and peeled off his gloves. ‘Thank you,’ he said to the neonatal nurse who had assisted him. ‘Is this a personal visit?’ he asked as they walked from the cot.
‘Sort of.’ Isla nodded. ‘I’m just here to tell you about Allegra. All went well—’
‘We’ll go into my office.’
Isla followed him in. ‘Your office is very messy.’
‘Because I’m never in it long enough to put anything away,’ he said, and as a case in point his phone buzzed and he answered it. ‘I’ll be out in a few moments.’ He then hung up the phone. ‘How is Allegra?’
‘Fantastic. It’s all progressing well. The baby is head down and engaged and Darcie will be seeing her weekly from now on.’
‘She still wants a trial of labour?’
‘She does,’ Isla replied. ‘Darcie has gone through it all with her and Allegra will have an epidural placed just in case a Caesarean is needed.’ She perched on the edge of his desk. ‘What time are you finishing?’ she asked, knowing that he should already be off now.
‘I’m just waiting for some results to come in on Elijah.’
‘I thought he was doing a bit better?’
‘He is,’ he said. ‘I just want to check his labs.’
‘Who’s on call tonight?’
‘Jed,’ Alessi clipped.
‘Can’t Jed—’
‘Isla, please don’t,’ Alessi warned, because this really was his tipping point. ‘I work long hours. If it doesn’t suit—’
‘Oh, please.’ She simply laughed in the face of his warning. ‘I’m not some needy miss, worried that you’re going to ruin dinner if you’re late home.’ She pulled him towards her and started to kiss his tired mouth. ‘And I’m not trying to come between you and your premmies.’ She locked her hands behind his neck and looked into the blackest, most beautiful eyes she had ever seen and was as honest as she had ever been. ‘I don’t care if you’re here till five in the morning just as long as you need to be here, Alessi … I just happen to care about you. If you were one of my staff I’d have sent you home about three hours ago. In fact, I’d have told you to take tomorrow off, too.’
‘I’m not one of your staff.’
‘Lucky for you.’
Alessi looked at Isla. He loved how she’d bypassed his warning, how she’d admitted she cared, so he told her the truth.
‘I can’t send Donna and Tom home with no baby.’
‘And you’ll do everything to see that you don’t,’ Isla calmly assured him. ‘But Elijah’s going to be here for weeks, maybe months …’ She could see the wrestle in his eyes. ‘I’m not going to push it.’ She gave him another quick kiss and jumped down from the desk. ‘I’m heading home. Stop by if it’s not too late.’
‘Is Darcie on call tonight?’
‘Nope.’ Isla headed for the door. ‘I doubt she’ll drop dead with shock—half the hospital seems to have worked out that we’re on.’
They were on.
Alessi knew that when at ten, instead of crashing in the on-call room, he was driving to Isla’s. It had nothing to do with the promise of sex. He would probably be kicked out for snoring, he was so tired. It was balance, it was her, it was the calm of non-judgment and the freedom of choice along with cool reason.
‘I’d just about given up,’ Isla said, answering the door in her dressing gown, her hair wrapped in a towel.
‘Jed might call,’ he warned her. ‘I might need to go in.’
‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘Do you want something to eat?’
‘I had something earlier,’ he said. ‘I’d kill for a shower, though.’
He’d been to the apartment a few times but never while Darcie was there. She was tapping away on her computer while watching a movie and didn’t seem remotely fazed to see him here.
‘Help yourself,’ Isla said, opening her bedroom door.
Alessi did.
To shampoo, to conditioner, to Isla’s deodorant.
‘You smell like me,’ Isla said as he joined her in bed and then kissed him. ‘You taste like me, too.’
Alessi really hadn’t come here with sex on his mind and that became more apparent as their kiss deepened. ‘I didn’t bring anything …’
‘Alessi.’
‘Can we lose the condoms?’ he asked. ‘I don’t care what tests, I’ll do them, but …’
They were just so completely into each other that this conversation had only been a matter of time but Isla was grateful for the very small reprieve he had just given her.
‘Yes …’ She knew she should tell him there was no need for tests on her part and she would, Isla decided. She was moving closer and closer to opening up to him, just not now. Now she could feel his exhaustion, now it was so easy to be bold, to just move her lips from his mouth and kiss downwards, to hold him in her hands and feel him grow.
For Alessi it was heaven.
Her tentative lips did not alert him to her inexperience. Instead he just revelled in her slow explorations and the trail of her damp hair down his body.
Isla tasted him for the first time, loved the feel of his hand on her head and the gentle pressure that pushed her deeper. Selfish was his pleasure and that she revelled in. She could feel his occasional restraint, when he tried not to thrust.
Then there was the turn-on when he stopped trying and just gave in. The power, the feel, the taste, the rush of him coming had Isla come, too, at the intimate private pleasure, and then afterwards, feeling him relaxed and sated beside her, it was the closest she had ever felt to another person.
And Alessi felt it, too, for there in the dark, as pleasure receded, a deeper connection flowed in as she lay in his arms.
‘I was wrong to accuse you of holding back when there are things that I haven’t told you.’
Isla looked at him as he continued speaking.
‘Talia was pregnant.’ It was with Isla that he shared for the first time. ‘When she told me I asked her to marry me and we decided to tell our parents about the pregnancy after the wedding.’ He liked it that her face was still there, though her smile had gone, and he liked it that she didn’t ask questions. ‘We had a big dinner at the restaurant on the Saturday …’
He tried to explain better. ‘In Greek families you establish a connection before the man asks the woman’s father, so even though we weren’t officially engaged, it was a given that it was to come. On the Wednesday Talia
