The medic responded to this heartfelt observation with a nod of his head. ‘Unfortunately Mr Latimer’s own security overreacted to the situation and we have also had to exclude them. I’m George Robinson, part of Mr Stirling’s team. I’ll get a nurse to show you to the SCBU. Miss Curtis is with her brother.’
‘A boy?’
The doctor nodded. ‘Very small, as you’d expect, but his condition is stable. It is the mother we are more concerned about at this juncture.’
In the special care baby unit and feeling very much out of his comfort zone, Draco nodded his thanks when given a gown to put on, and, after washing his hands, he was shown the way to a glass-panelled side room.
The nurse who escorted him was speaking, something comforting, he thought, but Draco, who nodded absently at intervals, was only catching one word in three. His heart nearly stopped when he saw Eve through the glass sitting side on to the door. She was enveloped in the same sort of gown he was wearing, but on her it reached the floor. As he stared she reached forward, her eyes trained on the tiny scrap of humanity in the incubator, attached to tubes and wires that bleeped. The baby appeared smaller than Eve’s hand, and the loving expression on her face as she gently touched her finger to the baby’s thin cheek brought a film of moisture to his eyes.
Eve heard the nurse enter but didn’t take her eyes off the tiny figure in the incubator. Babies should be plump and pink but her baby brother was tiny and wizened, his skin shiny. It looked so fragile that she was afraid to touch him even though they had said that the contact was good for the baby.
‘Sorry I let the tea go cold.’ Logically she knew the baby couldn’t hear her, that his sleep was controlled by the drugs being fed into him and the machines that breathed for him, but she struggled to raise her voice above a whisper. ‘He’s not in pain, is he?’ It didn’t seem possible that the tubes protruding from his fragile little body could not cause him pain.
Slowly Eve withdrew her hand and turned her head, her eyes widening when she saw him.
Draco had anticipated many reactions from her and he had as many responses ready. He knew the one he should have used six weeks ago—he was staying. But it was the reaction he had not anticipated and that he was not prepared for that was the one he actually got.
Something else he was not prepared for was the strength of the feelings that broke loose inside him at the sight of her. She looked so vulnerable and so beautiful that in that second he knew he would have died to save her a moment’s pain.
Far better, though, to live for her.
She looked like someone in a trance as she got to her feet, not shouting at him, not rejecting him, but with a tremulous smile on her face and a glow in her green eyes made even more dramatic by the dark shadows beneath them that sent a surge of relief through him.
‘You’re really here?’ It was like a dream but the past few hours…Eve had no idea how many…had been a complete nightmare.
Unconscious he had said her name, Draco took a stride towards her and with a cry she flung herself at him, her arms going around his middle as her face burrowed into his chest. Draco did the only thing possible: he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close to his body as she sobbed and clung to him.
‘Just came to say I’m off duty if you—’ The midwife, nodding with benevolent approval, took the emotional scene in her stride, having seen many, and left them to it.
‘Sorry,’ Eve mumbled into his chest. The sobs that had shaken her had stopped but she stayed where she was, leaning heavily into him and unable to summon the strength or the will power to pull free. ‘I missed you.’