Modern Romance March 2019 5-8. Dani Collins

think?’

      She gave a little shrug. ‘He’s my responsibility and I was worried about him flying.’ Not worried enough, she thought with a fresh rush of guilt.

      The possibility that the tiny defect in his heart detected at Sami’s twenty-week scan and confirmed at birth might make air travel an issue had not occurred to her until after Ivo had left that first morning.

      Obviously she had contacted the family GP immediately, who, declaring himself unable to see a problem, had in turn checked with the paediatric cardiac consultant who had overall responsibility for Jamie’s care.

      His advice had been the same: there was no reason Jamie could not fly.

      ‘Babies fly all the time.’

      It was annoyance at his dismissal that made her toss back, ‘Not all babies have a heart defect.’

      The indolent pose he’d adopted vanished as his posture stiffened. ‘A heart...’ His chest lifted as he inhaled deeply before training his accusing stare on Flora. ‘Why am I just learning of this?’

      ‘Possibly because you never asked, or maybe because it’s none of your business?’ she charged back, angry at his display of how very dare you? hauteur.

      The muscles in Ivo’s brown throat rippled as he swallowed. He was still in the grip of shock, not just because of the information she had casually dropped into the conversation, but because of the overwhelming surge of protectiveness that had hit him without warning.

      ‘Is he...is it bad?’

      She shook her head. ‘At Sami’s twenty-week scan they discovered a small defect in the baby’s heart. Something they call a VSD, and the rest of us call a hole in the heart. Sometimes it’s vanished by birth, but Jamie’s hadn’t. He was referred to a top cardiac paediatrician.’

      It took a supreme effort but Ivo managed to stop himself asking any of the myriad questions that were hovering on the tip of his tongue. He knew that letting her speak would tell him what he wanted to know quicker, and she was being concise as she gave the information in a carefully neutral voice.

      ‘It isn’t that rare. In more severe cases they surgically intervene on infants. Jamie’s isn’t severe and there is every chance it will close spontaneously over the next few years. It’s a wait-and-see policy at this stage and he has no symptoms.’

      ‘So he is in no immediate danger.’

      ‘No, the doctors are quite relaxed about it.’

      ‘But you’re not,’ he said, leaning back into the leather and half closing his eyes. ‘You have to relax. Babies pick up on that stuff.’ He opened one eye and saw she was looking at him in astonishment. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of research.’

      The slightly embarrassed look on his face as he made the admission made her smile. It was weird—she had never known her emotions to be on such a roller coaster and it was all the unpredictable man’s fault. One moment he was yelling at her and being totally unreasonable, the next he was being disarmingly sweet.

      Her smile deepened as she realised she’d just thought of Ivo Greco and sweet in the same sentence.

      ‘I did a lot of research when I first...’ Her eyes skittered away from the understanding in his. ‘When I became guardian. I knew nothing about babies. I never thought I’d be a parent. I never had a five-year plan or anything. I just sort of fell into things—right place, right time.’

      She made it sound as though she had sleepwalked into a great job at an incredible firm of architects and graduated in the top three in her class quite accidentally. God save me from British self-deprecation!

      Scottish self-deprecation, he could almost hear the pride and reproach in her voice as she put him right—as she undoubtedly would do, were he reckless enough to voice his complaint.

      He opted for a middle ground.

      ‘Modesty... I don’t come across that very often.’

      She scowled. He made her sound like some sort of old-fashioned freak. ‘And definitely not when you look in the mirror.’ Her eyes flew wide, her hand going to her lips in an attitude of comical dismay. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that as an insult.’

      Amusement danced deep in his eyes as he studied her face and then faded like a snuffed-out candle as he found he was able to see all too clearly her checking and double checking on the sleeping baby, her glorious hair swinging loose around her narrow shoulders, tense from the burden that had fallen on them. He could almost see the individual lines of worry etched on her youthful, beautiful face as she searched fearfully for signs and symptoms the doctors had told her to look out for.

      Fighting his way free of the uncomfortably empathic moment, he managed a forced smile.

      ‘God help me when you do mean it, Flora Henderson.’ His glance slid to the baby lying between them just as his head lolled; this time he didn’t jerk himself awake as he had on the last half-dozen times.

      ‘Why don’t you take a nap while he’s asleep?’

      ‘I couldn’t,’ she said, meaning it.

      Two minutes later he heard her breathing deepen.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      ‘I SLEPT!’ FLORA YELPED, coming to with a jerk after several moments of pleasant drifting.

      One hand meshed in her tangled curls, she clenched the fingers of her right hand as her glance went straight to the sleeping baby. Seemingly satisfied, she relaxed, or at least went down from red to amber alert status...

       When had she last relaxed?

      Not his business, Ivo reminded himself. She was a consenting adult and if she chose to... Feeling his anger build, Ivo closed the laptop on his knee with a decisive snap. The illusion that he’d actually been working was false. The face of his sleeping travelling companion had been infinitely more appealing than emails or financial breakdowns.

      He supposed there was an element of guilty pleasure, though mostly pleasure, in being able to stare at her unobserved. To study the curve of her cheek, the elegant arch of her brow and the pink bow of her mouth. He remembered how she tasted and wanted to taste her again. He imagined himself waking her up with a kiss.

      Despite the Sleeping Beauty analogy, in his head there was nothing chaste or fairy-tale-like about the kiss, or her response! It involved warm pale limbs wrapping around him, sinking into...

      ‘Are we nearly there?’

      Wrenched free of the sensual, erotic images, he clamped his lips tight over a strangled laugh, and watched her almost press her nose to the window.

      They’d been there for at least ten minutes. The fertile land dotted with fig groves and larger stretches of vineyards belonged to his family.

      But he knew what she meant.

      ‘We’ve just left the village.’ At the foot of the craggy outcrop that the Castello was built on, much of the village still belonged to the Greco estate. ‘Just wait a minute and you’ll see it.’

      She followed the direction of his pointing finger and turned her head.

      Beside her Ivo said, ‘About—now!’

      He heard her breath catch; it was a common response to the first sight of his family home, but the awe on Flora’s face made him think of a child seeing a Christmas tree.

      Flora realised a moment too late that the open-mouthed look was not the height of sophistication, or for that matter a good look on anyone except, perhaps, her travelling companion, who would look incredible no matter what.

      At least this was an example of life’s