CAROL MARINELLI - The Baby Of Their Dreams

She had, through high school, always wanted to be a surgeon yet as a medical student she had stepped into the emergency department and had been quickly ushered into Resus to observe the treatment of a patient who had just come in.

A cyclist had lain there unconscious with a massive head injury. Cat had watched in silent awe as the staff had brought his dire condition under control. His heart, which hadn’t been beating, had been restarted. His airway had been secured and the seizures that had then started to rack his body had been halted with drugs.

She had been sure at first that he would die and yet he had made it to Theatre and then on to Intensive Care.

She had followed him up and found out a week later that he had been transferred to a ward. She had gone in to see him, expecting what, she hadn’t known. Certainly not a young man sitting up in bed, laughing and talking with his girlfriend, who was sitting by his side.

He should be dead, Cat had thought, though, of course, she didn’t say that. Instead, she’d chatted to him for a few moments, unable to truly comprehend that here he was, not just alive but laughing and living.

Emergency medicine had become her passion right there and then. Yes, at twenty years old she had known she was a long way off being as skilled as the staff who had attended the cyclist that day.

Slowly she had got there, though.

And now here she was, coming to the top of her game.

So why the restlessness?

Cat glanced up at the board and rolled her eyes when she saw that her flight was delayed, and decided to wander around the shops.

Oh, there was Gemma’s dress!

She was sure that it was, though looking at the price tag, not quite sure enough to buy it without checking, so she took a photo and fired a quick text to her friend.

Is this it?

It was, and Gemma promised to love her for ever and forgive any stuffed donkeys she might bring home for the twins if Cat would buy it for her.

She bought some duty-free perfume too, as well as her favourite lip gloss and…no—no condoms.

Finally the plane was boarding and Cat, along with her purchases, was on her way.

She didn’t read through her talk again. She dozed most of the way, trying to drown out the sound of overexcited children and their parents. As they disembarked she almost forgot the dress but luckily she grabbed it at the last minute.

Very luckily, as it turned out.

Having spent hours watching an empty baggage carousel, seeing the shutters go down on all the airport shops and filling in numerous forms, she was doing her level best to hold it together as she climbed out of the taxi and walked into the hotel. It was close to midnight.

Her luggage was lost, her hair was a joke.

And tomorrow, at nine, she had to deliver the most important presentation of her life.

CAT WOKE BEFORE her breakfast was delivered and lay there.

She remembered a day seven years ago and wished, how she wished, that there was a seven-year-old waiting to open his birthday presents and to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to.

It was a hard picture to paint and each year it got harder.

Was Mike in this happy family picture and did Thomas have brothers and sisters now?

No, she didn’t miss Mike and the perfect world they had been building. She missed, on Thomas’s behalf, all that he had been denied.

She couldn’t afford to cry, especially given the fact she had no make-up with her and so she headed to the bathroom to set to work with the little she had.

With her heavy-duty hair straighteners neatly packed in her lost luggage, she was very grateful for the hair serum she had bought and applied an awful lot in an attempt to tame her long, wild curly hair.

When her breakfast was delivered she walked out onto the balcony and tried to calm herself with the spectacular view of the Mediterranean. It was just after seven but already the air was warm. The coffee was hot and strong and Cat tried to focus on her speech. It will be fine, she told herself, refusing to fall apart because she didn’t have the perfect, perfect pale grey suit and the pale ballet pumps in the softest buttery leather to wear.

They were here to hear her words, Cat reminded herself.

Yet she couldn’t quite convince herself that it didn’t matter what she wore or how she looked.

Neutral.

That was how she always tried to appear.

There was nothing neutral about her today, she thought as she slipped on Gemma’s dress.

Her rather ample bust was accentuated by the lace, the halter-neck showed far too much of her brown back—the tan was from painting the window frames on her last lot of days off, rather than lying on the beach. Her hair she tied back with the little white band that came with the shower cap in the bathroom and then she covered it with a thick strand of black hair.

A squirt of duty-free perfume, a slick of lip gloss and she would simply have to do.

Yet, she thought, having tied up her espadrilles, as she stood and looked in the mirror, while never in a million years would she have chosen this outfit for anything related to work, she liked how it looked. She wouldn’t even have chosen it for anything out of work either. Generally she was in shorts or jeans when sorting out the renovations. Yes, she liked how she looked today. It reminded her of how she had looked before she’d had…

Cat halted herself right there.

She simply could not afford the luxury of breaking down.

Tonight, Cat told herself. Tonight she would order room service and a bottle of wine and reminisce.

Today she had to get on.

She had one last flick through her notes and then she headed out to register for the conference and also to check that everything was in place for her talk.

She was just putting her swipe card in her bag when the elevator doors opened and she looked up to an empty lift, bar one occupant.

Bar One was tall and unshaven with grey eyes and his dark hair was a touch too long yet he looked effortlessly smart in dark pants and a white shirt. All this she noted as she stood there and briefly wondered if she should simply let this lift go.

For some bizarre reason that seemed far easier than stepping in.

‘Buenos días,’ Bar One said, and then frowned at her indecision as to whether or not to enter.

‘Buenos días,’ Cat replied, gave him a brisk smile and stepped in. The floor number for the function rooms had already been pressed and as she glanced to the side and down, anywhere other than his eyes, she noted he too was an owner of the softest buttery leather shoes.

His luggage clearly hadn’t been lost.

And neither was he wearing socks.

Three, Cat thought as his cologne met her nostrils and she found herself doing a very quick audit as to the number of garments that would remain on his lovely body once he’d kicked off those shoes.

Talk about thinking like a man!

She blamed Gemma, of course. It was her fault for putting such ideas in her head, Cat decided as the lift opened at the next floor and unfortunately no one got in.

He said something else in Spanish and Cat shook her head. ‘Actually, buenos días is as far as my Spanish goes.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought you were a local.’

His accent was English and he had just delivered a compliment indeed, because the locals, Cat had worked out during her prolonged time at the airport last night, were a pretty stunning lot.

‘Nope.’ She shook her head.

The lift doors opened and he wished her a good day as he went to step out.

‘And you,’ she offered.

‘Sadly not,’ he replied, and nodded to the gathering crowd outside the elevators. ‘I’m working.’