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‘The hospital’
The young wolanced at Ai her expression ‘I’ I’ll heat the milk for your bambino’
Elene couldn’t lie ‘It’s all right Aimee’s not sick I know someone orks there ill help me out’ He’d have no choice ‘But if you can heat the oodness Italian was her second language How she’dabout
‘My sister has a baby too’
Aimee’s not really mine Make that not only mine Because Aimee was hers in a complex kind of way There was paperwork to prove it Eleneto explain was too co—and irrelevant ‘Ai She’s been a champ’
Finally settling into a taxi, she clicked the seatbelt into place, relieved there was a child’s seat since she hadn’t brought one with thee ‘Don’t go to sleep now, baby girl Drink your milk instead We’re nearly there’ With every turn the taxi took her heart rate quickened Should’ve stayed at home Too late now Or was it? Mattia had no idea she was in Italy, let alone about to knock on his door and burst his over-inflated bubble She could still run away and forget all about keeping her promise to her best friend
Aih as she scoffed the milk
Elene’s heart squeezed ‘Love you, baby girl We’re doing the right thing co here’ What if Mattia—?
Don’t go there Take this one step at a time This hat Danielle wanted, and what she’d pro her heart broken She was thinking about Aied to forget as she should’ve
So fight hard for Aimee, for both of you
It could be a costly battle Her fa obscene The ston and pretend she hadn’t , also aical father before she’d been born had skewed her thinking until she’d finally er That hen she’d totally accepted as her father theher mother and kne lucky she’d been Everyone needed, was entitled to, the unconditional love of good parents ‘Everyone, baby girl’
The taxi stopped outside Sorrento’s hospital all too soon After settling Aimee into her stroller, Elene moved towards the lift that would take the behind her Despite the spring heat, her skin lifted in cold buhtened around the stroller handle ‘Please say I’ It’s what youryou to his Danielle said about him
The lift , floor three Then the doors slid open so fast she was spilling out into a corridor bustling withbeds and patients on crutches Sucking in her sto her chin, she stepped into the office with the sign declaring ‘Dottore Mattia Ricco’ and up to the woman behind the desk and said, ‘My name is Elene Lowe I am here to see Dr Ricco’
‘You don’t have an appointment,’ responded the woman in a don’t-fool-with-me voice
‘I don’t, but I can wait until he is finished for the day’ Any tihteen-oh-five
‘The doctor doesn’t see people without an appointment He’s a very busy man’
‘Please tell him I am here and let him decide if he’ll see me’ Because if he refused she had his hoht about now she’d do whatever it took to find a bed for Aimee
The wolanced at the closed door to the side ‘I can’t do that’
Just then Ai her little body against the stroller restraints
‘I think ’
‘There are public toilets on this floor’
Elene’s eyes suddenly stung It was all too much ‘Please’
‘Sorry’
Typical of Mattia to have a heartless lioness guarding his patch Not that she had any right to co for exhaustion and worry ‘I a my child with me’
The woht this moment’