Valentino's Pregnancy Bombshell by Amy Andrews Read Free Book Online Page A

rounder, no angles. Her hair in a caramel bob. And she was laughing, her grey eyes lit with an easy humour.
    Interesting.
    His gaze returned to her as she stepped out onto the deck, her back ramrod straight, very different from the relaxed woman in the picture. Although it was lost in the fold of a voluminous shirt, he still remembered how her back had looked, long and elegant, bare to the hollow, on the night of Alessandro’s wedding.
    Still remembered running his fingers down the naked length of it as they had danced, and the way her breath had caught, the ragged edge to her breathing.
    Heat in his loins had Valentino gripping the tray a little harder and searching for something to take his mind off how well he knew every inch of her body.
    Not just her back.
    â€˜Does she know about tomorrow?’ he asked as Paige indicated for him to take the seat opposite her at a sturdy wooden table.
    Paige glared at him as she made room for McKenzie on her chair. ‘Of course.’
    Valentino ignored the steel in her voice and the seating suggestion as he sat himself at the head of the table closest to her. If he had to force-feed her, she was going to have to be within arm’s reach.
    â€˜Okay,’ he said, plonking the tray between them and handing her a glass. ‘Do you want to tell her who I am?’
    Paige took the glass automatically. It was a perfectly sensible idea. She’d put off telling McKenzie that Dr Harry wouldn’t be doing her surgery until bedtime. Now, particularly as McKenzie seemed quite enamoured with Valentino, seemed as good a time as any.
    â€˜McKenzie?’ Paige touched her daughter’s arm.‘This is Dr Lombardi.’ She spelt out each letter of his name even though she knew that at three McKenzie had no concept of spelling.
    McKenzie looked at him. ‘Valentino,’ he reiterated, signing his first name.
    Paige bristled. ‘Dr Valentino,’ she corrected, her voice firm, her signing slashing at the air. ‘Dr Harry had to go and visit his grandson who is very sick so he can’t do the operation to make you hear again. Dr Valentino is going to do it instead.’
    McKenzie looked from her mother to Valentino and back to her mother. ‘Dr Valentino is going to make me hear?’ she signed.
    Valentino looked at Paige, saw the way she nodded confidently, even though her eyes were worried.
    â€˜Yes,’ she said.
    McKenzie turned to look at him with her big blue eyes as serious as her mother’s. After a moment she transferred her gaze back to Paige. ‘Okay,’ she signed, and reached for a piece of bread.
    Paige blinked. That had been easy. McKenzie adored Harry. Trusted him. He’d been her specialist for over three years now, since her diagnosis in the NICU, and she loved it when he came to visit her in hospital. Paige glanced at Valentino, searching for a reason. He looked up at her simultaneously with dark espresso eyes and smiled at her, dimples on high beam.
    Her stomach looped the loop. Could it be that simple?
    McKenzie tugged her arm and she dragged her gaze from his. ‘Can I watch The Wiggles ?’ she signed.
    She nodded and said, ‘Sure.’
    McKenzie climbed off the chair and Paige followed her inside to set up the DVD, thanking modern technology and The Wiggles for their special DVDs for deaf kids, complete with Auslan interpreter at the bottom of the screen. Just because her daughter was profoundly deaf, it didn’t mean she didn’t like to wiggle with the rest of the toddlers.
    Paige smiled as McKenzie’s curls bounced and she laughed at something the red Wiggle had said. But beneath her smile was profound sadness that McKenzie couldn’t even hear the sound of her own laughter. Only the prospect of tomorrow, of starting a whole new chapter, dragged Paige out of her gloom.
    Valentino watched an even more subdued Paige walk back towards him. She pulled up her chair, picked up her glass and