Page 54 of His Wedding Day Revenge

It was the doctor’s presence that similarly stopped her protesting beyond an ‘I’m not the sick one’ when someone brought a wheelchair for her to sit in while she carried Mattie.

The surgeon wheeled the chair himself, which drew a few startled looks as they made their way to the main foyer of the ultra-modern building.

‘Am I allowed to walk now?’

Draco, after a pause, moved to take Mattie from her arms.

Being held by Draco, the baby looked so tiny and the big-man-small-baby image, especially when the man was Draco, made Jane’s throat tighten with emotion. But then, after the last twenty-four hours all her emotions were incredibly close to the surface, and her control, even given the traumatic events, seemed extremely fragile. Scratch the surface and she might start crying or laughing or shouting—most of the time she didn’t know which direction her emotions would take her!

Free of the baby, she was able to get to her feet and shake hands with the doctor, who responded with a smile and added, ‘Oh, I got the notes through from your family doctor and there was nothing significant in the medical history to be of any concern now or in the future.’

Jane nodded, relieved.

She had felt a moment of panic the previous night when asked if there was any medical history in the family he should be aware of. She had been forced to explain that she was not Mattie’s biological mother. She had passed on Grace’s name, pretty sure that, as their family doctor, the GP, who was also Mattie’s godmother, would know the medical history.

‘I should know about these things. It just didn’t occur to me...’ she admitted with a flash of lip-biting self-reproach.

The handsome medic shook his head and placed a comforting hand on her arm. ‘Parenting is a balancing act. The most important thing is to enjoy the experience—they grow up very quickly. You’re doing a great job,’ he added warmly before he left them.

Jane flushed with pleasure at the compliment.

Standing too far away to hear what was being said, Draco could see the warmth of the exchange and the pretty flush that brightened her heart-shaped face.

Jane secured Mattie in the car seat fixed in the not-child-friendly back of the low-slung powerful car that she suspected had never seen such a piece of equipment before. Now, if you were talking a fur stole or an item of feminine underwear...?’

Torturing herself with the visions that came with those items, she belted herself in beside him, her smile widening as he gave a gummy grin.

‘Sit up front. There’s no room back there.’

‘There is for me,’ she said stubbornly. Her knees pressing into the driver’s seat was infinitely preferable to sitting beside Draco.

‘What was that about?’ Draco asked, looking at her in the rear-view mirror.

She looked bewildered.

‘Marco is married with children.’

Jane blinked. ‘You think I was flirting with Mattie’s doctor!’ The ludicrousness of the suggestion drew a gurgle of laughter from her, and beside her the baby joined in.

In no position to see the flash of shock in his eyes, all Jane heard was the silence from the front that was interrupted by the sound of a car horn.

Draco growled out something that sounded not polite in his native tongue and pulled out of the parking space. The memory of his claim that he was never jealous came back to mock him as he drove out onto the highway.

The hospital appeared to be situated on the outskirts of the city but every now and then Jane caught a glimpse of the spires and golden buildings of Florence.

It was beautiful but, strangely, she felt a sudden longing for home and all things familiar, and with the longing came an image, not of her cottage, but the palazzo, backlit by the warm afternoon sun.

The instinct shocked her. It could not be a good thing to become so attached to a place over such a relatively short period of time. Or maybe not the place, but the people—the person who lived there.

Well, you’d better become unattached very quickly, she told herself sternly as she stared at the back of Draco’s neck, where even though he kept his dark hair short, it was beginning to curl.

She was quite glad there was zero conversation during the journey to Draco’s apartment. Jane had been trying to name the different landmarks she glimpsed and wishing she had a guide book when tall wrought-iron gates ahead of them opened and he drove into a courtyard. The sound of traffic was muffled by the trees and the rows of fountains and lush greenery bordering the cobbled area.

‘This is beautiful!’ she said, craning her neck to see the wrought-iron balconies on the top floor of the three-storey building.

‘Just the one apartment. We have offices on the ground floor, so no commute when I am here.’

‘Offices?’ she exclaimed, thinking, Not as we know it. ‘Where are the cars?’

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