Free The Valtieri Marriage Deal by Caroline Anderson Page A

just as his father was ushered into the room.
    ‘Oh, Jodie,’ he said softly, and tears coursed down his cheeks. ‘You did it! Oh, you clever girl!’
    ‘Let me hold him,’ she said, rolling onto her back and reaching for her baby, safe in Luca’s big, gentle hands.
    ‘He’s beautiful. You did really well.’
    ‘And I didn’t need a stupid section,’ she murmured, lifting her son to her breast, and Isabelle met Luca’s eyes and surprised a wistful, yearning look that she’d never expected to see there.
    ‘Gets me every time,’ he said under his breath to her, his grin a little off kilter, and she gave a ragged little laugh.
    ‘Me, too,’ she confessed. ‘That’s why I do it.’
    ‘Me too.’ He smiled at the couple and stripped off his gloves. ‘I can leave you to finish, can I?’ he said, watching her inject the Syntocinon, and she nodded, but in truth she would have liked him there a little longer.
    ‘Can we talk through it later? Over coffee?’
    ‘Sure, come and find me when you’re done here,’ he said, and left her to it.
     
    ‘I’ve never seen a breech delivery before—it was amazing,’ Isabelle told him, her eyes shining, and he was stunned.
    ‘I think that’s shocking. You should know how to, at least. It isn’t necessary all the time to do a section—it’s just being over-cautious, and then when you have to go with it because of an emergency or a precipitate labour or because the lift gets stuck, nobody knows what to do.’
    ‘I knew the theory, but—’
    ‘—it’s not the same as the hands-on,’ he said with a smile, getting into his stride because breech delivery was a bit of a hobby-horse for him. ‘We’re too quick to intervene, and sometimes we need to go back to basics. Look at the treatment for club foot. From the 1950s we’ve been using casting and stretching in combination to correct the deformity slowly, with good results, then they discovered surgery and the outcome isn’t nearly as good in the long run. And now—eureka!—we’re going back to casting and it’s all got much more sensible again.’
    ‘But breeches are different. If you get it wrong with club foot, nobody dies.’
    ‘Nobody dies with breech if you’re on the ball and don’t take stupid risks. Everybody wants to fiddle with it, and sometimes if it’s a bit slow you need to hook the legs and arms down gently, but usually it happens by itself, and it’s just wonderful to watch.’
    ‘Do you ever need forceps?’
    He shrugged. ‘Some people use them. I hate them, but there are times when there’s no choice. Late babies are more of a problem because of the size of the head, but Jodie’s baby was a little early, not too big and it went fine. And her recovery will be much faster.’
    ‘So do you ever do a C-section for breech?’
    ‘Oh, yes, of course I do. There are some breech presentations you just can’t deliver, and I’d rather do that than end up using forceps, but I don’t have a blanket ban on vaginal breech deliveries, because I think it’s ridiculous.’
    ‘It’s hospital policy here.’
    He grinned. ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ he murmured, and she felt her heart flip over.
    He bent his head forwards, fiddling with his coffee, chasing a bubble round on the surface. Then he looked up and his eyes met hers. ‘Have dinner with me tonight after work.’
    She shook her head, so tempted it was ludicrous but too vulnerable to dare to allow it. ‘No, Luca. Please. Don’t start this again.’
    ‘Lunch in the canteen?’
    She gave a rueful laugh. ‘I won’t get a lunch break. It’s a miracle I’ve got a coffee-break.’
    ‘You work too hard.’
    ‘No. I work three days a week—and it suits me. And now I have to go back. Thanks for talking it through. It was really interesting. I’m glad you didn’t rush her to Theatre.’
    ‘Why? No point. And it’s a pleasure. Think about lunch.’
    ‘I can’t.’
    ‘Rubbish. I’ll come and find you.’
     
    She