Modern Romance March 2019 5-8. Dani Collins

to the back of the baby’s neck, he asked sharply, ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘Does he look flushed to you?’

      Ivo didn’t say anything. Jamie clearly did to her.

      She touched his neck again. ‘He feels hot to me,’ she fretted.

      Ivo could hear the panic in her voice. ‘He looks fine to me.’

      She shrugged off the hand he’d placed on her shoulder and shook her head, missing his reaction to the rejection.

      ‘You’re worried?’

      She shrugged her slender shoulders and lifted her troubled eyes to the figure standing with his back to one of the windows against the distant background of the blue sea.

      He looked so big, so solid and so calm that she felt a little of her panic subside.

      ‘Sorry, you must think I’m crazy.’ She loosed a self-mocking laugh. ‘I used to wonder how I’d cope if Jamie was ill and I was alone, now I know I’d panic.’

      ‘For starters, we don’t know he’s ill and you’re not alone...or panicking...’ He shook his head. ‘Borderline at best.’

      Not alone. She didn’t make the mistake of reading anything into that, although the wistful feeling his words had shaken loose remained.

      ‘It’s just his heart. I’m sure it’s nothing to do with that.’

      ‘You’ll feel a lot surer after the doctors have seen him. Leave it to me.’

      Despite the fact she had told herself that morning that one thing she was not going to do was become too reliant on Ivo, she found herself sighing with relief.

      ‘Thank you.’

      This time she turned her cheek into the hand that an instinct he couldn’t control had made him place on her shoulder, despite the earlier rejection. The reaction to feeling her soft cheek against his skin was just as strong and unexpected a reaction as her earlier rejection had been.

      He let his hand fall away and stepped back.

      ‘I’ll organise it, then. You have the name of your GP and Jamie’s consultant?’

      She nodded and gave them. ‘I don’t have any paper.’

      ‘Don’t worry, I’ll remember them.’

      * * *

      When the doctor arrived, a mere thirty minutes later to Flora’s relief, she was dreading having to explain, especially if there was a language problem.

      There wasn’t and he seemed to have a full grasp of Jamie’s medical history.

      A very short time later, and after a thorough examination of the by now cranky baby, he confirmed that the baby did have a mild fever and diagnosed a virus...basically a cold.

      ‘And his heart?’

      ‘No problem there that I can detect. When is his next appointment?’

      ‘Six months’ time.’

      ‘Well, you are in good hands and this young man has a fine set of lungs. I knew Bruno, a good man, tragic, so tragic.’

      Flora, her throat thick with emotion and unshed tears, nodded.

      ‘So the analgesic syrup four-to-six hourly, keep him cool and lots of fluids, any problems, you know where I am.’ He glanced towards the sitting room where Ivo, who had not accompanied him into the nursery, was waiting. ‘Or at least Ivo does. Those of us who know him were pleased to hear about his engagement and I am even more pleased now I have met you.’ His charring smirk faded as he added, ‘Ivo has few friends but those who are would die for him. He pretends he doesn’t care but he—well, I don’t have to tell you this, do I? Have you known him long?’

      Blinking at this extraordinary endorsement and realising that nothing he’d said had surprised her, Flora shook her head. She already knew that Ivo’s mask of toughness, and coldness, hid deep feelings, but she also knew that he’d never share those feelings, or at least not with her. ‘No.’

      ‘Well, it doesn’t take long, does it, when you meet the right one?’

      ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Flora said the words quickly because she didn’t want to think about them too hard.

      Quickly, but not quick enough to stop the flood, the relentless stream of images that began to flicker across her retina.

      She blinked, her jaw tight as she struggled to halt the slide show. It felt as if a tug of war were going on in her head. She was pulling one way and...truth was pulling the other.

      She couldn’t have fallen in love; she hadn’t put Ivo on a pedestal; she wasn’t blind to his faults. She didn’t even like him a lot of the time. She was just getting carried away by the great sex.

      ‘So, everything good?’

      She started guiltily and swung around, the rope of plait that hung down her back whipping around a moment after she did, landing with a thump over one shoulder.

      She saluted him with the bottle of baby medicine in her hand. ‘Yes.’ Jamie, lying in the crib, chose that moment to give a cranky cry. ‘He has a cold.’

      ‘Let me.’

      She watched as he bent over the crib, lifting the sobbing baby with the sort of care normally reserved for an unexploded bomb, his expression fierce concentration as he arranged the baby against one broad shoulder and began to pat his back gently. The sight of Ivo cradling his tiny nephew made her smile despite the hand squeezing her heart.

      One day he would have babies of his own; crazily the thought made her want to cry.

      He glanced across, a look of self-conscious enquiry drifting over his face when he saw Flora standing there staring. ‘Am I doing it wrong or something?’

      Flora swallowed the lump in her throat. How crazy to get choked up, but the sight of this big tough man being so gentle with the baby scored a direct hit on her tender heart.

      ‘No, you’re doing it perfectly,’ she said, grabbing the first thing to hand, which was a baby blanket. She began to fold it as though her life depended on perfectly aligned creases. ‘You know, you’re welcome in Skye any time. You should be part of Jamie’s life.’

      Even before she heard his steely, ‘I intend to be,’ Flora sensed the change in the atmosphere. Maybe Jamie did too because he gave another whimper as Ivo laid him carefully down in the crib.

      He watched Flora drag a chair over to the crib. They’d found mind-numbing passion together, and it was the thought of losing that and nothing else that had made him react to the idea of her vanishing back to Skye. That, after all, was the plan. Flora was to vanish out of his life, out of Jamie’s life.

      Was he being fair to Jamie?

      A child needed a female influence and not just one supplied by nannies. There was no doubt that Flora was utterly devoted to the baby. He shook his head; in some ways his grandfather’s plan was simpler.

      Simple because Salvatore is losing his mind. The real question is: are you, Ivo?

      He took a deep breath. He really needed to show her what an excellent life Jamie could have without her. It shouldn’t be that hard. He’d show her the glossy brochure of the really excellent school he’d picked out for Jamie, Ivo decided.

       What’s the betting she disapproves of boarding schools?

      ‘He might take a while to settle.’

      ‘You planning on spending the night there?’ Ivo pointed to the lift doors at the end of the room, the ones that led to nannies on tap. ‘Or are you going to take some help?’

      She pushed away a frivolous mental image of nannies lining up to slide down a pole like firemen, white frilly aprons fluttering,