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And he didn’t notice her any more. He didn’t have time for their relationship. For her.
‘Ben’s upstairs, crying. I’m here eating far too much sugar and you’re ingesting a lethal dose of caffeine,’ Katy said dramatically as she walked to the door, her performance worthy of the London stage. ‘We’re a family in crisis. We need our father or goodness knows what might happen to us.’
Christy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘You haven’t finished your milk,’ she said wearily. ‘All right, I’ll talk to him. See what he says.’
It would be just for the festive season, she told herself. The children shouldn’t suffer because of her stupidity and Alessandro’s arrogant, stubborn nature.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Yay!’ Katy punched the air, her ponytail swinging. ‘We’re going back to the Lake District for Christmas. Snow. Rain. Howling winds. I’ll see my old friends. My phone bill will plummet. Thanks Mum, you’re the best.’
As she danced out of the room, no doubt en route to pass the joyful news on to her brother, Christy felt her stomach sink down to her ankles. Now all she had to do was summon the courage to phone Alessandro and tell him that they were planning to return home for Christmas. How on earth was she going to do that?
CHAPTER ONE
‘EMERGENCY on its way in, Mr Garcia.’ The pretty nurse stuck her head round the office door. ‘You’re needed in Resus.’
Alessandro dropped the report on staffing that he was reading and wondered how many times a day he heard that statement. He was always needed in Resus. Sometimes he felt as though he lived in Resus. Particularly at the moment when almost forty per cent of the staff were off with flu.
He strode out of his office, nodded to one of the A and E sisters who hurried past him, looking harassed, and shouldered his way through the double doors into Resus.
Chaos reigned.
‘She’s bleeding from somewhere, we need to find out where.’ Billy, one of the casualty officers, was trying to direct operations and he looked up with a sigh of relief as Alessandro appeared by the side of the trolley. ‘Oh, Mr Garcia. Thank goodness. Dr Nicholson is already tied up with that climbing accident and—’
‘What’s the story?’ Alessandro cut him off and Billy sucked in a breath.
‘Her husband brought her in by car. She was complaining of abdominal pain all night and he was driving quickly in an attempt to get her here and took the car into the ditch.’ Clearly out of his comfort zone, he dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it more untidy than ever. ‘She’s had a bang on her head and her obs suggests that she’s bleeding but we don’t know where from.’
Alessandro took the gloves that a nurse was holding out to him and made a mental note to speak to Billy about the quality of his handover skills at some point in the near future.
‘Does “she” have a name?’ he enquired softly and Billy coloured.
‘Megan. Megan Yates.’
Alessandro swiftly dragged on the gloves and turned to the woman who was lying on the trolley, noted her pale, blood-streaked cheeks and the fear in her eyes. ‘Megan, this must be very frightening for you, but you’re in hospital now and we’re going to make you comfortable as quickly as we can.’ He lifted his gaze to Billy. ‘Bleep the on-call gynae team,’ he instructed calmly, donning the rest of the necessary protective clothing and glancing at the monitor. ‘We need to keep an eye on her pulse and blood pressure.’
Her pulse was up, her blood pressure was dropping and she was showing all the signs of haemorrhage. But, unlike his less experienced colleague, he had no intention of sharing his concerns with an already worried patient.
Billy followed his gaze. ‘The gynae team?’ His tone was level but his expression was confused. ‘I thought after an RTA and trauma, she’d need—’
‘And she’s of childbearing age, and before her husband landed the car in the ditch she was suffering from abdominal pain,’ Alessandro reminded him, ‘so that is not to be forgotten. I want two lines in her straight away, wide-bore cannulae.’
Responding immediately to his decisive tone, Nicky, one of the A and E sisters, pushed a trolley across Resus and Billy put a tourniquet on the woman’s arm and ripped open the first cannula. ‘You think she might have a ruptured ectopic?’
‘I don’t know yet, but let’s just say I have a low thres
hold of suspicion so I’m treating it as that until I have reason to think otherwise.’ Alessandro continued to deliver a steady stream of instructions while the staff around him bobbed and moved in perfect unison. They were so used to working together that they often anticipated each other’s needs. He turned back to his patient. ‘Megan, is there any chance that you could be pregnant?’
‘No—well, I mean…’ The woman closed her eyes briefly. ‘It’s so unlikely it’s virtually impossible.’
‘In this department we deal with the unlikely and the impossible on a fairly regular basis,’ Alessandro replied with a wry smile. ‘When was your last period?’
‘Months ago,’ she whispered. ‘I have endometriosis.’
He heard the catch in her voice and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘That must be hard for you,’ he said gently. ‘But right now we need to find out what injuries you suffered in the accident and try and get to the bottom of your abdominal pain. We need to undress you so that we can do a proper examination, head to toe, and find out exactly what is going on. Nicky?’
