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That night in Wellington Hospital had made him want more from her. Waves of shock rocked him. What the hell? How crazy did he think he was? He was not marrying a woman who took pleasure from sniping at him. Life would be tiring. Then again, he’d know exactly where he stood with Elene. There’d be no hidden agendas, no nasty surprises. They could go into a contract, eyes wide open, and his hand firmly on the family wealth. So unlike anything he’d thought necessary years back, when he still believed in love and sharing and caring.
Mattia stormed out of the room, closing the door behind him none too gently, then cursed in case he’d woken either female. Not hanging around to find out, he headed for the kitchen and that Sangiovese. Another glass might calm him enough to get some sleep tonight. And if it didn’t then he’d be in fine form tomorrow. But at least he wouldn’t be here. He’d be at the hospital, dealing with other people’s problems, avoiding his own. Reality kicked in. He was a doctor, always available when needed. No more wine tonight.
Dropping into his large leather chair in the lounge, he stretched out and pointed the remote at the TV taking up a lot of space on the opposite wall. The news channel came up and he watched and listened without seeing or hearing a thing. Only his phone ringing brought him back to the room. ‘Ciao.’
‘Mattia, it’s Carla. Signor Familaro’s struggling with pain. We can’t get it under control. He’s in a terrible state.’
If Carla couldn’t calm him then no one could. ‘What about Rose?’ The woman was the consultant on call for the night.
‘No one’s heard from her since she left at ten.’
Strange. ‘I hope she’s all right, and not had an accident.’ The tourist numbers were starting to build up and those who drove weren’t always familiar with the Italian way on the roads, but at this time of night Sorrento was usually quiet.
‘No reports from the emergency staff of a vehicle accident. They’d have told us if one of our own was brought in.’
It was a smallish, everyone-knows-everybody kind of hospital. ‘I’m on my way.’ Signor Familaro had had shoulder surgery that morning, and was on a strong regime of painkillers which obviously weren’t doing their job. Sometimes a patient did need more, and he’d have to make the call whether to administer a morphine pump or not. If Aimee woke before he got back then there went Elene’s sleep. He hoped it didn’t happen, because he’d planned on being the one to soothe Aimee and prevent Elene being woken too soon. Caring too much about the wrong female? Bile was tart on his tongue. Both females.
Mattia left a note on the bench saying where he was in case Elene got up during the night and required something she couldn’t place her hands on. Driving to the hospital, the vision he hadn’t been able to avoid of Elene, starfish-like on the bed, went with him. A deep need made him squirm in his leather seat. If Elene had woken and seen him, all hell would have broken loose. She’d have called him a range of names, none of them friendly. He might have been making sure Aimee wasn’t about to wake Elene up from much-needed sleep, but try telling her that. She’d have had him by his round things, twisting them out of use before he uttered a word. His body froze. Elene was not getting anywhere near his groin, whatever her mood at the time.
Arriving on the surgical ward, Mattia read the nurse’s notes on the computer before approaching his patient. ‘Stefano, I hear you’re having more pain than is to be expected.’
‘I need something stronger,’ grunted the older man.
According to the notes, Stefano had first asked for more painkillers an hour ago. ‘Did it come on suddenly, or was it a gradual build-up?’
‘I don’t know. Pain is pain, doc. All I want is something to get rid of it.’ Sweat beaded the man’s brow.
‘Did the pain wake you?’ Had Stefano rolled onto his shoulder while sleeping, despite the pillows in place to prevent that happening? ‘Or did you move that arm abruptly without thinking?’
Stefano looked sheepish, unable to meet Mattia’s gaze. ‘I might’ve.’
The shoulder Mattia had operated on that afternoon needed to remain as still as possible. ‘Despite the pain and strapping and lying on your back, it’s very easy to make a move you’ve done all your life without hesitation. Unfortunately, it isn’t good for your shoulder.’ He was calculating dosages in his head. ‘I’m going to put you on a morphine drip.’
The relief was instant. ‘Grazie. I’m sorry to cause trouble this late.’
Mattia smiled. ‘You didn’t.’ Two females had done that. One in particular. The wrong one. The one with a figure that had his blood in a whirl and his hormones on the rampage. ‘I’ll check your shoulder in case you’ve done damage.’ He hoped not, though dislocation was a possibility and would explain the excessive pain, except that would’ve taken a hard knock, not something likely to have happened while lying in bed. Moments later, he announced, ‘All good.’ They weren’t going back to Theatre.
Carla had been alongside throughout this conversation and now told Mattia, ‘The morphine pump’s ready in the drugs room. Just need your signature on the paperwork.’
‘Let’s do it.’ Once the pump had been set up on a stand at the head of the bed and the drip inserted into the large bore needle strapped to Stefano’s lower arm, Mattia explained to his patient, ‘Every time the pain is too sharp, squeeze this bulb and you’ll get a dose of morphine. I want you to do it before the pain gets excruciating, but not until you start to get a niggle of discomfort. The doses are low but too many is not what we want here. Understand?’
His patient eyeballed him. ‘Sì. I don’t want too much any more than you do.’
‘Good, but don’t hang out to be brave either. The idea is to keep the pain at a steady level where you don’t feel it and it’s not spiking all the time.’ He could say the same for the heat in his blood whenever that image of Elene on the bed flicked into his head. Spiking was not good: a flat, steady line the only way to go.
‘Thanks, again, Doc. See you in the morning?’
‘Some time tomorrow.’ Out at the nurses’ counter he asked, ‘Anyone else needing attention while I’m here?’
‘No. Apart from Stefano, it’s been quiet,’ Carla answered.
‘Any word yet from Rose?’
‘Yes, she called to say she’s got a stomach bug and is vomiting so she’s staying away.’
‘Very wise.’ Though she could have let them know sooner. ‘As long as she’s all right and got someone to keep an eye on her. Let’s hope she hasn’t shared that around with the patients earlier in the day.’ They didn’t need staff falling by the wayside with a bug. Nurses were thin on the ground at the moment, and the two new ones due to start in a couple of weeks weren’t going to be enough. There’s a very competent nurse residing in your house. What? Bring the enemy into the one place he was free of her? Where he was away from those all-discerning eyes, the unspoken expectations? Not likely. Though it wasn’t the only bolthole he had. There was the charity hospital in Napoli and its local surgical unit where he spent his weekends. The nursing shortage was taking its toll on care there too.
‘Call Luigi if anyone else needs seeing.’ Mattia knew he could cover call, sleep in the night staff’s room and not go home to what faced him there. Or he could toughen up and be on hand to help Elene if required. His good side won out. Avoiding Elene went against his better judgement and, besides, he liked that she was in his house. He had yet to work out why he felt that way.
The house was in darkness except for the kitchen light as he drove up to the automatic door opening into the underground garage. The only sounds were the routine creaks of the floorboards and walls. It was as though he was alone. Yet he wasn’t. The blocks Aimee had played with were still on the floor and in the kitchen an empty milk container sat on the bench.
In his room he stripped down to his boxers and slid under the sheet, stretched his feet to the end and put his hands behind his head. He was wide
awake—and tired beyond reason. The past week had been crazy busy; the coming one would be the same if he let it. But spending time with his house guests would go a long way towards getting to know them and making sensible decisions for the future based on facts, not on emotions.
A muffled cry broke into his thoughts and he was instantly on his feet. In the hall he strained for a repeat. Nothing. Had it been Aimee? Or did Elene cry out in her sleep? As he reached the bedroom he heard it again. Louder, angrier. Definitely childlike. Now a light shone under the door. He knocked, waited. ‘Elene?’
The door opened a crack and she stood there, half asleep, with Aimee in her arms—looking wide awake and furious with the world. ‘Sorry if she woke you.’
‘She didn’t. Want me to take her?’
‘I’ve got it. I’ll try another bottle.’
The shrieking was intensifying, and what had been a cute face was bright red and slicked with tears. He said, ‘This isn’t going to end quickly. I think she’s still overtired.’
‘I think you’re right.’
Now there was a surprise—Elene agreeing with him. ‘Let me hold her while you deal with the bottle.’
* * *
The next day Elene sipped coffee while watching Aimee crawling around the kitchen, smiling and gurgling as though she was used to being transported halfway around the world to a complete stranger’s house. After that last outburst Aimee had slept through till nearly ten. Unheard of.
‘Mattia has the magic touch with children,’ Elene mused aloud.
‘That he has,’ the woman, who’d introduced herself as Anna when Elene finally made it out here, said around a smile, her soft gaze fixed on Aimee. If she had any queries as to whose daughter she was, she wasn’t voicing them. ‘Jetlag has unsettled her.’
‘I agree. It’s poleaxed me.’ Her coffee cup was empty already.
