The Italian's Christmas Housekeeper by Sharon Kendrick

Author:Sharon Kendrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-08-13T13:42:11+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

BATHED IN THE bright December sunshine which flooded in through the giant windows of their Neapolitan hotel suite, Molly turned to Salvio, who was just changing out of the jeans and leather jacket he’d worn for the trip over, into something a little more formal.

‘We still haven’t discussed—’ Molly hesitated ‘—what we’re going to tell your parents.’

Pausing in the act of straightening his tie, Salvio turned to look at his fiancée. She looked...incredible, he thought. With her shiny hair scooped on top of her head and her curvy shape encased in a dress the colour of spring leaves, there was no trace of that shy and frumpy housekeeper now. They’d just arrived in his home city—his jet descending through the mountains surrounding the mighty Mount Vesuvius, with all its unleashed power and terrible history. It was an iconic view which took away the breath of the most experienced traveller and he had found himself watching Molly for her reaction. But, oblivious to the beauty which surrounded them, she had seemed lost in thought. Even when the car had whisked them to this luxury hotel overlooking the Castel dell’Ovo and a lavish suite which even he could not fault, she seemed barely to register the opulence of their penthouse accommodation.

He wondered if she’d noticed the sideways stares he’d been receiving from the moment they’d stepped off the plane. The double takes and the ‘Is it him?’ looks which were as familiar to him as breathing, whenever he returned to his native town. Yet Molly had been impervious to them all.

‘We tell them the truth,’ he said eventually, giving some thought to her question. ‘That you’re pregnant and we’re getting married as soon as possible.’

She winced a little. ‘Do you think we need to be quite so...?’

His gaze bored into her. ‘So what, Molly?’

She licked her lips and, mesmerised by the resulting gleam which emphasised their soft beauty, Salvio momentarily cursed himself for not admitting her to his bed last night. Had he really imagined such an action might make him more detached and rational, when he’d been obsessing about her all night long?

‘Brutal,’ she concluded, pursing her lips together as if it wasn’t a word she particularly wanted to use.

‘Brutal?’

She shrugged and began walking across the room, pausing only to peer into the elevated stone hot tub which stood at the far end of the enormous suite—an extravagant touch eclipsed only by the tall decorated Christmas tree which was framed in one of the tall windows.

Eventually she came to a halt and perched on an orange velvet chair to look at him. ‘You told me you’re known as someone who is a commitment-phobe. Someone who doesn’t want to get married,’ she said.

Salvio gave his tie a final tug. That wasn’t the whole story, but why burden her with stuff she didn’t need to know? ‘What of it?’

‘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.

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