One Night With The Italian Doc. Kate Hardy

      ‘Louise.’

      ‘No!’ She would not hear it.

      ‘I apologise. I did not realise the pagers were down.’

      ‘I did,’ Louise said instantly. ‘When you didn’t come, or make contact, it was the first thing I thought—not that you were negligent and simply couldn’t be bothered to get here …’

      Her lips were white she was so angry. ‘I’m going to speak to Brenda and put in an incident report about the pagers today, and while I’m there I’m going to tell her I don’t want to work with you any more.’

      ‘That’s a bit extreme.’

      ‘It’s isn’t extreme. I’ve thought about doing it before.’ She saw him blink in surprise. ‘Everything I do you check again—’

      ‘Louise …’ Anton wasn’t about to deny it. He checked on her more than the other midwives, he was aware of that. In trying to protect her, to protect them, from what had happened to him and Dahnya, he had gone over the top. ‘If I can explain—’

      But Louise was beyond hearing him. She lost her temper then and Louise hadn’t lost her temper since that terrible day. ‘You don’t want a midwife,’ Louise shouted, ‘you want a doula, rubbing the mums’ backs and offering support. Well, I’m over it, Anton. Have you any idea how demoralising it is?’ she raged, though possibly she was talking more to Wesley than Anton. ‘Have you any idea how humiliating it is …?’

      Anton took a step forward, to speak, to calm her down, and then stood frozen as he heard the fear in her voice.

      ‘Get off me!’ She put her hands up in defence and there was a shocked moment of silence when she realised what she had said, what she had done, but then came his calm voice.

      ‘I’m not touching you, Louise.’

      She pressed her hands to her face and her fingers to her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ Louise said, ‘not for what I said before but—’

      ‘It’s okay.’ Anton was breathless too, as if her unleashed fear had somehow attached to him. ‘We’ll talk when you’ve calmed down.’

      ‘No.’ Louise shook her head, embarrassed at her outburst but still cross. ‘We won’t talk because I don’t want to hear it, Anton.’ And then turned and left.

      She was done.