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‘Não obrigado.’ Duarte’s voice boomed with authority.
She wasn’t sure how many minutes passed before she opened her eyes and saw the bus had gone. She looked down to find herself clutching him like a limpet and groaned inwardly. She knew she should feel embarrassed, but she was rapidly becoming unable to think straight—or stand up, for that matter.
‘Is there someone I can call for you?’ he asked. ‘The baby’s father?’
Fighting the urge to sob, she shook her head and closed her eyes as she began to realise the gravity of her situation.
He fr
owned, pressing his lips together in a firm line as he looked down at her small suitcase. ‘Can you walk? I’m taking you to a hospital right now.’
She allowed him to hold her arm as they moved carefully towards his car. She’d just made it to the door when another pain hit. He seemed to understand that she was unable to move, and he took off his coat and draped it over her while she breathed and tried not to curse.
‘It’s too early...’ she breathed. ‘I’m not due for four and a half more weeks. I’m not meant to be here in this city.’
He helped her into the car, bending down to carefully buckle her seatbelt around her before he looked deeply into her eyes. Warm amber filled her up with the same magnetic strength she remembered so well.
‘Just try to relax.’
‘Are you saying that for my benefit or for yours?’ she groaned, closing her eyes against the beautiful sight of him.
She heard him chuckle low in his throat and opened her eyes once more.
‘I’m going to drive now, okay?’
She nodded, staring up at this man she had once thought herself in love with, this man who now had no idea who she was.
This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be with her when she was about to give birth to her child.
Their child.
‘I can’t do this...’ She closed her eyes once again, a sea of thoughts overwhelming her, and sent up a prayer to everyone and anyone who might be listening. To keep her safe. To keep her baby safe.
She felt a warm hand cover hers. When she opened her eyes he was looking at her, and there was nothing but kindness and concern in his warm whisky-coloured eyes.
Maybe it was the pain, or maybe she was just in shock, but she heard herself whisper, ‘I’ve been so afraid of doing this alone...’
‘You are not alone.’ He squeezed her hand once more before turning and starting the engine of the powerful sports car with the push of a button. ‘If my memory is correct, I’m pretty sure I owe you my life. I won’t leave you.’
Duarte burst through the hospital doors carrying a wild-eyed pregnant woman in his arms. The drive to the hospital had been blessedly swift, and free of the usual Rio traffic, but he had still feared they might not make it in time. He was famous for pushing himself beyond his limits, but delivering an infant in the passenger seat of a rented Bugatti was not exactly the way he’d imagined this meeting going.
This hospital wasn’t the nearest medical facility, but when she told him she’d been attending a community birth centre in one of the poorest areas of the city he’d been hit by a strange protective urge so strong it had taken his breath away.
She was important to his investigation, he told himself. He needed her safe and well if he was to find out the information she might have.
Nora seemed to be delirious with pain as the nurses performed some preliminary checks. In between each contraction she became more frantic, her eyes glazed as she repeated that she had to get to the airport.
Duarte saw the questioning looks that passed between the nurses as they looked at the reading on the blood pressure monitor. The atmosphere in the room changed immediately. A bright red call button was pressed and soon the room seemed to fill with people—doctors and specialists, anaesthetists and paediatricians.
Nora clutched his hand tightly as the team moved around her, performing more checks. Her nails bit into his skin as she cursed through another intense wave of pain, her neck and back arching and her hair tumbling around her face in a wild cloud of red curls.
He felt utterly dumbstruck by her ferocious beauty. This woman was a stranger to him, and yet he was witnessing one of the most intimate moments of her life. He felt the strangest urge to reach out and comfort her, but was keenly aware of her boundaries. In the end he settled for the simple touch of his hand on top of hers.
Her back relaxed as the pain eased off again and she looked up at him, pinning him with eyes the colour of the sky after a heavy rainstorm at sea—deep silver with a ring of midnight-blue. He was so captivated by her gaze that he hardly noticed as she looked down at his hand and frowned at the quartet of scarlet crescent moons left by her fingernails.
‘Did I do that...?’ she breathed, horrified.
Duarte leaned close to speak softly near her ear. ‘Don’t worry about me. This hand is yours for the duration. If you need to crush my fingers in the process, so be it.’
