The midwife checked. ‘105.’

‘We need to get that baby out fast.’ Alex cleaned the skin while the scrub nurse laid drapes over the woman. ‘I’m starting.’

The anaesthetist nodded to indicate that he was ready and Alex picked up the scalpel and made an incision, his movements sure and confident.

Jenny watched in stunned amazement as he cut through layers of skin and muscle with such speed that she could barely keep up with what was happening.

In no time at all he was lifting the baby out, holding it head down and below the level of the mother’s abdomen.

Somewhere in the course of the drama the paediatric and obstetric teams had arrived but seeing Alex confidently performing the emergency operation no one had interfered.

But now the baby had been delivered, they moved into action, taking the infant so that Alex could clamp and cut the cord.

The paediatricians took the baby away for assessment and Alex turned his attention back to the mother.

The atmosphere was tense and Jenny held her breath as she watched Alex work.

Would he be able to save the woman or would this be another little baby that ended up losing its mother?

Visions of Chloe, blonde-haired and laughing, flashed into her head and she swallowed down a lump in her throat.

Chloe shouldn’t have died. She’d been so young.

Life was so unfair.

Oblivious to her distress, Alex was still concentrating on the mother. ‘Here’s the problem,’ he said finally, gently removing the placenta from the uterus. ‘Her placenta has started to come away. We need to give her some blood.’

‘The lab just called with her results,’ Jenny told him quickly, pushing aside the painful memories, ‘so we’ve ordered some blood from the blood bank. It should be here any minute.’

‘Right.’ Alex glanced towards Hugo, the obstetric consultant. ‘Over to you to close, if you don’t mind. I want to try and sort the rest of her out.’

Hugo gave a wry smile. ‘That was a pretty impressive section. I used to think I was fast until I saw that. Remind me never to travel in a car with you, if that’s the speed you do everything.’

Alex smiled but he was already ripping off his gloves and turning his attention back to the patient, his eyes flickering to the monitors that gave him vital clues as to her condition.

There was a sudden wail from the corner of the room and Jenny gave a silent prayer of thanks.

The baby was crying.

Alex glanced up sharply. ‘Is he OK?’

The paediatrician nodded. ‘Seems to be. Bit on the small side, of course. Probably going to need a bit of help with his breathing but he’s pretty good on the whole.’

Hugo glanced up from closing the uterus. ‘Good job, Westerling. A few more minutes and that baby would have been dead. For a wealthy playboy you don’t do half badly.’

But underneath the humour there was respect in his tone and Jenny bit her lip, realising that Alex had saved the baby’s life.