Page 35 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

Gianna caught his eye, seeming to know exactly what he was thinking.

“The doctor said he would be here as soon as possible,” she said with a determined expression. Elio nodded, forever grateful for this timid woman who was much stronger than she looked.

* * *

Dr. Albero had a reputation around the local coastal towns and islands for being… eccentric. He was brilliant, one of the best doctors in Italy, a man who could have easily gone on to be a surgeon or specialist in any field, but he had always insisted that he felt more at home being a family doctor in the area where he’d spent his youth. What separated him from the usual picture of a reserved, scientific man of medicine was the fact that he only ever wore khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts, no matter the season or weather, and his main mode of transportation was a jet ski that he could be seen buzzing around past coastlines and islands. If he needed to bring testing materials or monitoring devices, that was no problem; the jet ski came with a detachable trailer that he had built himself. The coast guard didn’t recommend using a jet ski so far out from the coast, but Dr. Albero had never been one for taking government officials’ recommendations into account.

It wasn’t long before he arrived, pulling up to the dock with the speed of a barracuda and the grace of a swan, and despite his age, jumping onto the wooden dock with the sprightliness of a much younger man. Elio left Kayla’s side, as much as he didn’t want to, leaving her in Gianna’s capable hands. Even if he hadn’t heard the jet ski, the dock was in view from the guest suite window and he could have seen Dr. Albero’s bright orange shirt from a mile away.

“Young man,” Dr. Albero said as he spotted Elio racing towards him, unhooking the jet ski’s trailer and dragging it onto the dock, kicking a set of home-welded wheels out to drag it up to the house. “The next time someone asks me why I don’t head to Rome or Milan to be some fancy man in a fancy hospital, I will tell them that I stay because there are always surprises remaining around the corner for me here.”

“Thank you for coming out,” Elio said as the old man stormed up the dock and onto the stone path, dragging the trailer behind him as if it weighed nothing. He waved a dismissive hand and kept plowing forward. Elio was sure that he would simply walk straight over anything or anyone that got in his way.

“Gianna seemed a little confused on the phone,” Dr. Albero said as Elio led him to the guest suite. “But there appears to be a pregnant American woman who fainted and is now inside?”

“Yes,” Elio said, cringing at how out of hand this had gotten so quickly. “Her name is Kayla. She was feeling unwell and looked kind of green, and then she fainted.”

By then they were at the door to the suite and Dr. Albero nodded his head and went inside without further ado.

“Are you coming?” he asked, pausing and looking over his shoulder at Elio, whose feet were frozen firmly to the floor.

“Gianna’s in there,” he said, unable to make himself move forward no matter how hard he tried. “I don’t want to intrude, and she knows everything that I do.”

Medically, at least.

With another nod, Dr. Albero closed the door behind him, and once again, Elio was on his own.

* * *

Elio only started to relax a fraction when Gianna emerged from the guest wing to announce that Kayla was awake and talking, even if she still looked “a bit too pale for her own good.” Before Elio could ask anything else, Gianna fled the scene, apparently out of fuel to continue with any heroics and disappeared back into the comfort of the main house where she would quietly go about her business. Elio made himself a mental note to give her a raise. A big one. Then he was once again left alone with his thoughts, pacing the hall until Dr. Albero emerged half an hour later, his jet ski trailer in tow.

“Is she okay?” Elio asked, his voice involuntarily soft as though speaking any louder would jinx everything.

“Preeclampsia,” Dr. Albero announced, adjusting a fastening on his small trailer before pulling it behind him as he made his way towards the front door. Elio followed along beside him.

“That sounds… serious,” Elio said, his heart sinking back into his stomach where it had been residing for the last hour. Dr. Albero stopped in the hall, just shy of the front door, and nodded.

“It is,” he said, and Elio didn’t think his heart would ever make it back up to his ribcage. If Dr. Albero was as serious as this, then it was bad. Even the brightness of his Hawaiian shirt had seemed to dull in the wake of the statement.

“Can it be treated?” Elio asked, mind racing for any way to fix this mess.

“Treated? Yes. But not cured, the only thing that will cure it will be for the young lady to give birth.”

Great. Now Elio was picturing the worst possible scenarios available to his vivid imagination.

“But what is it?” he asked, still not actually understanding what was wrong.

“In layman’s terms? Blood pressure that’s far too high and irregular, causing potential organ damage. It’s not helped by the fact that there’s diabetes in the family as a pre-existing marker. But she’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

Elio blinked at him, stony-faced. “She’ll be fine?” he repeated. “She might have organ damage, but she’ll be fine? You said it was serious.”

Dr. Albero offered him a kind smile, his eyes twinkling. Elio didn’t think it was possible, but suddenly, he was even less amused than before.

“Yes,” said Dr. Albero firmly, that smile still on his face. “She will be fine. And yes, it is also serious if left untreated. Pregnancy is a serious business, after all. But as long as she rests and takes the medication I have prescribed, all will be well. And when I say rest, I mean it. Not ‘doing light work here and there,’ not ‘oh, I’ll just organize the closet and walk the dog a few times a day.’ Nothing. Rest, sleep, a light stroll, that’s it. Stress is the worst thing for the young lady right now. So you best take care of her and call me immediately the second anything seems amiss. It doesn’t matter the time, day or night. My jet ski has lights, and I’ve recently upgraded to halogen bulbs, so it’s no trouble.”

With his speech finished, Dr. Albero patted Elio on the arm and left with his trailer rolling behind him, off on another adventure, his Hawaiian shirt flapping in the wind.

Well. This changed things, didn’t it? Because any thought of just giving Kayla a check and sending her on her way, of keeping both their lives as uncomplicated as possible… that just wasn’t an option anymore, was it? Pacing back and forth in his study, what felt like a lifetime ago, all of Elio’s thoughts and potential strategies had been about keeping things simple, about not rocking the boat, and keeping life going in its expected trajectory. That had all been blown out of the water because now it was about Kayla’s safety. Not to mention the baby’s… God, if anything happened to either of them because he tried to shuffle them off back to the States. But he wasn’t a monster, so there was no chance of that happening. He couldn’t even bear to let her leave the island.

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