Shepherding her to one of the two waiting ambulances, the paramedic steadied her as she climbed inside. ‘What are you doing?’ Callie demanded when he swung in behind her.
‘Collecting my jacket?’ Luca suggested dryly.
The paramedic gave him a broad wink, but had the good sense to appear busy with paperwork when the doors closed and the ambulance set off. Callie disapproved of him accompanying her to the hospital. Too bad. As she had been a member of his staff, he had a duty of care towards her, and with a baby on the horizon that duty had doubled.
‘You saved her, mate,’ the paramedic put in as he settled down.
This wasn’t how he’d pictured his reunion with Callie. He just wanted her to be safe.
‘Have you been spying on me?’ Callie asked, careful not to let their companion hear her conversation.
He shrugged. He wasn’t going to lie. It was a fine line between his security team’s protection service and overstepping the mark. ‘Your welfare and that of our child is my only concern.’
She blenched. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so pale. ‘Are you all right? Pain? You’re not—’
‘No. At least, I don’t think so.’ Her eyes were wide with fear as she stared at him. She reached for his hand. For the first time, she looked vulnerable. This was a very different woman from the Callie he’d met in Italy. This was a woman afraid for her unborn child, and discovering she cared for that child far more than she cared for herself. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘As if I’m special and you’re glad you’re here.’
‘You are special. You’re about to become a mother, the mother of my child. And if I am looking at you, it’s only because you’re covered in grit and filth and need a good wash.’
‘Charming, mate,’ the paramedic piped up, proving that he wasn’t lost in his work after all. ‘Which charm school did you attend?’
‘I didn’t go to school until I was ten,’ Luca admitted wryly. ‘And then it was the school of hard knocks.’
‘Hey, wait a minute,’ the paramedic exclaimed, turning to stare at Luca intently. ‘Aren’t you that billionaire bloke who started life in the gutters of Rome and became a prince?’ And when Luca didn’t reply, he added, ‘What are you doing in Blackpool?’
He winked at Callie. ‘I’ve been checking out a new set of gutters, mate.’
‘Don’t you worry,’ the paramedic told Callie. ‘I won’t tell a soul. And you’re going to be okay, love, we’ll make sure of that.’
The atmosphere lightened a little, and Callie didn’t resist when Luca put his arm around her and drew her close.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCA WAS BACK. Callie’s mind was in turmoil, and as for her heart... What a time for him to choose to come back! The best time, she conceded gratefully as the ambulance raced towards the hospital. She knew shock was playing a part in her mixed-up feelings, but on top of the accident and Luca returning to find her, and above all the fear that her recent fall had harmed the baby, her thoughts were spinning around and around.
‘Okay?’
Had she really believed that putting distance between them would lessen her feelings for him? This wasn’t the Amalfi coast where she could make the excuse of her senses being heightened by sunlight and laughter, but a grey northern coastal town in winter, and yet Luca was as compelling as ever.
‘Hey,’ he whispered. ‘You’re safe now.’
His arms seemed designed to protect. They had certainly protected Callie when she’d needed him. And now Luca’s embrace was sending a very different kind of shiver spinning down her spine.
‘Look at me,’ he whispered. ‘I said, you’re safe.’
Even with his hair tousled and grazes down one side of his face, Luca looked what he was: a hero, her hero. When they’d first met it had been lust at first sight for Callie, but now it was something much more.
‘Callie?’
Instinctively nursing her still-flat stomach, as if to protect the child inside, she stared into Luca’s eyes.
‘We’re here,’ he explained gently. ‘We’ve arrived at the hospital.’
‘Oh...’