The Italian's Christmas Housekeeper

‘She did. She met me when I had everything.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘And dumped me the moment I lost it all.’

‘So, what...happened?’ she said, into the silence which followed.

Salvio’s lips tightened, because Lauren had been the catalyst. The reason he had kissed goodbye to emotion and battened up his heart. During his career there had been plenty of women who had lusted after his body and his bank account—but he’d made the mistake of thinking that Lauren was different.

His gaze flicked over to the dark sweep of the bay before returning to the grey watchfulness in Molly’s eyes and suddenly he was finding it easy to talk about something he never talked about. ‘After the accident, she came to visit me. Every day she sat by my bedside, always in a different outfit, looking picture-perfect. Always ready to smile and pose for the photographers who were camped outside the hospital. She was there when the physiotherapists worked on my leg and she was there when the doctor told me I’d never play professional football again. I’ll never forget the look on her face.’ His laugh was harsh. ‘When I was discharged, she didn’t come to meet me, but I thought I knew the reason why. I went home expecting a surprise party because she loved parties, and that’s when I discovered she’d flown back to the States and was seeing some all-American boy her parents wanted her to marry all along. And that was that. I never saw her again.’

There was a pause while she seemed to take it all in.

‘Oh, Salvio, that’s awful,’ she said. ‘It must have felt like a kick in the teeth when you’d lost everything else.’

‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted your pity, Molly. I told you because you wanted to know. So now you do.’

‘And, did you...did you love her?’

He felt a twist of anger. Why did women always do this? Why did they reduce everything down to those three little words and place so much store by them? He knew what she wanted him to say and that he was going to have to disappoint her. Because he couldn’t rewrite the past, could he? He was damned if he was going to tell her something just because it was what he suspected she wanted to hear. And how could he possibly dismiss lies as contemptible if he started using them himself? ‘Yes, I loved her,’ he said, at last.

Molly hid her pain behind the kind of look she might have presented to Lady Avery if she’d just been asked to produce an extra batch of scones before teatime, and not for the first time she was grateful for all the training she’d had as a servant. Grateful for the mask-like calm she was able to project while she tried to come to terms with her new situation. Because in less than twelve hours she’d lost everything, too. Not just her baby but her hopes for the future. Hope of being a good wife and mother. Hope that a baby might help Salvio loosen up and become more human. And now it was all gone—whipped away like a rug being pulled from beneath her feet. There was no illusion left for her to cling to. No rosy dreams. Just a man who had once loved another woman and didn’t love her. A man who had accused her of lying about her baby.

A baby which was now no more.

She wanted to bury her face in her hands and sob out her heartbreak but somehow she resisted the compelling urge. Instead she chose her words as carefully as a resigning politician. ‘I don’t want to upset your parents but obviously I can’t face going for lunch today. I mean, there’s no point now, is there? I don’t think I’m capable of pretending everything’s the same as it was—especially on Christmas Day. I think your mother might see right through me and there’s no way I want to deceive her. So maybe it’s best if I just disappear and leave you to say whatever you think is best.’ She swallowed. ‘Perhaps you could arrange for your plane to take me back to England as soon as possible?’

Salvio stared at her, unprepared for the powerful feeling which arrowed through his gut. Was it disappointment? Yet that seemed much too bland a description. Disappointment was what you felt if there was no snow on the slopes during a skiing holiday, or if it rained on your Mediterranean break.

He furrowed his brow. After Lauren he’d never wanted marriage. He’d never wanted a baby either but, having been presented with a fait accompli, had done what he considered to be the right thing by Molly. And of course it had affected him, because, although his heart might be unfeeling, he was discovering he wasn’t made of stone. Hadn’t he allowed himself the brief fantasy of imagining himself with a son? A son he could teach to kick a ball around and to perfect the elastico move for which he’d been so famous?

Only now Molly wanted to leave him. Her womb was empty and her spirit deflated by his cruel accusations and she was still staring at him as if he were some kind of monster. Maybe he deserved that because hadn’t she only ever been kind and giving? Rare attributes which only a fool would squander—and he was that fool.

‘No. Don’t go,’ he said suddenly.

She screwed up her eyes. ‘You mean you won’t let me use your plane?’

‘My plane is at your disposal any time you want it,’ he said impatiently. ‘That’s not what I mean.’ His mouth hardened. ‘I don’t want you to go, Molly.’

‘Well, I’ve got to go. I can’t hang around pretending nothing’s happened, just because you don’t want to lose face with your parents.’

‘It has nothing to do with losing face,’ he argued. ‘It has more to do with wanting to make amends for all the accusations I threw at you. About realising that maybe—somehow—we could make this work.’

‘Make what work?’

‘This relationship.’

She shook her head. ‘We don’t have a relationship, Salvio.’

‘But we could.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not making any sense.’

‘Aren’t I?’ He lowered his voice. ‘I get the feeling you weren’t too unhappy about having my baby.’

She stared down at her feet and as he followed the direction of her gaze, he noticed her toenails were unvarnished. It occurred to him that he’d never been intimate with a woman whose life hadn’t been governed by beauty regimes and his eyes narrowed in sudden comprehension. Was that shallow of him? She looked up again and he could see the pride and dignity written all over her face and he felt the twist of something he didn’t recognise deep inside him.

‘If this is a soul-baring exercise then it seems only fair I should bear mine. And I couldn’t help the way I felt about being pregnant,’ she admitted. ‘I knew it wasn’t an ideal situation and should never have happened but, no, I wasn’t unhappy about having your baby, Salvio. It would have been...’

‘Would have been what?’ he prompted as her words tailed off.

Somebody to love, Molly wanted to say—but even in this new spirit of honesty, she knew that was a declaration too far. Because that sounded needy and vulnerable and she was through with being vulnerable. She wished Salvio would stop asking her all this stuff, especially when it was so out of character. Why didn’t he just let her fly back to England and let her get on with the rest of her life and begin the complicated process of getting over him, instead of directing that soft look of compassion at her which was making her feel most...peculiar? She struggled to remove some of the emotion from her words.