The chink of ice made her glance towards the entrance to their villa, where Salvio was standing holding two tall, frosted glasses. As he began to walk towards her she wondered how a man could look so utterly at ease, completely naked save for his sunhat.
Handing her a glass, he joined her on the lounger and for a while they sipped their drinks in silence.
‘Salvio,’ she said eventually, watching the ice melt in the fruity cocktail.
He turned his face towards her. ‘Mmm...?’
‘What am I actually going to do? I mean, once we get back to England and you go back to work.’
He swirled the ice around in his glass, his fingers dark against the sunlit condensation. ‘Weren’t we planning to have a baby?’
‘Yes, we were. Are,’ she corrected. ‘But that might not happen straight away, might it? And I can’t just sit around all the time just...waiting.’
There was a pause. ‘You want me to find you something to do?’ He studied her carefully. ‘There’s a charitable arm belonging to my company. Do you think you’d like to get involved in that?’
She hesitated, genuine surprise tearing through her at the realisation he must think her good enough to be a part of his organisation. But it wasn’t his validation which pleased her as much as the thought that this would make her a more integral part of his life—and wasn’t that what marriage was all about? ‘I’d like that very much.’ She smiled, but his next words killed her pleasure stone dead.
‘You know your brother tapped me for a loan at the wedding?’
The glass she was holding almost slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers and quickly Molly put it down, her cheeks flaming. ‘What?’
‘He said he had an idea for a new business venture and asked if I’d like to invest in it.’
‘You didn’t say yes?’
‘You think I’m in the habit of throwing money away? I asked him how much he had already raised, and how—but he seemed reluctant to answer.’ Beneath the shadowed brim of his hat, she saw that his eyes were now as hard and as cold as jet. ‘Did you know about this, Molly?’
It hurt that he should ask but, when she thought about it afterwards, why wouldn’t he ask? Salvio had been a target for women during his playing days and had fallen for someone who saw him as nothing but a trophy husband. He made no secret of not trusting women—so why should he feel any differently about her?
‘Of course I didn’t know he was going to ask you,’ she said in a low voice. ‘And if he’d sought my opinion I would have told him not to even think about it.’
He nodded as he stared out at the bright blue horizon and the subject was closed. But Molly’s determination not to let his silky accusation ruin the rest of the day only went so far, and suddenly she was aware of the aching disappointment which made the sunny day feel as if it had been darkened by a cloud.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘SO HOW LONG will you be away?’ Amid the croissant-crumbed debris of their early-morning breakfast, Molly glanced across the glass dining table at Salvio, who was reading one of the Italian newspapers he had couriered to his London apartment each morning.
‘Only a few days,’ he said, lifting his dark head to look at her. ‘I’m just flying into Los Angeles for back-to-back meetings and then out again.’
‘It seems an awfully long way to go,’ she observed, taking a final sip of the inky black coffee she’d learned to love and which she now drank in preference to cappuccino. ‘For such a short visit.’
‘It is. So why don’t you come with me?’ His eyes gleamed as he put the newspaper down. ‘We could add on a few extra days and take the highway to San Francisco. Turn it into a holiday. You’ve never been to the US, have you?’
She’d never actually been further than the Isle of Wight and that had been years ago. Highly tempted, Molly considered the idea, until she remembered her own responsibilities. ‘I can’t. I have a lunch with the charity later.’
‘You could always cancel it.’
‘I can’t just cancel it, Salvio, or it won’t look like I’m committed. Like I’m only playing at being on the board just because I’m your wife.’
A smile played around the edges of his lips as he got up and moved towards her, his dark eyes glittering with an expression she knew so well. ‘Which means you’ll just have to be patient and wait for me to get back, mia sposa, even though it means you’ll be without me for four whole nights. In fact, just thinking about it makes me want to kiss you.’
A kiss quickly turned into Molly being carried into their bedroom with a demonstration of that effortless mastery which still dazzled her, no matter how many times it happened. She loved the way he impatiently removed the clothes he’d only just put on and the way he explored her body as if he had just stumbled across a newly discovered treasure. She loved the warm skin-to-skin contact with this man as they tumbled hungrily onto the bed. She loved him, she suddenly realised, as he plunged deep inside her. She just couldn’t help herself.
She was still feeling faintly dizzy with pleasure when Salvio returned from the shower wearing the lazy smile of the satisfied predator, and she watched him as he began to dress. ‘You are insatiable,’ she observed.
‘And don’t you just hate it?’ he mocked, picking up his tie and walking over to the mirror to knot it.
She hardly ever noticed his almost imperceptible limp but she noticed it today—and something about the contrast of frailty and strength which existed in his powerful body stirred a memory in her which she had unwittingly stored away.