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‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’ His rough voice teased her sensitised nerve endings and she shivered as he rolled onto his back, taking her with him.
‘No.’ She leaned her head on his muscular chest, trying to hide her tears, but he slipped a hand under her chin and tilted her face towards him.
‘If I didn’t hurt you, why are you crying?’
What could she say? Because I missed you? Because I love you and you don’t love me?
His arms tightened around her and she closed her eyes, revelling in the physical contact that she’d denied herself for so long. It was so good to be near him, to be held by him.
‘You’ve never made love to me like that before,’ she said, her cheeks growing pink under his steady gaze.
‘Slowly, you mean?’ He gave a wry smile. ‘You and I were never very good at taking our time, but this time I was worried about the baby.’ His gruff statement made her heart twist.
‘You’re an obstetrician. You should know better than anyone that making love doesn’t hurt the baby.’ So that was why he’d been so unusually gentle.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’ He lifted a hand and stroked the tears away from her face, his eyes searching. ‘I broke the no-touching rule, didn’t I? Is that why you’re crying? Are you angry with me?’
His unusual self-doubt touched her.
‘No.’ How could she possibly be angry? She’d wanted him as badly as he’d wanted her.
She just wished that he loved her.
A frown touched his smooth dark brows. ‘Tia?’
How could she tell him the truth? That making love had just confirmed what she already knew. That he was the only man in the world she ever wanted to be with.
‘I’m fine. Merry Christmas, Luca.’
The frown disappeared and he smiled. ‘Merry Christmas.’
She closed her eyes and nestled against his chest, fighting back the tears again. She wasn’t going to cry. She was going to enjoy the moment. All right, so Luca didn’t love her, but he found her attractive and she was expecting his baby.
That would just have to be enough.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JANUARY was bitterly cold and Tia threw herself into her work and concentrated on preparing herself mentally for the arrival of their baby.
Her relationship with Luca was becoming closer by the day. And as for their love-making… She closed her eyes and felt her heart miss a beat. It was so spectacular that it was hard to believe that he really didn’t love her. In fact, sometimes when they were in bed he was so tender with her that she could almost convince herself that he did.
Which was ridiculous, of course, she reminded herself firmly, because he’d never once told her that he loved her in all the months they’d been together.
Fortunately the weeks seemed to fly by and she had to be fitted for a larger uniform to accommodate the growing evidence of her pregnancy.
At work things were as busy as ever but Sharon was careful not to give her too heavy a workload.
‘If you deliver early it will just be extra work for us,’ she teased one morning as they were sharing a coffee on the postnatal ward. ‘How are you feeling?’
Tia smoothed a hand over her swollen abdomen. ‘Big,’ she admitted with a rueful smile. ‘Big and clumsy. And what’s worrying me is how on earth it’s going to come out.’
She hadn’t mentioned her fears to anyone but the thought of the labour was beginning to worry her.
But at least she was excited about the baby now. Even though she was a midwife and knew the theory better than most, she still devoured pregnancy magazines and read everything she could get her hands on.
Sharon grinned at her. ‘Is Luca anxious?’
‘Luca?’ Tia looked at her with surprise and then smiled. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? When have you ever seen Luca anxious about anything?’
