Lottie was sorely tempted to tell him what to do with his suggestion. But there was something about the hitch of his shoulders, the very slight unsteadiness in his voice, that held her back. It made her realise that he wasn’t purely dismissing her because she irritated the hell out of him—though that was undoubtedly true—but because this was a subject close to his heart...painfully close...and the last thing he wanted was for Lottie so sense his vulnerability.
Well, too bad.
‘So Ospedale D’Aosta has all the latest equipment now?’
Just saying the name of the place hurt, and she wrapped her arms around herself for comfort. It was the hospital where Seraphina had been born—where she had died so shortly afterwards.
‘That will be useful if I go into premature labour again.’
Rafael’s head shot up, and there was a look of such outrage on his face that Lottie’s hand flew to her mouth. She wished she could stuff the foolish words back in.
‘You won’t! You heard what Dr Oveisi said. That despite the accident—what happened—you are no more at risk of a premature birth than anyone else. There is no reason at all for you not to go full-term this time.’
‘I know—I know all that, Rafe.’
Lottie watched as he fought back the impulse to say any more. She knew only too well that her default setting was to hide behind flippancy and come out with some stupid comment like that. But she had never expected such a reaction from Rafael. That emotional response had come straight from the heart, from a place buried so deep inside him that she had started to think it didn’t exist.
‘I’m sure this time everything is going to be fine.’ Her throat felt tight with emotion and she swallowed noisily. ‘It’s not as if the same thing could happen again.’
‘No.’ Rafael glared savagely at her. ‘We can both be sure of that.’
The catastrophic chain of events that had changed their lives so dramatically had started late one summer’s day when Rafael had hurried out to the stables to greet a newly arrived horse. Lottie had gone with him, for no other reason than it had been a beautiful summer’s evening.
There had been a time when there could be several feral horses pawing and snorting in the stables at Monterrato. Another of Rafael’s adrenalin diversions. He had loved the challenge of training those spirited beasts, those wildly unpredictable animals that sometimes even experienced trainers had given up on. Uncharacteristically, he’d seemed to have endless patience with them, and respect too, relishing the thrill of gaining their trust, seeing their fears subside, eventually allowing him to handle them.
That particular evening had seen the arrival of a massive black stallion called Abraxas. Standing some distance away, Lottie had heard the furious clatter of hooves from inside the horsebox, thought she was obeying Rafael’s instructions to ‘stand the hell back’, and had watched as the magnificent beast had bucked and reared down the wooden ramp.
What had happened after that was little more than a blur. With a violent toss of the head and a flash of black, sweaty muscle Abraxas had somehow shaken himself free from the reins held by Rafael and come careering wildly in her direction. The next thing she had known she was curled up on the ground, clutching her swollen stomach, aware that something bad...really bad...had just happened.
Now several long years had passed and the stables stood empty and neglected. But as Rafael and Lottie faced each other in the quiet of the room it was clear that the memory of that savage night still gripped them as brutally as ever.
The helicopter ride to the hospital...the panic and pain of the birth...Rafael striding up and down corridors, powerlessness fuelling his anger as he tried to do something—anything—to end Lottie’s agony, to get the baby delivered safely, to save both their lives. And afterwards, when Lottie’s life had been out of danger and their tiny, fragile daughter had been fighting for hers, his initial relief had turned to desperate frustration when he’d been told that they didn’t have the specialist equipment to save his daughter—that her only hope of survival would be a transfer to another hospital.
He had been on the phone barking out orders, insisting he would take her in his helicopter—had had to be almost physically restrained from scooping up little Seraphina against his broad chest and dashing off with her into the night. But in the end she had proved to be just too small, too weak, and her featherlight grip on life had slipped away before even Rafael could do anything about it.
Getting up, Lottie moved around the desk towards him. She longed more than anything to feel his arms around her, for him to comfort her, to be able to comfort him. She longed for them finally to be able to share their grief instead of having it push them apart, the way it always had.