The Italian's Wife

The ambulance pulled in, all flashing lights and efficiency, and the paramedics took over, forcing him into retreat.

‘Timmie!’ Holly exclaimed in panic as she was moved onto the stretcher.

Rio strode forward. ‘I’ll follow you to the hospital with him—’

Holly realised that he was asking her to trust him with her son. ‘I don’t know you—’

‘But we know him.’ For some reason, the paramedic who had spoken chuckled with decided amusement. ‘Don’t worry, love. Your kid will be safe as houses with this gentleman.’

Exhausted by the effort she had expended, and trembling, Holly mumbled her agreement.

As the ambulance drove off Ezio passed his employer his jacket and said, ‘We’ve got the name and address of a witness and we should make a statement to the police just to be on the safe side.’

‘Per meraviglia…’ Somewhat bemused at the offer he had found himself making to placate the girl’s fear on her child’s behalf, Rio strode over to stare down into the buggy. In the nest of bedding and beneath the bobble-topped woolly hat, all that could be seen was a pair of big, scared blue eyes full of tearful anxiety and a tiny upturned pink nose. ‘You see to the statement. I’ll take…Timmie the timid to the hospital—’

‘I could take care of that and the statement,’ the older man pointed out quietly. ‘You haven’t slept more than a hour since you left New York.’

Nor had he been planning to sleep for what remained of the night, Rio recalled, his strong jawline clenching hard as he registered that he had contrived to momentarily forget the climax of his unannounced visit to Christabel. Closing his mind to that grim awareness, he stooped to remove the baby from its concealing layers of bedding. Timmie emerged rigid as a stick of rock, if possible his fearful eyes growing even larger to encompass the tall, dark, powerful man cradling him with surprising dexterity.

‘I’m a push-over for babies…especially scared ones.’ Climbing into the limo, Rio watched as the rest of the baby’s possessions were piled in, including the two worn carrier bags, one of which spilled over and let a feeding bottle roll out.

Timmie let out a squeal and stretched out a hopeful hand in the direction of the bottle, little feet kicking with eagerness.

‘You’re hungry…OK.’ Rio rooted through the bags and discovered a packet of baby rusks but nothing of a liquid persuasion. Timmie wasn’t picky. He had no manners either. He snatched at the rusk and lodged his two tiny front teeth into it, got them stuck and then let out a mournful wail.

Rio was kept fully occupied all the way to the hospital. He discovered that affectionately dandling one of his friend’s babies while a fond mother hovered within reach to take care of all the necessities was a far different affair from actually trying to handle a real live squirming and complaining baby all on his own. With the aid of a glass tumbler and a bottle of mineral water from the built-in bar, however, he managed to quench Timmie’s thirst—but not without soaking Timmie and himself into the bargain.

He emerged from the limo at the entrance to the hospital looking something less than his usual sartorially splendid self, with rusk crumbs scattered all over him and clinging to the damp patches. He was also for the first time feeling the effects of too little sleep on top of a severe attack of jet lag.

Ezio attempted to relieve his employer of his baby burden but Timmie wasn’t impressed and lodged two frantic hands in Rio’s hair and screamed in naked panic.

‘If you don’t smile at him, he doesn’t like you,’ Rio shared wearily, rearranging Timmie in a somewhat unconventional drape over one broad shoulder, where the baby hung like a limp but relaxed sack, one large masculine hand pinned to his spine. ‘He’s a real little bag of nerves.’

Greeted like visiting royalty by the receptionist, Rio was ushered into his friend’s comfortable private office to wait and a nurse arrived at speed to remove Timmie.

‘He needs to be fed…and other things,’ Rio warned, wincing as Timmie tried to cling to his protector and then bawled blue murder at being detached from him. The high note of fear he could hear in the baby’s cry was traumatic to listen to, Rio reflected, riven with discomfiture at the child’s distress.

It was an hour before John Coulter, the senior physician at the hospital, came to join him and report back on his most recent patient.

‘I think you just saved a life tonight, Rio,’ the older man announced in his usual cheerful manner. ‘That young woman is suffering from the early stages of hypothermia. Falling in front of your car was the best thing that could’ve happened to her. She and that child might have been dead by morning—’

‘I noticed she had no coat on, but presumably she would’ve made it home before hypothermia got a grip on her,’ Rio slotted in, his tone one of casual dismissal.

‘But she was planning to spend the night walking round the streets…she’s homeless, didn’t you realise that?’

Rio frowned in surprise.

‘I’ll have to call in the duty social worker. I’ll feel a heel doing it, though,’ Dr Coulter confided ruefully. ‘She’s terrified that her baby will be put in care, and even though that is very unlikely, as Social Services work to keep mother and child together, I wasn’t able to convince her of that.’

‘How are they?’

‘The baby’s in fine fettle. But the mother’s another matter…skin and bone, needs feeding up and looking after, but there’s no sign of drug or alcohol abuse, which is something in her favour. That accent too…deepest Somerset,’ the older man remarked with a wry smile.

‘Somerset?’

‘Cider with Rosie and all that,’ John Coulter quipped, referring to the classic book set in a rural area. ‘Although, come to think of it, that wasn’t Somerset. I think it’s based on Gloucestershire—’

‘John,’ Rio groaned. ‘Never mind the book.’

The older man sighed. ‘Holly’s a country girl and hasn’t a clue how to go on in a city like London. I imagine that’s why she’s in such a fix—’

‘Holly? That’s her name? Can I see her?’

‘This is your hospital—’

‘It belongs to the Lombardi Foundation, not to me personally,’ Rio said drily.

Holly lay in her comfortable bed, scanning the elegant and luxurious layout of her private room and feeling as though she had dreamt it all up. But no, Timmie lay just feet away in the cot that had been provided. The kindly nurse had rustled up a proper feed for him, changed him and tucked him in. Her son was asleep now, snug and secure with a full tummy. Her eyes prickled with weak tears of shame over her own inadequacy. Timmie had a right to be snug and secure all the time.

The obvious solution to their predicament had been staring her in the face for many weeks now but she had been too much of a coward to confront it. She was not scared of social workers but she was scared of being made to look head-on at her own failings when set next to Timmie’s needs. Timmie had to come first. She had been horribly selfish. What kind of mother love put a baby on the streets in the middle of the night? She was twenty years old, and she might have left school early but she was not stupid. She knew right from wrong and she was finally accepting that all along her mother had known exactly what she was talking about…

‘If you give the baby up for adoption you can come home to us afterwards,’ her mother had promised with red-rimmed eyes full of strain and regret. ‘I won’t let you put your father through any more pain, Holly. You did what you shouldn’t have done and you’re paying the cost of it now. If you try to keep the kiddy there’ll be nothing but grief ahead of you.’

Over the past months Holly had learned the truth of words that had seemed so harsh to her at the time she had listened to them. Then she had still been foolish enough to hope that Jeff was making a home for them both in London, that he would want their child as much as she did and that he would go ahead and marry her just as he had promised. But Jeff had not made a home for them, had been outraged that she should’ve dared to give birth to a baby he did not want, and had never, ever had the smallest true intention of marrying her.

Timmie would be much better off adopted, Holly forced herself to concede. It would break her heart but it was cruel of her to keep him when she could not provide for him as he deserved. Her eyes stung with hot, prickling tears. There was no other choice available to her. She couldn’t earn enough in the employment market to pay for childcare or a proper home. Even living off the state in recent weeks, as she had been forced to do after a spate of ill health had seen her sacked from her last job, she had managed no better. Everything she had once owned had either been sold for cash or stolen. She now literally owned only what she stood up in. It was time to do the right thing for Timmie. He would have two caring parents and a decent home. How could she stand in her son’s way when she herself had so little to offer him?

The nurse bustled back in with a wide smile. ‘Mr Lombardi is planning to come and see you…now, aren’t you the lucky one?’

‘Mr…who?’

‘Saverio Lombardi. The man whose limousine you almost dented!’

‘A limousine…Lombardi? Isn’t that the same name as this hospital?’ Holly queried in confusion. Had he been in a limousine? He had certainly been travelling with an awful lot of people, she recalled dimly.

‘This hospital is run by the Lombardi Foundation. It’s a charitable trust set up by Mr Lombardi. We only take in local patients on emergency,’ the nurse explained. ‘People come here from all over the world for surgery that they can’t get in their home countries. The foundation covers the costs. Mr Lombardi is a very well-known philanthropist…surely you’ve heard of him?’

‘No…I didn’t notice the limo either.’ The nurse was talking about underprivileged people from less developed countries, Holly gathered in some discomfiture, charity cases. Although she had been taken aback by her luxurious surroundings, she had not realised that the hospital was private. Indeed, she had assumed that the hospital was simply brand-new and that she had got her own room either by sheer good fortune or because Timmie’s initial crying would have disturbed other patients. But now it was obvious that luck and Timmie’s lungs had had nothing to do with it. She was a charity case too.

‘Maybe you were too busy looking at those scorching tawny eyes of his,’ the other woman teased. ‘Not to mention the rest of him. Rio Lombardi is drop-dead gorgeous, and so fanciable you could kidnap him.’

On the other side of the ajar door, Rio hesitated in receipt of that unsought accolade and raised his brows in exasperation. Then, strong jawline squaring, he entered with a light warning knock on the door.

Holly jerked in dismay, her pale skin taking on instant discomfited colour as if she had been the one talking out of turn, while the night nurse scurried out with a bent head. But after just one look at the very tall, powerfully built dark male coming to a halt at the foot of her bed, Holly was challenged even to recall what had briefly embarrassed her. In all her life she had never seen a more breathtakingly handsome male and, no matter how hard she tried, she could not stop staring.

Drop-dead gorgeous had been no exaggeration. That lean, taut bone-structure, composed of flaring dark brows, proud cheekbones, wide narrow mouth and assertive jawline, was the very essence of raw masculinity. As she encountered his stunning dark golden eyes her mouth ran dry, and without any good reason at all she was suddenly very conscious that she was naked beneath the thin hospital gown she wore, suddenly hugely aware of her own female body. Her breasts seemed to ache and heat flickered deep in her pelvis, an oddly charged heat that drew her every muscle so taut that she could hardly breathe as he studied her.

Luxuriant black lashes screened his gaze as his attention lingered on her soft full mouth. In that quick upward glance he made to connect with her scrutiny again, she met the flashburn effect of those intense eyes of his and was appalled to find herself wondering how that beautiful male mouth would feel on her own.