Midwives On-Call. Alison Roberts

who was looking at Alessi with thinly disguised murder in his eyes. ‘I stayed with the parents of the baby that died until seven and then I spoke at length with their daughter. Shaving really wasn’t my priority.’ He looked at Isla. ‘Would you like to dance?’

      She said yes just to get the two of them apart.

      ‘Alessi, I’m so sorry about that!’ Isla said as they hit the dance floor. She was honestly confused by the way her father was acting. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He had no right to say anything about you not having shaved.’ Privately she was glad that Alessi hadn’t shaved—he looked wonderful and she actually ached to feel his jaw against her skin, but she held back from dancing with him the way she wanted to.

      ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Alessi shrugged.

      ‘Even so, I don’t know what’s got into him.’

      ‘I do.’ Alessi smiled. ‘He knows tonight I am going to be sleeping with his daughter.’

      ‘You assume a lot,’ Isla croaked as he pulled her in closer.

      ‘I never assume,’ Alessi said. ‘I just aim high.’

      His fingers were stroking her arms and now his cheek was near hers as he spoke, his jaw was all scratchy against her cheek, even more delicious than Isla had predicted, and she found she could barely breathe.

      ‘I thought you were exhausted.’

      ‘Do I feel tired to you?’ Alessi said, and Isla guessed he was referring to the hard heat that was nudging at her stomach.

      ‘No.’ A single word was all Isla could manage.

      ‘I’m never too tired for you, Isla.’

      She was beyond turned on. She wanted to move her face so their mouths could meet, she wanted the wetness of his tongue and the heat of his skin on hers.

      Did she tell him how scared she was?

      Did she tell him that he would be her first?

      Isla would possibly die if he found out she was a virgin.

      She’d had an internal when she’d had appendicitis and the doctors had thought it might be an ovarian cyst.

      There was going to be no bloodshed, no ‘Oh, my God, is that your hymen?’ Just utter inexperience in very experienced arms.

      Yet she wanted him and she had never till now wanted a man.

      She wanted to be made love to and kill this demon for ever, choke it at the neck and get on with her life.

      She knew his reputation, knew his relationships were fleeting at best. This might be just a one-night stand but it would be one that would help her step into her future.

      Isla pulled her head back and looked into black, smiling eyes and, no, a heavy heart was not what was needed tonight. A long confessional could not help things here.

      It was lust looking back at her, not love, she reminded herself.

      Yet it was the beginning of the end of the prison she had trapped herself in and, however unwittingly, Alessi could set her free.

      ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

      ‘I’m not going to tell you.’

      It was the truth and it was also the truth.

      Isla’s decision was made.

      Alessi would never know that he was her first.

      ‘I’m going to go soon,’ he said in a low voice that made her shiver on the inside. ‘I don’t want to offend your father by leaving with you. I’ll text you my address.’

      ‘You don’t know my number.’

      ‘I do,’ Alessi said. ‘Don’t you remember sending me that school reunion photo on the night we met, the night you blew me off?’ She was on fire in his arms as he scolded her for her actions that night. ‘You’re going to apologise properly for that tonight.’

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘Meaning I am going to go and say my goodbyes,’ Alessi said. His fingers were at the tie of her halter neck and she had an urge for him to unknot it, to be naked against him, to give in to the kiss that they both craved.

      As the song ended, so, too, did their dance and Alessi gave her a brief smile of thanks before walking off.

      To the world it might have looked like a duty dance, but for Isla it had been pure pleasure. She joined her father and tried to carry on a conversation with a prominent couple as her heart hammered and her mind whirred as to what to do. She saw Flick leaving with Tristan but this time Isla could only smile with the realisation that she had reprimanded Alessi just a few weeks ago for the very same thing—a doctor seeing one of her students.

      She had been jealous, Isla could see it so clearly now.

      Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it.

      There was no message from Alessi, just his address.

      ‘Heading off already?’ Charles frowned. ‘It’s a bit soon.’

      Isla looked at her father. She always did the right thing by her parents, by her sister, by Rupert, by her staff, her patients, by everyone but herself.

      It was far from too soon.

      Putting herself first was way overdue, in fact.

      Isla left without another word.

       CHAPTER NINE

      ALESSI STEPPED INTO his apartment and swapped the crystal of his award for the crystal of a brandy glass.

      He sent a text and wondered.

      Would she come?

      And if she did, then what would tomorrow bring?

      He had spent close to a year wondering about Isla. Disliking her, yet wanting her. A whole year of trying to fathom what went on behind that cool facade.

      No one had ever got into his head-space more and yet, rarely for Alessi, he did wonder about the consequences of tonight. He didn’t want to be shut down by Isla again, yet a part of him knew it was inevitable. Rare were the glimpses of the true Isla and he found himself craving them. From the first unguarded night to the smile when she had walked out from speaking with Blake and Christine, or sitting on a birthing ball with her teenage mums-to-be.

      It was a case of one step forward and a hundred steps back with Isla and, despite the promise of their dance, despite the passion he had felt, Alessi actually doubted now that she’d even turn up at his door.

      He checked his phone and, no, she hadn’t responded and Alessi found himself scrolling back and looking at their brief communication.

      There was an eighteen-year-old Isla, as blonde and as glossy as she was now and smiling for the camera, but there was still that keep-out sign in her eyes. Alessi stared at the image for a long time, zooming in to avoid seeing Talia, for she had no place here tonight. Instead, he looked into Isla’s cool gaze and wondered about the secrets she kept, especially when he heard a knock at the door.

      ‘I was wrong,’ Alessi said as he opened the door to her. ‘I was starting to think you wouldn’t come.’

      ‘Why would you think that?’ Her voice lied—it was clear, it was confident, it was from the actress she had learnt to be.

      ‘Because you’re impossible to read.’

      ‘Better than boring,’ she said as he poured her a drink and handed it to her. She didn’t like brandy but it was a necessary medicine tonight. She was on the edge of both terror and elation and she wanted her demons gone.

      To him.

      He