Dani Collins - Modern Romance March 2019 5-8

What a saint, admired the ironic voice in his head.

All right, he was no saint, but he was not this Callum guy who, he suspected, she might still have feelings for. The idea might have bothered a jealous man; luckily Ivo was a stranger to that emotion.

‘ I see.’

Ivo tipped his head in acknowledgement and began to step back inside the room, but it appeared that the relief of being relieved of some of the burden he’d been shouldering had made the normally taciturn Ramon uncharacteristically talkative and emotional.

‘That must be hard for you.’

It didn’t seem to require an answer so Ivo said nothing.

‘Keeping secrets from the person you love, not being able to share the burden, your grief. I had someone once, but no longer... I envy you.’ Ramon gave another precise little nod, slightly embarrassed-looking this time, and walked away.

Ivo watched him go. If he’d felt the need to reach out to Flora...a woman, any woman, he would have crushed it instantly. He had no desire to be part of a relationship where two people blurred into one. The mere idea was anathema to him. He realised this romantic ideal of a joining of souls was what many dreamt of, but to him it represented a loss of control, of sanity, of the essence of his individuality.

The only merging he wanted was of bodies.

When he walked back inside his face was carefully blank, denying there was any struggle going on inside him.

* * *

Ivo was tense about the breakfast; the conversation with Ramon had made him realise that his grandfather was a lot more unpredictable than he’d realised.

It sounded as though his behaviour was such that, had he not been who he was, rich, powerful and pretty much a law unto himself, had he not surrounded himself, with a few exceptions, with people who would have agreed if he’d called day night, people might already be asking questions.

Or if you, his only family, had been around a bit more.

Ivo took the hit of guilt, pretty sure he deserved it.

He need not have worried; the breakfast couldn’t have gone better. Nobody meeting Salvatore for the first time would have known there was anything wrong. If he misspoke a few times...well, people did.

He was charming, funny and full of praise for Flora and the job she was doing. And he was emotional when he got to hold his great-grandson, who he decided looked exactly like his father, at which point he became tearful.

His tears evoked a sympathetic response in Flora, who didn’t know that Salvatore never usually cried.

Ivo, worried about the mood shift, found himself moving protectively to Flora’s side as she lifted the baby off his grandfather’s lap, whereupon Jamie began to cry.

Ivo could have kissed the baby for his excellent timing. Salvatore did and then began to weep again.

‘He’s lovely,’ Flora said, sending up a reproachful look to the man walking beside her. ‘I can’t believe how nervous I was, and he looks quite well...?’ She hesitated a little before adding huskily, ‘He’s not in pain, is he?’

Ivo shook his head. Then, seeing the look of concern on her face as she pressed her fingers to the back of the baby’s neck, he asked sharply, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Does he look flushed to you?’

Ivo didn’t say anything. Jamie clearly did to her.

She touched his neck again. ‘He feels hot to me,’ she fretted.

Ivo could hear the panic in her voice. ‘He looks fine to me.’

She shrugged off the hand he’d placed on her shoulder and shook her head, missing his reaction to the rejection.

‘You’re worried?’

She shrugged her slender shoulders and lifted her troubled eyes to the figure standing with his back to one of the windows against the distant background of the blue sea.

He looked so big, so solid and so calm that she felt a little of her panic subside.

‘Sorry, you must think I’m crazy.’ She loosed a self-mocking laugh. ‘I used to wonder how I’d cope if Jamie was ill and I was alone, now I know I’d panic.’

‘For starters, we don’t know he’s ill and you’re not alone...or panicking...’ He shook his head. ‘Borderline at best.’

Not alone. She didn’t make the mistake of reading anything into that, although the wistful feeling his words had shaken loose remained.

‘It’s just his heart. I’m sure it’s nothing to do with that.’

‘You’ll feel a lot surer after the doctors have seen him. Leave it to me.’

Despite the fact she had told herself that morning that one thing she was not going to do was become too reliant on Ivo, she found herself sighing with relief.

‘Thank you.’

This time she turned her cheek into the hand that an instinct he couldn’t control had made him place on her shoulder, despite the earlier rejection. The reaction to feeling her soft cheek against his skin was just as strong and unexpected a reaction as her earlier rejection had been.

He let his hand fall away and stepped back.

‘I’ll organise it, then. You have the name of your GP and Jamie’s consultant?’

She nodded and gave them. ‘I don’t have any paper.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll remember them.’

* * *

When the doctor arrived, a mere thirty minutes later to Flora’s relief, she was dreading having to explain, especially if there was a language problem.

There wasn’t and he seemed to have a full grasp of Jamie’s medical history.

A very short time later, and after a thorough examination of the by now cranky baby, he confirmed that the baby did have a mild fever and diagnosed a virus...basically a cold.

‘And his heart?’

‘No problem there that I can detect. When is his next appointment?’

‘Six months’ time.’

‘Well, you are in good hands and this young man has a fine set of lungs. I knew Bruno, a good man, tragic, so tragic.’

Flora, her throat thick with emotion and unshed tears, nodded.

‘So the analgesic syrup four-to-six hourly, keep him cool and lots of fluids, any problems, you know where I am.’ He glanced towards the sitting room where Ivo, who had not accompanied him into the nursery, was waiting. ‘Or at least Ivo does. Those of us who know him were pleased to hear about his engagement and I am even more pleased now I have met you.’ His charring smirk faded as he added, ‘Ivo has few friends but those who are would die for him. He pretends he doesn’t care but he—well, I don’t have to tell you this, do I? Have you known him long?’

Blinking at this extraordinary endorsement and realising that nothing he’d said had surprised her, Flora shook her head. She already knew that Ivo’s mask of toughness, and coldness, hid deep feelings, but she also knew that he’d never share those feelings, or at least not with her. ‘No.’

‘Well, it doesn’t take long, does it, when you meet the right one?’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Flora said the words quickly because she didn’t want to think about them too hard.

Quickly, but not quick enough to stop the flood, the relentless stream of images that began to flicker across her retina.

She blinked, her jaw tight as she struggled to halt the slide show. It felt as if a tug of war were going on in her head. She was pulling one way and... truth was pulling the other.

She couldn’t have fallen in love; she hadn’t put Ivo on a pedestal; she wasn’t blind to his faults. She didn’t even like him a lot of the time. She was just getting carried away by the great sex.

‘So, everything good?’

She started guiltily and swung around, the rope of plait that hung down her back whipping around a moment after she did, landing with a thump over one shoulder.

She saluted him with the bottle of baby medicine in her hand. ‘Yes.’ Jamie, lying in the crib, chose that moment to give a cranky cry. ‘He has a cold.’