The Doctor's Runaway Bride. Sarah Morgan
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in no position to play happy families.
Her feet hit the floor and the sudden movement made her stomach churn.
She made it to the toilet just in time and retched miserably, wondering dully why any woman chose to get pregnant.
‘You got up too quickly.’ Luca’s deep voice came from behind her and his long fingers lifted her hair away from her face.
‘Go away, Luca.’ She closed her eyes tightly, utterly humiliated that he should see her like this. Being ill was bad enough without having him witness it. ‘I want some privacy.’
‘I’m a doctor, cara mia,’ he pointed out, his voice surprisingly gentle as he handed her a cool flannel. ‘I see sick people every day.’
‘I’m not people,’ she said, wishing her stomach would settle. ‘Leave me alone so I can die in peace.’
He murmured something in Italian and lifted her easily to her feet. ‘You’re not going to die. You have morning sickness. It should go by the fourteenth week.’
Tia slumped against the wall and looked at him with dull eyes. She was already twelve weeks pregnant. ‘Another two weeks of this?’
He gave a faint smile, his dark eyes surprisingly sympathetic. ‘Have you been sick much?’
‘All the time,’ Tia mumbled, and his smile faded as he switched into doctor mode.
‘Do you have any pain when you are sick?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Relax, Luca. I’m fine. Just pregnant.’
‘You’ve lost weight.’ His dark gaze raked over her slender frame and she looked at him, exhausted.
‘Of course I’ve lost weight. The last few weeks haven’t exactly been a picnic for me either, you know.’
‘What has the doctor said about you?’
‘What doctor?’
He frowned sharply. ‘You haven’t seen a doctor yet?’
She sighed. ‘It’s hardly been on the top of my list of priorities, Luca.’
‘You should have had blood tests and a scan.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘When did you start your last period?’
‘For goodness’ sake!’ She coloured, embarrassed by his question, and he muttered something under his breath and cupped her face in his hands.
‘Tia, you are having my baby and I am a doctor,’ he reminded her gently. ‘You have no need to feel awkward. I need to ask you these things because I need to know that you are OK. Indulge me and answer the question. Please?’
‘Twenty-fourth of July,’ she muttered, feeling her cheeks heat again. They might have made the baby together but there was something about him that made her feel impossibly shy. ‘Or, at least, that’s what I think. I had some spotting a month later but not a real period. I worked out that I must be due on the 30th April.’
He nodded slowly. ‘We need to get you booked in at the hospital and I want to send a urine specimen to check that you have no infection. It could be a reason for the vomiting.’
‘Luca, I have morning sickness,’ she said gruffly, strangely touched by his concern despite her mixed feelings towards him. ‘It isn’t hyperemesis.’
Hyperemesis gravidarum was a rare condition of pregnancy where nausea and vomiting were severe and could cause serious problems for the mother.
His expression was serious. ‘Just how often have you been sick?’
‘Quite a bit,’ Tia confessed as she reached for her toothbrush. ‘Usually whenever I’m tired. I suspect that you had a narrow escape last night. It’s probably just as well you put me to bed early.’
He didn’t laugh. ‘Then you have to make sure that you don’t get tired. It’s your body telling you something.’
She brushed her teeth on autopilot and slowly sipped some water. ‘Stop giving me orders, Luca.’
She put her toothbrush back in the cupboard and leaned her burning forehead against the cool glass of the bathroom cabinet. She felt terrible. She had to be at work in an hour and at the moment she could barely drag her body out of the bathroom. How did people get through nine months of this?
He held open the bathroom door and stood to one side. ‘Go back to bed and I’ll make you some breakfast.’
‘Breakfast?’ She shot him an incredulous look and put a protective hand on her abdomen. ‘Are you some sort of sadist? Do you really think I’m hungry?’
‘Food will help,’ he reminded her gently, a glimmer of a smile touching his hard mouth. ‘You’re a midwife, Tia. You should know that eating something before you move in the morning can sometimes alleviate morning sickness. I’ll fetch you some crackers.’
‘There aren’t any crackers,’ she muttered, sliding past him, careful not to catch his eye. ‘And stop ordering me around. You’re not responsible for me. And while we’re at it, you’ve got a nerve, undressing me while I’m asleep. And you had no right to stay the night.’
‘You fell asleep in all your clothes,’ he pointed out dryly. ‘Hardly the most effective way of guaranteeing a good night’s rest. And your prudishness is rather misplaced in the circumstances.’
Hot colour flooded Tia’s cheeks. She knew what he was implying. That he knew her body better than she did. And it was all too true. The things that he could make her feel were scary.
‘That was the past.’ She said it to herself as much as him and started to walk down the stairs, holding tight to the bannisters to help support her wobbly knees. ‘You no longer have the right to undress me.’
‘I refuse to discuss this with you now.’ His tone was even as he followed her into the kitchen. ‘Sit down and I’ll make you some breakfast.’
She gaped at him, sure that she’d misheard.
Luca was offering to make her breakfast?
Well, that really was a first!
As far as she could recall, Luca couldn’t so much as boil a kettle. He certainly hadn’t done so in the three months that she’d known him.
‘I thought Italian men were totally undomesticated,’ she commented, watching with fascination as he yanked open cupboard after cupboard and finally tried the fridge. This was not a man who knew his way around a kitchen.
‘Dio, there is nothing here! What were you planning to eat?’ His tone was incredulous as he stared into the empty fridge. ‘Thin air?’
‘At least that won’t upset my stomach,’ she joked weakly, shrinking slightly at the black expression on his face. ‘OK, there’s no need to scowl. I haven’t had time to shop yet. I was going to do it on my way home from work this evening.’
The minute she said it she could have bitten her tongue off. Bother. She hadn’t intended to tell him about the job yet.
There was an ominous silence and Luca straightened up from his exploration of the empty fridge, his smooth dark brows locked in a frown.
‘Work?’ His eyes were suddenly cool. ‘What do you mean, you were going to shop on the way home from work?’
She gave a long sigh. ‘Luca, I’m going to be a single mother. I need a job—’
The fridge door closed with a muted thud. ‘You are not going to be a single mother.’
‘Luca…’
He walked towards her, his eyes flaming with anger and his broad shoulders tense. ‘And you do not need a job.’
‘I need to support myself, Luca.’
‘You do not need to support yourself,’