скачать книгу бесплатно
“So the answer is no,” she said.
“Were you expecting me to say yes? Other than one week together, we don’t know each other.”
“Exactly, so why would I marry you?”
He frowned. “To give our child legitimacy. A stable home. The guarantee that it will have two parents. This is a business arrangement for the sake of the child.”
The premise of giving her child a good home life was very tempting, but she knew how this played out. She’d been that child after all and she wouldn’t put her child through that. Through the resentment, bitterness and heartache. To the point that her father had walked away and didn’t even want to see her again.
No, she didn’t want that for her baby.
She didn’t want her baby to feel that pain. Only he seemed to really want this baby and her father had never wanted her.
Another parent involved, especially a stationary one, means you can pursue assignments anywhere in the world.
“I’m not going to marry you,” she said. “I’m here to work.” She tried to leave the room, but he stepped in front of her, grabbing her by the arm, his dark eyes blazing.
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
“I think I do,” she snapped, shrugging her arm out of his grip.
“So I’m not to have access to my child?” he demanded.
“I never said that.”
“You won’t marry me. So that means I won’t see this child. You’re only in Italy for twelve weeks. Then what happens? You won’t even be here when our child is born.”
“Dante, I’m not denying you access to your child. I want you to be part of his or her life. We don’t have to get married to raise this child. We don’t even need to live in the same country.”
He opened his mouth to say more when his pager buzzed. He looked down. “Incoming trauma, dannazione. This conversation isn’t over.” He stormed out of the room, his white lab coat billowing out behind him from his long strides. He was a force of nature to be reckoned with.
Shay breathed an inward sigh of relief, because for now she was able to get a breather, but she knew that this was probably far from over.
Dante stuck his head back into the room. “Are you coming, Shay? There is incoming trauma and you’re to be my nurse for the next twelve weeks. I need you by my side.”
By his side.
Only she wasn’t sure she was going to survive the next twelve weeks. By the way things were going she was either going to kill him or fall in love with him.
And succumbing to the passion, the desire, she felt for him was not an option. Neither was falling in love.
She had to guard her heart.
Shay was not her mother and wouldn’t be easily persuaded by loving a man. This was her life and she was going to live by her own wit.
“Of course.”
She shook her head; she had to get back in the game and focus on her work here. This was her job and, when she’d found out that she was pregnant after one night of forbidden passion, she’d sworn that she wasn’t going to let the pregnancy interfere with her job performance. She was a damn good nurse practitioner and simulation trainer. And that wasn’t going to change.
Even though she was starting to blossom and her center of gravity was shifting, she was able to keep up with Dante’s quick pace as they navigated the hallways through the hospital. He finally slowed down when they entered the trauma ward, where there was a flurry of activity. Shay could see water ambulances outside a set of automatic doors, where they were bringing in stretchers of patients.
“What happened?” Dante asked in Italian, that much she understood. The man spoke quickly and then pointed to where Dante was needed.
“Shay, this way,” Dante called, waving his hand and directing her to follow him.
They entered a private treatment bay, where a man lay seriously wounded.
“He’s American. Your presence might calm him,” Dante whispered.
Shay nodded. “What happened?”
“A vaporetto was tossed when a large cruise ship came into the lagoon. The cruise ship sent a wave into St. Mark’s Square and there were some injuries there as well.”
“Vaporetto?” Shay asked as she pulled on a trauma gown and gloves.
“Water taxi,” Dante said as he pulled on his own gloves. “This has been happening more and more. Especially during the summer months, when the tourists flock the city. Too much traffic.” He shook his head with disgust.
Shay nodded and headed over to the patient, who was conscious and had a mask on. His brown eyes were wide with fear as he looked around the room.
“I can’t understand a word,” he mumbled through the oxygen mask.
“Me neither,” Shay said gently. “I’m learning, though.”
“You’re American?” he asked, a hint of relief in his voice.
“I am. I’m a nurse practitioner with the United World Wide Health Association. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember. One moment my wife and I were taking a water taxi from Lido di Venezia to St. Mark’s, and then the next thing I know we’re in the water. Oh, goodness, where is my wife?”
“What is her name?” Shay asked.
“Jennifer Sanders.”
“I’ll find her for you in a moment,” Shay said gently. “It’s important we make sure you’re okay first.”
“I can’t move. I can’t feel my legs,” the man said, his voice rising in panic.
Dante shot her a concerned look. “What is your name, signor?”
The man looked at Dante. “Are you the doctor?”
“Sì. Can you tell me your name?”
“James, but my friends call me Jim.”
Dante smiled at him. “I’m going to examine your abdomen. Tell me if anything hurts, and then we’ll get an MRI of your spine.”
The man nodded. Shay lifted his shirt and there was dark bruising; his belly was distended, which was a sign there was internal bleeding. The bleeding would have to be stopped before they could worry about his back. In this case internal bleeding trumped paralysis.
The man cried out when Dante did a palpation over his spleen.
“We need to get a CT scan of his abdomen, see how bad the bleeding is,” Dante whispered to Shay.
“Where do I go to order that?” she asked.
“I will. You stay with him. Prep him for the procedures.” Dante left the room.
Shay calmed their patient down and got an IV started, drawing the blood work needed before surgery. She had no doubt that with extensive bruising and pain Jim would need surgery and fast.
“What’s your name?” Jim asked.
“Shay Labadie,” she said as she took his vitals, writing them down.
“Baton Rouge?” he asked.
“No, close, though. New Orleans proper.” She smiled.
“I thought it was a Louisiana accent. I’m from Mississippi. Picayune to be exact.”
“Not far, then.” She smiled at him warmly, trying to reassure him as his blood pressure was rising.
He grinned faintly as his eyes rolled back into his head and the monitors went into alarm.
“I need a crash cart!” she shouted, slamming her hand against the code blue button as the rest of the team in the room jumped into action. Some situations transcended the language barrier.
* * *
“Nurse Labadie, if you contact Dr. Prescarrie, he is the neurologist. He’ll be able to determine the extent of the nerve damage in our patient.” Dante wanted to keep Shay busy, keep her away from the OR table, but she didn’t budge. She stood by his side, passing him the instruments he needed without him having to ask for them.
She knew exactly what he needed and when.
And she was so calm about it. That was what bothered him the most. As if nothing fazed her.
She was good at her job.
Though he shouldn’t be surprised. He’d been impressed by her when they were in Oahu together at the conference. Only he hadn’t got to see her actually work. Now he had that privilege, but he was also very aware of the fact that she was pregnant.
With his child.
Maybe your child.
He was still reeling over the realization Shay was here and pregnant with his child as he removed Mr. Sanders’s badly damaged spleen.
“I will contact him, but does he speak English?” she asked.
“He speaks French and I know that you can speak that. I heard you speak that before.”
“Okay, I’ll have him paged once Mr. Sanders is stable.” She handed him a cautery that he didn’t ask for, but damn if he didn’t need it right at that moment.
“Grazie,” he said grudgingly.
“You seem tense, Dr. Affini,” Shay remarked.
“Of course I’m tense. I have a man open on the table.”
And you’ve just walked back into my life carrying my baby.
Her presence here totally threw his controlled world off balance. Thoughts of Shay were kept to the privacy of his memories. To the nights he was alone and lonely, wishing he could have more than he was allotted in life. That was when he thought of Shay and their time together.
He’d romanticized her. The one stolen moment he could treasure forever and now she was here and he wasn’t sure how to handle it.
Her presence unnerved him completely.
“Is there anything I can do to ease your tension?” she asked. “I mean, if my job as a scrub nurse isn’t up to scratch...”
“It’s fine. There is nothing you can do. Well, there is one thing, but you refused.” He quickly glanced over at her and he could see her brow furrow above that surgical mask.
“This is not the time to discuss it.” There was a hint of warning in her voice.
Dante raised his eyebrows. He’d never heard Shay speak in that tone before. Even at the conference when there were idiots either hitting on her or talking over her, because she was just a nurse, she’d always smiled sweetly and taken them down a peg. This was something different.
A clear warning.
“Why not? I like chatting while I work.” He didn’t, but he liked getting under her skin the way she got under his.
She snorted. “You didn’t seem very receptive to talking before.”
“It depends what the subject is,” he teased.
“Well, I can say in no uncertain terms the subject you want to discuss, Dr. Affini, is off-limits.”
He chuckled but didn’t say anything further to her as he completed the splenectomy and stabilized the patient. Once he was done, Shay walked away from him and he could see her on the operating theatre’s phone, obviously paging Dr. Prescarrie about Mr. Sanders’s spinal injuries.
Not only was he impressed by her skill in a surgical situation, but he admired her strength. Women in his circles usually would balk under interrogation. Of course, women in his circles, women like Olivia, wouldn’t even be in an operating theatre, getting their hands dirty.
“What you do is noble, Dante. It’s just that I don’t want to hear about it. Can’t you just keep that to yourself?”
“And what am I supposed to talk about, Olivia? Fashion, cars?”
“The vineyards and, yes, it wouldn’t hurt you to immerse yourself in the world of privilege you were born into.”
Dante snorted as he pulled off his gloves and gown, disposing of them.
Olivia had hated that he was a trauma surgeon, working in a public hospital rather than in a private clinic. And his choice of surgery. Why couldn’t he do something like plastic surgery?
In her mind, a prince who was a surgeon needed to do something glamorous that dealt with the glitterati, not just anybody who stumbled in through the doors.
Only that wasn’t him. That was his father’s world and he loathed it.
