The Italian's Christmas Housekeeper

‘So this sudden marriage is going to come as a bolt out of the blue to your parents, isn’t it?’

‘And?’ he questioned coolly. ‘Your point is?’

She studied her left hand warily, as if she couldn’t quite get used to the diamond knuckle-duster she was wearing. ‘I’d prefer not to say anything about my pregnancy—at least, not yet. It’s still very early days. I just thought it might be nice if we could at least allow them to think it might be about more than just the unwanted fallout of a...a...’

Her words tailed away and Salvio wondered if, in her innocence, she simply didn’t know all the expressions—some of them crude—she could have used to describe what had happened between them that first night. ‘A hook-up?’ he put in helpfully, before adopting a more caustic tone. ‘Are you saying you want to pretend to my parents that this is some great kind of love affair?’

‘Of course not.’ She flushed before lifting a reproachful grey gaze to his. ‘I don’t think you’re that good an actor, are you, Salvio?’

He inclined his head as if to concede the point. ‘Or that good a liar?’

‘That’s another way of putting it, I suppose.’

He acknowledged her crestfallen expression. ‘I don’t want to raise your hopes, Molly—or theirs. It’s just who I am. And the bottom line is I just don’t do emotion. That’s all.’

‘That’s...that’s quite a lot,’ she observed. ‘Do you think...?’ She seemed to choose her words very carefully. ‘Do you think you were born that way?’

‘I think circumstances made me that way,’ he said flatly.

‘What kind of circumstances?’

Salvio frowned. This was deeper than he wanted to go because he was a man with a natural aversion to the in-depth character analysis which was currently in vogue. But what had he imagined would happen—that he could take an innocent young girl as his wife and present to her the same impenetrable exterior which had made scores of women despair at his coldness in the past? He walked over to the drinks cabinet, ignoring the expensive bottles of wine on display, pouring instead two crystal glasses of mineral water before walking across the room to hand her one. ‘You don’t know much about me, do you, Molly?’

She shook her head as she sipped her drink. ‘Practically nothing. How would I? We haven’t exactly sat down and had long conversations since we met, have we?’

He almost smiled. ‘You weren’t tempted to go and look me up online?’

Molly didn’t answer immediately as she met the scrutiny of his piercing black gaze. Of course she’d been tempted. Someone like Salvio was high profile enough to have left a significant footprint on the Internet, which she could have accessed at the touch of a computer key, and naturally she was curious about him. But she’d felt as if their lives were unequal enough already. The billionaire tycoon and the humble housekeeper. If she discovered stuff about him, would she then have to feign ignorance in the unlikely event that he wanted to confide in her? If she heard anything about him, she wanted to hear it from him—not through the judgemental prism of someone else’s point of view.

‘I didn’t want to seem as if I was spying on you.’

‘Very commendable.’

‘But it would be useful to know,’ she continued doggedly. ‘Otherwise your parents might think we’re nothing but strangers.’

‘And is that what concerns you, Molly?’ His black gaze continued to bore into her. ‘What other people think?’

Molly bit back her instinctive response to his disdainful question. If she’d been bothered about things like that then she would never have got through a childhood like hers. From an early age she’d learnt there were more important things to worry about than whether you had holes in your shoes or your coat needed darning. She’d learnt that good health—the one thing money couldn’t buy—was the only thing worth having. ‘I believe it’s best to be respectful of other people’s feelings and that your parents might be confused and possibly upset if they realise we don’t really know one another. But the main reason I need to know about you is because I’m having your baby.’ She saw the increased darkening of his eyes—as if she had reminded him of something he would rather forget. But he couldn’t forget it, and neither could she. ‘I don’t know anything about your childhood,’ she finished simply. ‘Nothing at all.’

He appeared to consider her words before expelling a slow breath of air. ‘Very well. First and foremost you must understand that I am a Neapolitan to the very core of my being.’ His voice became fierce, and proud. ‘And that I have a great passion for this beautiful city of mine.’

So why don’t you live here? Molly thought suddenly. Why do you only ever visit at Christmas? But she said nothing, just absorbed his words the way she’d absorbed other people’s words all her working life.

‘I grew up in the Rione Sanità, a very beautiful area, which is rich with history.’ There was a pause. ‘But it is also one of the poorest places in the city.’

‘You?’ she echoed disbelievingly, unable to hold back her shocked reaction. ‘Poor?’

He smiled cynically as he flicked a disparaging finger towards his sleek suit jacket. ‘You think I was born wearing fine clothes like these, Molly? Or that my belly never knew hunger?’

Yes, that was exactly what she’d thought, mainly because Salvio De Gennaro wore his wealth supremely well. He acted as if he’d never known anything other than handmade shoes and silk shirts, and people to drive his cars and planes for him. ‘You’ve come a long way,’ she said slowly. ‘What happened?’

‘What happened was that I had a talent,’ he told her simply. ‘And that talent was football. The moment my foot touched a ball, I felt as if I had found what I was born to do. I used to play every moment I could. There was nowhere suitable close to my home so I found a derelict yard to use. I marked a spot on the wall and I used to hit that same spot over and over again. Word got out and people used to come and watch me. They used to challenge me to see how long I could keep the ball in the air and sometimes I used to take their bets because many of them thought they could put a ball past me. But I could always score, even if there were two people against me in goal. And then one day the scouts turned up and overnight my whole life changed.’

‘What happened?’ she prompted as his words faded away.

Salvio stared out of the window, drinking in the sapphire beauty of the bay. Would it sound boastful to tell her he’d been called the greatest footballer of his generation? Or that the superstar lifestyle had arrived far more quickly than expected? ‘I trained every hour that God sent, determined to fulfil all that early promise, and very quickly I was signed by one of the country’s most prestigious clubs where I scored a record number of goals. I knew success, and fame, and for a while it was a crazy life. Everywhere I went, people would stop me and want to talk about the game and I don’t remember the last time I was made to pay for a pizza.’

‘But...something went wrong?’ she observed. ‘I mean, badly wrong?’