Chapter Two
PAIGE arrived for her last day of work before her holidays at St Auburn’s, with a spring in her step. She hadn’t had a spring in her step for a long time but it was there today. She couldn’t believe that McKenzie’s operation was just three days away now. Her daughter hadn’t been unwell or had a fever since the night she’d slept with…since Nat and Alessandro’s wedding two months ago, and she had even put on a little weight.
Things were finally looking up. Finally going their way. All she had to do was convince Harry to let her be in the theatre to observe McKenzie’s operation on Monday and life would be complete.
A butterfly flapped its wings in her stomach as she rehearsed the words again. Not that Paige really thought it would be an issue. Yes, it wasn’t usual but she knew Harry well enough to feel confident that he’d overlook the rules for his right-hand woman.
Paige was actually humming as she entered the operating theatre change rooms. Dr Gloria Reinhart, the anaesthetist Harry used for his lists, was changing into her scrubs and Paige bade her a hearty good morning.
‘Morning,’ Gloria said, staring at Paige, an odd look on her face.
Paige frowned. ‘What?’
Gloria shrugged. ‘Nothing. It’s just that I’ve never heard you hum before.’
Paige didn’t need a translation. She knew she was serious. That she wasn’t much fun. She came to work, ran Harry’s theatre and his clinics with ruthless efficiency, not particularly caring whether she made friends or not. She didn’t socialise or have time for gossip or idle chit-chat.
She was respected. Whether she was liked or not hadn’t been a priority.
Paige grinned. ‘Well, it’s about time that changed, don’t you think?’
Gloria responded with a grin of her own. ‘Past time, I’d say.’
They chatted while Paige changed into her scrubs and then went in different directions—Gloria to the staffroom for a cuppa with her colleagues, Paige to Theatre four to set up for the first case.
The theatre list was sticky-taped to the door of theatre four’s anaesthetic room and Paige removed it. Not that she needed it, she knew exactly which patients were being operated on today. In fact, if pushed, she could probably recite the list for the next month, even though it was next Monday’s she was the most fixated on.
There were two paediatric patients on the list this morning. Children were always done first. It caused less stress for the parents, who didn’t have to wait around all day worrying about their child going under general anaesthesia, and also for the children, who were often at an age where they were frightened of the clinical hospital environment and didn’t understand why they couldn’t eat and drink and run around.
A little thrill ran through Paige’s stomach at the thought that, come Monday, McKenzie Donald would be first on this list and her spirits lifted even further. Paige couldn’t remember a time when she had felt this positive. It had been a long hard three years with many a detour and roadblock. It was hard to believe the path was suddenly clear.
Theatre four was frigid when she entered via the swing doors and Paige rubbed at the goose-bumps on her arms. Soon she would be gowned up and under hot lights and wistfully remembering the cold, but for now it seeped quickly into bones that had very little covering insulating them.
You’re too thin.
The words Valentino had uttered that fateful night as he had lazily run his finger up her spine crept up on her unexpectedly, as they so often did, echoing loudly in her head and sounding very close in the silence of the empty theatre. So close, in fact, she looked behind her to check he hadn’t actually appeared.
Nope. Just her.
She shook her head and frowned. She’d thought about the man so much in the last two months it wouldn’t have surprised her to have conjured him up. She’d tried, usually quite successfully, to pigeonhole her thoughts of him to night-time only, to her dreams, but sometimes they crept up on her unawares.
She should have been insulted by his assessment of her body but one look at the heat and desire in his eyes and she’d known that he hadn’t been turned off. In fact, quite the opposite—he’d wanted her badly.
It was merely a statement of fact. She was thin.
She hadn’t had much of an appetite since the twins had been born prematurely. Daisy’s death, Arnie’s desertion and McKenzie’s fragile health had robbed what little had remained. She ate only to fuel her body, with no real enjoyment when she did.
All her energy was focused on getting McKenzie to eat. McKenzie’s appetite. McKenzie’s nutritional needs. McKenzie’s caloric requirements. Paige Donald came low down on Paige Donald’s list of priorities. And, besides, things just tasted so bland.
A hoot of laugher outside in the corridor pulled Paige out of her reverie and she pushed thoughts of Valentino aside. This was daytime. Tonight she could think about him again, dream about him again. Vivid dreams that woke her in a sweat with parts of her throbbing, his name on her lips, his taste in her mouth.
She busied herself getting the theatre set up, grabbing the trolleys and positioning them correctly around the operating table, wiping them down with a solution of surgical spirits. She exited the theatre via the back door into the sterilising room. Four sterilised trays wrapped in special blue disposable cloth were waiting for her and she grabbed the nearest, along with extra drapes and gowns and two pairs of size-eight gloves for Harry and his resident.
She dumped them on the trolleys inside the theatre, ready to be opened by the scout nurse while she herself was at the sinks scrubbing up. She went back out again, selecting other bits and pieces she knew Harry would need—suture material, dressings and, of course, the actual implant device itself.
Paige turned the boxed bionic ear around in her hands. It was hard to believe that something so innocuous could give such a precious gift. That come Monday one would be implanted into McKenzie’s head. She hugged it to her chest, sending up a quick prayer into the universe.
Please let everything be okay.
She went back into the theatre, dropping the extras on the trolley. A noise from the anaesthetic room alerted her to Harry’s arrival and she smiled. It was nice working for someone as dedicated as she was. Paige glanced at her watch. Now, while they were still alone, was as good a time as any to ask her boss the question.
She shoved open the swing doors with her shoulder, ready to launch into her spiel. Excited even. Except the man in the anaesthetic room wasn’t Harry. He wasn’t thin and a little stooped and grey-haired. He was big and broad with curls of dark hair escaping the confines of his theatre cap to brush the neckline of his scrubs. Even if she hadn’t dreamt about that back every night for the last two months, the lurch low down in her pelvis would have alerted her to his identity anyway.
Valentino Lombardi looked up from the theatre list he’d been studying and turned. Neither of them said anything for a few moments as a host of memories bubbled between them.
Valentino swallowed. He’d been prepared to see her again but totally unprepared for the sucker punch to his gut as her big grey eyes, round with shock, met his.
‘Paige.
