one would dare send me anywhere unless I was ready to go.’
He rested his hand on hers and gave a gentle squeeze, and she blinked back a flood of tears because right now she just loved him so much she wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
This felt so much like the real thing that she could almost believe it was.
‘We’re nearly there,’ he said, removing his hand and leaving a cool, empty space where it had been.
Busy with trying to stave off the bursts of abdominal pain, Susie was actually only aware that they had arrived when the car stopped and she opened her eyes to find that he had pulled up right outside the hospital entrance. From then on, everything seemed to move very quickly.
He took charge. People obeyed. Nurses who were accustomed to giving orders fell into line with mesmerised obedience. A consultant was summoned.
‘I should have made you go private,’ he muttered at one point through gritted teeth. ‘I should never have let you talk me into using the NHS…’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s as good as…probably better…’
‘You’re as white as a sheet.’
‘I…I’m a little scared, to be perfectly honest…’ she admitted.
Voicing the fear suddenly made her realise that she was, in fact, terrified. What if she lost the baby?
Being established in a bed in the hospital, with people rushing around and someone urgently gathering the necessary team to do a scan in order to establish what was happening, really brought home to Susie just how much a part of her present and her future this unborn baby had become.
Sergio had temporarily disappeared, and a new and scary thought hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.
If she lost this precious possession, then he would disappear from her life faster than a speeding bullet.
There would be no need for him to stick around.
She would return the house she had fallen in love with, pack her bags and leave—because even though the house was in her name he would want it back. Why wouldn’t he? It had been bought for his child, and for her as an afterthought.
She looked at him feverishly when he reappeared a few minutes later. She would have to make it clear that she understood the ramifications of what was happening and what might happen given a worst-case scenario.
‘They’re ready for you—and don’t look so terrified.’ He slanted a crooked smile at her. ‘It’ll be just fine.’
Susie nodded dumbly. And if it’s not?
‘It may not be,’ she mumbled unsteadily. ‘There are a thousand different things that could go wrong.’
‘It isn’t helpful to start looking for everything that could go wrong. Let’s just hear what the consultant has to say. We’ll know better how things stand once they scan you.’
Sergio was realising that he had lived a charmed life, casually assuming that whatever he wanted, he would get. The life of someone in complete control. He was realising that he had never felt afraid. He was feeling afraid now. She didn’t have to tell him about all the things that could go wrong. He knew them all. He had done more than peruse that book he had bought. He had read it from cover to cover and could have written a thesis on mishaps that might occur.
‘I can’t help it,’ Susie whispered. He had taken her hand in his and his fingers curled reassuringly around hers. ‘I meant to ask you something…’
‘What?’
Where the heck were these people? Shouldn’t they be rushing around, taking care of this situation? Instead of slacking off at some workstation somewhere, gassing and telling jokes?
He forced down a sudden surge of anger and held on to what the consultant had told him: that in the absence of bleeding there was almost certainly no need to worry, that they would move as quickly as they could but that several unexpected emergencies had recently occurred, ensuring that all the available rooms for scanning were occupied.
‘Have you found someone else?’
For a few seconds Sergio was dazed by the irrelevancy of that question, but she was staring at him with wide-eyed earnestness, waiting for an answer.
‘Where the heck did that come from?’
‘It’s just something that’s been playing on my mind,’ she said, breathing unevenly. ‘And, while we’re on the subject, I just want you to know that if you have there’s no need to try and hide it from me.’
And no need for him to feel any responsibility or pity towards her if this pregnancy failed. Her thoughts were chaotic, but she had a sudden, pressing urge to make him understand that.
‘This is not the time or the place to be having a nonsensical conversation like this,’ Sergio told her roughly. ‘Just concentrate on staying calm and optimistic.’
‘I’m very calm and optimistic.’
‘You’re the most infuriatingly stubborn woman I’ve ever met. I don’t suppose you’re going to put this conversation to rest until I give you an answer, so I might as well oblige. Even though you do pick the most ridiculous moments to launch into your “Meaningful Conversations”…’
But maybe this was her way of distracting herself from negative thoughts about losing the baby—who was he to argue with her? He wasn’t the one lying on a narrow, hard bed waiting for a scan…
He ran his fingers through her fine, silky, unruly hair and then cupped her face in a curiously tender