Free Womanizer (Spoilt) by Joanne Ellis

...”
    “Have you seen the baby yet?”
    “Elle, her name is Elle, and yes, she is beautiful and asleep in the nursery.” A brief smile touched her lips before her brow furrowed with anxiety.
    Charlotte rested her head on his shoulder. With the hope of offering some comfort , he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. They sat like this as the minutes passed and Mitch knew this was what she needed. He didn’t have to speak. Hours passed before a doctor finally returned to update them.
    “ Mr Hudson?”
    Lucas stopped, turned towards him and held his breath. “Your wife is going to be fine. We were able to stop the bleeding and she is in recovery. There has been no permanent damage and she will be able to have more children. There was a problem with the placenta which is uncommon and unlikely to occur again. Perhaps next time your wife should take it a little easier during the last weeks of her pregnancy.”
    Lucas let out a loud relieved breath and returned the doctor’s smile.
    “You try telling her that,” Lucas said. “Can I see her?”
    “Yes, come with me.”
    Lucas followed the doctor out into the hall and the spring had returned to his step. His relief was huge. This was the second time he’d nearly lost Chelsea, and from what Mitch’s brothers had told him, almost losing her the first time made him crazy and Mitch dreaded to think what would have happened to him if she hadn’t pulled through.
    “She’s alright,” Charlotte spoke in a whisper. “Thanks for staying, Mitch , but I’ll be OK now.”  She lifted her head from his shoulder and offered him a wide grin.
    “I’m not leaving until you are ready and then I’ll take you home.”
    “Once I see Chelsea, I’ll be ready.”
    When Lu cas returned, Charlotte went briefly to see her sister before Mitch drove her home. Upon arriving home himself he checked the time and wondered whether Isabelle was still at the shoot or home. Due to the lateness of the hour he decided not to call so he wouldn’t disturb Jesse, regardless of how much he wanted to talk to her. He would see her at work tomorrow and he hoped she would understand his absence.
     
    * * *
     
    Isabelle arrived early at the foreshore hoping to catch Mitch before she went into hair and makeup. After a quick scan she noticed Anton and not Mitch setting up. Why was Anton  - whom she disliked immensely - the photographer and not Mitch? Where was he? She wandered into the styling area to find Amber, another makeup artist she had a strong rapport with.
    After exchanging pleasantries , Isabelle decided to see what Amber knew about the absence of the man she had spent the previous night with. Concern prickled her skin and she wondered whether he was avoiding her. Had she been womanized?
    “Why is Anton shooting? I thought Mitch Montgomery was working tonight.’
    “He was but apparently he called in to say he couldn’t make it.”
    “Oh, do you know why?”
    Amber shrugged and launched into the latest gossip of who was doing who. If only Amber knew exactly who had done who and then been duped.
    All through the shoot Isabelle mulled over why Mitch had cancelled. Perhaps there was an emergency. No, he would have called her. The reason was suddenly very clear; he was avoiding her. The very thing she thought would happen, had. Fooled by the womanizing creep. His charm and what she had thought was true sincerity had sucked her in good and proper and she had become another notch on his proverbial bedpost. How could she have been so stupid, especially since she’d introduced him to Jesse? What had she been thinking? Was she that desperate for sex that she jumped into bed with the wrong man?
    She believed he was genuine and had taken a chance , but it appeared he was exactly as she had assumed. Stupidly, she was the one who had initiated the date and then the ‘sleep over’, thinking there was a connection between them, something special, when in fact she was just another