Valentino's Pregnancy Bombshell Read Online Free Page B

caloric requirements. Paige Donald came low down on Paige Donald’s list of priorities. And, besides, things just tasted so bland.
    A hoot of laugher outside in the corridor pulled Paige out of her reverie and she pushed thoughts of Valentino aside. This was daytime. Tonight she could think about him again, dream about him again. Vivid dreams that woke her in a sweat with parts of her throbbing, his name on her lips, his taste in her mouth.
    She busied herself getting the theatre set up, grabbing the trolleys and positioning them correctly around the operating table, wiping them down with a solution of surgical spirits. She exited the theatre via the back door into the sterilising room. Four sterilised trays wrappedin special blue disposable cloth were waiting for her and she grabbed the nearest, along with extra drapes and gowns and two pairs of size-eight gloves for Harry and his resident.
    She dumped them on the trolleys inside the theatre, ready to be opened by the scout nurse while she herself was at the sinks scrubbing up. She went back out again, selecting other bits and pieces she knew Harry would need—suture material, dressings and, of course, the actual implant device itself.
    Paige turned the boxed bionic ear around in her hands. It was hard to believe that something so innocuous could give such a precious gift. That come Monday one would be implanted into McKenzie’s head. She hugged it to her chest, sending up a quick prayer into the universe.
    Please let everything be okay.
    She went back into the theatre, dropping the extras on the trolley. A noise from the anaesthetic room alerted her to Harry’s arrival and she smiled. It was nice working for someone as dedicated as she was. Paige glanced at her watch. Now, while they were still alone, was as good a time as any to ask her boss the question.
    She shoved open the swing doors with her shoulder, ready to launch into her spiel. Excited even. Except the man in the anaesthetic room wasn’t Harry. He wasn’t thin and a little stooped and grey-haired. He was big and broad with curls of dark hair escaping the confines of his theatre cap to brush the neckline of his scrubs. Even if she hadn’t dreamt about that back every night for thelast two months, the lurch low down in her pelvis would have alerted her to his identity anyway.
    Valentino Lombardi looked up from the theatre list he’d been studying and turned. Neither of them said anything for a few moments as a host of memories bubbled between them.
    Valentino swallowed. He’d been prepared to see her again but totally unprepared for the sucker punch to his gut as her big grey eyes, round with shock, met his.
    â€˜Paige. Bella. We meet again.’
    Paige blinked. She even blushed a little as the things they’d done together made her awkward beneath his gaze. It didn’t help that he filled out a pair of surgical scrubs better than any man on the planet.
    She’d seen him in a tux and in the buff and now in a set of scrubs. Was there nothing the man didn’t look magnificent in? ‘Valentino?’
    What did he think he was he doing here? Was he here to observe? To assist? Didn’t he live in Rome? Or London? Where was Harry?
    Valentino saw the confusion in her gaze and shot her a lazy grin. He’d relegated their one night two months ago to a pleasant interlude and done his hardest to forget about it. But standing before him now in baggy scrubs, no make-up, her hair covered in a sexless blue theatre hat, he finally admitted he hadn’t forgotten one second of their time together.
    A strange unease descended on them and he couldn’t bear it.
    Paige’s heart skipped a couple of beats and then accelerated as his low flirty voice oozed into all the places that still craved his touch. The pinkness in her cheeks deepened as she remembered where his mouth had been. Oh, God! This wouldn’t do at all.
    â€˜Dr Lombardi.’ Paige’s voice was