The Valtieri Baby

Could he trust himself enough to try? Trust her? He wasn’t sure.

What if she suddenly realised she wasn’t as strong as she thought? What if it all fell apart and she found she couldn’t take it and wanted out? If he let himself love her…

But if he didn’t try, if he didn’t let her try, then they’d lose it all anyway. Life had no guarantees.

‘OK,’ he said, feeling the ground fall away from under his feet. ‘We’ll try—but I’m not promising anything, Anita. I’ve never stuck at this in my life, and I’m thirty-five. That’s a long time to spend moving on.’

‘I know. And we’ll take it step by step, and I won’t put any pressure on you, I promise. Let’s just see what happens.’

Her eyes were gentle, her face so close he only had to move his head a little way for their lips to touch.

She met him halfway, her breath easing over his face in a soft sigh as their lips met. With a ragged groan he gathered her into his arms and kissed her as if she was the most precious thing he’d ever held, and deep inside her she felt a glimmer of hope spring to life.

She knew he loved her. All she had to do was wait for him to realise it, too…

Dear Reader,

A few years ago I wrote a book, The Valtieri Marriage Deal, about a scrummy Italian doctor called Luca Valtieri. He had two brothers, equally gorgeous, who since then have clamoured for their own books. Massimo (Valtieri’s Bride), a widower with three adorable children, was the eldest of the family, and Gio, a lawyer, was the youngest brother. They had a family friend, Anita, who planned Luca’s wedding and then Massimo’s, and I thought, What better than to match her up with Gio?

He’s cynical, wary, commitment-phobic, and Anita has loved him her entire life. A wedding planner, she’s deeply romantic and has been waiting years for him to realise that he loves her. But there’s a tragedy lurking in his past—something he’s never told her—and it’s keeping them apart.

And then he’s injured as a result of an attack, and she looks after him. They’re thrown together, and there’s no escape as they travel the passionate and emotional rollercoaster that ensues.

I’ve loved every one of these brothers, but Gio, for me, has a special place in my heart. I hope you find a place for him, too, as you travel their rollercoaster with them.

Love,

Caroline

CAROLINE ANDERSON has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, run her own soft furnishing business, and now she’s settled on writing. She says, ‘I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realised it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband, John, and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets, and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!’ Caroline also writes for the Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™ series.

The Valtieri Baby

Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my husband, John, my daughters, Sarah and

Hannah, and my grandson, Maximus, who underline

for me on a daily basis how precious and

important family is. I love you.

CHAPTER ONE

‘SIGNORE Valtieri! Wait! Please, Signore, listen to me!’

Her distraught voice sliced through the evening shadows, and Gio’s heart sank. Not now, he thought. Please, not now. He really, really didn’t have the energy to deal with Camilla Ponti diplomatically, and he certainly didn’t have the time.

He’d already stalled his holiday once because of her, and he wasn’t doing it again.

She’d been about to take action against his client, Marco Renaldo, but Marco had insisted on talking to her before the case came to court. Gio had postponed his departure for a day so they could meet this afternoon, and she’d dropped her claim.

Not quietly.

She’d sobbed and begged and pleaded, but her former business partner had left her no choice. Drop the case, or he’d reveal her fraud and embezzlement of the company’s funds. She’d given in, but she’d blamed Gio for putting him up to it, because she was convinced he’d cost her her share of the company.

It was absurd. She’d forfeited any rights to it herself. He couldn’t believe she’d even thought she had a case! The meeting over, he’d sent a text to Anita arranging to pick her up at six, then, more than ready to get out of the city, he’d gone home and stripped off the exquisitely cut suit, the tasteful silk tie Anita had given him for Christmas, the blinding white shirt. He’d put away the immaculate hand-made shoes, the monogrammed cufflinks, also from Anita, and showered and pulled on his favourite jeans and sweater, the battered leather jacket and boots that had seen better days.

Then he’d pulled the refuse bag out of the kitchen waste bin, flung in the remnants of food from the fridge, tossed an empty wine bottle in on top and headed for the door.

He couldn’t get out of Firenze and away from all this quick enough. His luggage was in the car, and he was looking forward to two weeks on the slopes with his family skiing, eating, and thinking about precisely nothing.

Except Anita would be there. Just thinking about it sent a tingle of anticipation through his veins. He’d missed her recently. He’d been avoiding her ever since the night of his brother’s wedding when things had got a little complicated—again—but at least with his whole family present there’d be plenty of people to diffuse the tension, and he knew a huge part of the attraction of this holiday was that she’d be there.

He couldn’t get there soon enough. For some reason, the cut and thrust of his job had lost its lustre recently, and after a day like today he just felt tired and jaded.

And now this.

This woman, who’d somehow found out where he lived and was lying in wait so she could carry on their earlier conversation. Frankly, he’d heard enough.

‘Signora Ponti, there is really nothing more to say,’ he began, groping for diplomacy, but it was wasted on her.

‘You don’t understand! You have to help me—please, listen to me! I need the money—’

‘Signora, everyone needs money, but you can’t just have it if it isn’t yours, and as Signore Renaldo pointed out, you’ve already stolen more than enough from him—’

‘It wasn’t like that! I had reasons—’

‘Everyone has reasons,’ he said tiredly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m meeting someone and I’m already late.’

‘But I earned that money, I really need it,’ she sobbed, reaching for him with desperate hands. ‘Please, you have to listen!’

He stepped back out of reach, his patience exhausted. ‘No, I don’t. I’ve heard enough,’ he said flatly, and started to turn away, the bag of refuse still in his hand.

‘Nooooooo!’

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her raise her arm, but it was too late to duck. His free arm was still coming up to shield his face when something large and heavy—her handbag?—crashed into his head and sent him reeling. He tripped over the edge of the kerb, twisting his ankle sharply, the pain sickening. It gave way under him, throwing him further off balance, and he felt himself falling.

He couldn’t save himself.

He dropped the refuse bag, heard the tinkling sound of broken glass just too late to roll to the side, and then a sharp, searing pain in his thigh took his breath away.

On autopilot, still waiting for another blow to fall, he rolled off the bag and glared at her, but she was so distraught that he’d never be able to reason with her. It was pointless trying.

For a long moment he lay there, shocked, his eyes locked with hers, but then he became aware of something hot and wet dripping off his fingers, and he stared blankly at his hand, and then his thigh, and he realised he was in trouble.

So did she, her face crumpling as she took in what had happened.

‘No! No—I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you! Please—oh, no…!’

And turning on her heel, she ran away, leaving him there alone in the dim light of the car park, the sound of her high heels rapping sharply on the stones fading as she fled.

Relief sapping the last of his strength, he slumped back against the wall behind him and closed his eyes for a moment.

Dio, he hurt.

He looked down at his foot, bent at a strange angle. No, not his foot, he realised with relief. The boot, twisted half off where he’d tripped. But his foot was inside it and the pain was just beginning to break through all the other insults, so his relief was short-lived. Maybe not so good after all.

And there was glass sticking out of his leg. He knew he probably shouldn’t pull it out, but his leg was bleeding and with the glass in there he couldn’t put pressure on it, so he pulled it out anyway.

Not a good move, apparently.

Wrapping his scarf roughly around his slashed hand, he closed his fingers tight over it and rammed his fist hard down on his thigh, then rummaged for his phone. He’d call Anita. There was no point in calling either of his brothers, they and their families were already at the ski chalet, as were his sisters and his parents, but Anita was expecting him. She had a meeting with a bride and he was supposed to be picking her up any time now.

She’d help him. She always helped him, she’d always known just what to do when he’d got himself in a mess. And she’d rescue him now. Relief coursing through him, his whole body shaking, his left hand struggling to cooperate, he speed-dialled her number.

It went straight to voicemail.

He listened to the message, heard the soft lilt of her voice and could have howled with frustration and despair.

‘Why is it,’ he said sarcastically when the cheery message finally ended, ‘that I’m tripping over you all the time, and yet the one time I really need you you’re not there?’

He cut off and watched the blood still slowly welling from his thigh for another few seconds before he did what he should have done in the first place. He called an ambulance.

And then he leant back against the wall behind him, and dialled her number again, and then again. He needed her, and he couldn’t get her, but it was somehow comforting just to listen to the sound of her voice…

Her phone was ringing.

She could feel it in her pocket, vibrating silently as she wound up her meeting. It rang again. And again.

Damn. It would be Gio, wondering where she was. He’d be foaming at the mouth if she didn’t go soon.

‘Right, I think I’ve got all I need for now,’ she told her client briskly. ‘I’ll go and put a few ideas together for you, and then we’ll get back together again when I’m back from my holiday.’

‘Oh—I was hoping we could do it all today…’

Anita’s smile faltered as the phone vibrated again.

‘I’m sorry, I’m already late. I’m supposed to be leaving for my holiday and I only fitted you in today because I was delayed, I should have gone yesterday. Don’t worry, please, there’ll be plenty of time to sort everything out. It’s seven months to the wedding.’

She shut her file and stood up, effectively ending the meeting, and held out her hand to the bride.

The girl smiled reluctantly and got up, taking her hand. ‘Sorry. I just want all the answers at once.’

‘Everybody does. It’s not possible, but it will happen. I’ll see you in two weeks when I’m back from my holiday. I’ll call you with a date.’

‘OK. And—thank you for fitting me in. I’m sorry to be a pain.’

‘You aren’t a pain. I’ll call you, I promise.’

And with one last brisk, professional smile she walked away, resisting the urge to pull her phone from her pocket before she’d left the café and was out of sight.

Six missed calls. Six?

And all from Gio. Damn. She really was late, and he’d be truly, no-holds-barred furious with her. He hated it when people were late.

Except he didn’t sound furious. He sounded…

She listened to her voicemail message in puzzlement, and tried to call him.

It went straight to voicemail, again and again, but she couldn’t give up, because something about his message was worrying her and she didn’t know what it was.

‘Why is it that I’m tripping over you all the time, and yet the one time I really need you you’re not there?’

Anita frowned, and played it again. Far from angry, his voice sounded odd. Odd, and slightly desperate. As if he was in trouble—

Her heart pounding now, she tried him again, and this time the phone was answered by a stranger.

‘Hello? Are you Anita?’

‘Yes—Anita Della Rossa. Where’s Gio? Who are you?’

‘This is a nurse in the emergency department…’

She didn’t hear the rest. For a second, all she could hear was roaring in her ears from the frantic beating of her heart.

‘I knew there was something wrong, I’ve been trying to get hold of him. What’s happened to him?’ she asked, desperate for information. ‘Did he have an accident? Is he all right?’

‘Are you family?’

She nearly lied, but there was no point, they were all too well known. ‘No, but I’m an old family friend. I’ve known him forever.’ Her voice cracked, and she tried again. ‘They’re all away—they’ve gone skiing. We were about to join them. Please, tell me how he is.’

‘He’s had an accident and he’s going to surgery. That’s all I can tell you. Can you give us his full name and family contact details, please? We need to ring them urgently.’

Urgently? Her heart lurched in her chest, and for a second she thought she was going to be sick.

‘Um—yes—he’s Giovanni Valtieri. His brother Luca’s a doctor at the hospital—a professor. Contact him. He’s with the others.’ She gave them Luca’s number just to be certain, then raced to the hospital, her heart in her mouth. But in the hospital emergency department she met another brick wall, built, no doubt, by the same protocol.

‘I spoke to a nurse,’ she explained. ‘I was calling Giovanni Valtieri, and the person who answered his phone said he was here. Can I see him?’

‘Are you family?’

Yet again, she thought of lying, but it was pointless, so she just trowelled on the connection. ‘No, but I’m an old family friend. We’ve been very close since we were born—almost like brother and sister.’

And ex-lovers, she nearly added, but that was nobody else’s business and she wasn’t going to spread something so personal all over the hospital. Not when his brother worked there.

So they wouldn’t tell her any more, but that was fine. There were strings she could pull, and she fully intended to pull every single one of them. Starting with Luca…

He felt like hell.

He lay there for a moment, assessing his body. It was throbbing, and after a bit the throbbing separated out so he could catalogue it.

His right hand hurt. He tried to flex his fingers, but it didn’t seem like a good idea and anyway his hand seemed to be heavily bandaged.

OK. Right thigh—well, that certainly hurt, with a deep ache close up by his groin, but thankfully not that close.

And his right foot. They’d cut his jeans off to get to his leg, and they’d wanted to cut the boot off—his favourite boots. It had taken ages to break them in like that. He’d refused to let them, vaguely detached from it all through loss of blood. Until they’d eased it off. He hadn’t been detached then, and the last thing he remembered was the sickening pain. He must have passed out at that point.

And he had a killer headache. He frowned. She hadn’t touched his head, but maybe when he’d fallen he’d cracked it on the wall behind him. Either that or she’d had a rock in that ludicrous bag.

He breathed in, caught the hint of a familiar scent and his eyes flew open, searching for her.

‘Anita?’

She came into view, her warm brown eyes troubled. She was smiling, but there was a slight tremor in her lips, and she was pale. He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

‘Ciao, Gio,’ she murmured, leaning over him to brush a kiss against his cheek. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fine,’ he lied, but she just snorted and raised a slender, disbelieving eyebrow a fraction.

‘I am. Of course I’m all right.’

‘Well, you don’t look it. You look like you’ve been partying with the vampires.’

‘Very funny,’ he said, turning away so he didn’t have to see the worried look in her eyes.

‘I called Luca,’ she said, and he snapped his head back round again.

‘You what?’

‘I called Luca. They wouldn’t tell me anything, wouldn’t let me in to see you, so I pulled strings.’

Damn. ‘What did he say?’

‘He’s threatening to come back.’

‘That’s ridiculous! It’s just a scratch—’

‘Gio, you don’t get taken into Theatre for a scratch!’

She broke off, took a breath and then carried on in a level tone, ‘Anyway, your mother snatched the phone off him before he could say much and she’s pretty upset. I promised I’d get you to ring her the moment you came round.’

He let out a short, harsh sigh and closed his eyes.

He shouldn’t have called her—except, of course, he would have had to because he was supposed to have been picking her up en route. And when he didn’t turn up and she couldn’t get him, she would have rung alarm bells anyway.

‘You shouldn’t have called him.’

‘They already had. They asked me for family contact details, and they wouldn’t tell me anything so I had no idea how badly you’d been hurt, but it sounded bad. They used the word “urgent”,’ she said drily. ‘It didn’t seem like the time to argue.’

No, of course not. What was he thinking? The moment he’d been admitted and they found out his identity they would have been on the phone to his brother, because he worked in the hospital and was known to all of them.

And now apparently Luca was threatening to come back and his mother was in hysterics and all because some stupid, stupid woman had come after him.

‘So—what actually happened?’ she asked, perching on the edge of the chair beside him and reaching for his hand, then thinking better of it because of the bandages.

‘A client’s ex-business partner hit me with her handbag,’ he said, his voice disgusted, and she gave a tiny incredulous laugh.

‘Excuse me? Her what?’

‘Humiliating, isn’t it,’ he said drily, ‘but it gets worse. I ducked out of the way, tripped over the kerb and fell over my own refuse bag. That’ll teach me to do my recycling properly.’

Anita glared at him. ‘Gio, how can you joke about it? They told me it was serious! What really happened?’

He gave a short, dry laugh. ‘That is exactly what happened, and believe me, it feels pretty serious. I hurt like hell.’

‘I can imagine.’ She bit her lip, puzzled. She still hadn’t got to the bottom of this, she was sure. ‘So—what did she actually do to you? Really?’

‘Apart from attempting to knock me out with her handbag? Nothing. She didn’t need to. Goodness knows what she keeps in it, the thing weighed a ton. Anyway, it knocked me off balance and I fell over the refuse bag. Then I pulled the glass out. Not a smart move.’

She rolled her eyes, then frowned, sifting through his words again and coming up with something she didn’t understand. ‘What glass, Gio? Pulled it out of what?’

‘I reckon it was a wine bottle. I dropped the bag, and I heard glass breaking before I fell on it. I cut my hand when I fell, and a piece stuck in my thigh, so I pulled it out, but it wasn’t a good idea because it had severed the artery. If it happens again, apparently, I have to leave it there. Don’t worry, it missed the important bits,’ he added drily.

She glared at him, shocked he’d been hurt so badly and furious that he was treating it so lightly when she’d been going through hell. ‘This is no time for joking, Gio! A severed artery? You could have bled to death!’

He reached out his hand, then remembered and dropped it carefully back onto the covers.

‘Come round this side,’ he said gruffly, but there was a drip there and it was no better.

Actually, that wasn’t true. It was better. She sat down beside him, threaded her shaking fingers carefully through his and closed them firmly round his hand.

Dio, it felt good to hold her. The warmth from her palm spread into him and thawed the ice that seemed to have formed inside him, and as the tension eased, he realised how tight he’d been holding himself.

For a moment they said nothing, then she frowned slightly, her brow puckering as she tried to make sense of it.

‘Why did she try to attack you, Gio? Who was she? One of your thwarted lovers?’

He laughed softly. ‘No. A very disappointed woman. We had a meeting with her today, the reason I had to delay leaving, and she came off worst. She feels I cheated her.’

‘And did you?’

‘No. I just made sure she got what she deserved from my client, which was nothing,’ he said, and he watched her frown again.

‘Wow. And she attacked you for that?’

‘Well, to be fair I did most of it myself when I fell up the kerb and landed on the bag. Apparently my ankle isn’t broken, though, which is good news. It’s just bruised and sprained.’

He nearly laughed at the ‘just’ but he hurt too much to bother.

‘And your hand?’ she asked, arching a brow towards his bandaged fingers. ‘I can still see all your fingers, so I guess you didn’t cut them off.’

‘No. They seem to be there and they all move. As I say, most of it was my own fault.’

‘Mmm. That really wasn’t very clever, was it?’

He snorted at the mild understatement, and her fingers tightened a little. ‘Sorry. The police are here, by the way, waiting for you to feel well enough to talk to them. And you need to phone your mother.’

He nodded. ‘Call her now for me—I’ll talk to her first. And then I’ll talk to the police. She didn’t really do anything.’

‘Gio, she attacked you. If she hadn’t, none of this would have happened.’

‘She hit me with her handbag. That’s all. The police don’t need to be involved.’

‘And if she comes after you again?’

He shrugged. ‘She won’t. And if she does, I’ll be ready for her this time.’

She gave up arguing. She dialled his mother, handed him the phone and then left him alone and went and found something to eat and drink.

It could have been fantastic, or cardboard. It wouldn’t have made any difference, because she couldn’t taste it, not with the image of him lying there like a ghost so fresh in her mind. But it was food, and she ate it mechanically while she beat herself up about not answering his first call.

What if he’d died? What if he’d rung her, and then passed out from loss of blood before he could call an ambulance? No, he must have called one first. He surely wouldn’t have been stupid enough to call her so many times before he called the medical services? Maybe, if he had her on speed-dial. Maybe he’d thought it would be quicker, but then she hadn’t answered, and that could have cost him his life…

She felt sick, and pushed away the last of her panini. Cardboard, she decided finally, realising she was probably being unfair, but whatever, she couldn’t eat any more of it. She went back to him, and found him propped up on his pillows looking pale and drawn and very tired.