The Italian's Christmas Housekeeper

by Sharon Kendrick

  After the wedding they flew to their honeymoon destination of Barbados, where they were shown to a large, private villa in the vast grounds of a luxury hotel. It was the closest thing to paradise that Molly could imagine and as soon as they arrived, Salvio went for a swim while she insisted on unpacking her clothes—because she didn’t quite trust anyone else to do it so neatly. Old habits die hard, she thought ruefully.

  Knotting a sarong around her waist, she went outside where her brand-new husband was lying on a sun lounger the size of a double bed, wearing a battered straw hat angled over his eyes and nothing else. A lump rose in her throat as she watched him lying in the bright sunshine—completely at ease with his bare body which was gleaming with droplets of water drying in the sun. For a moment she couldn’t actually believe she was here, with him. His wife. She swallowed. Even her title took some getting used to. Signora Molly De Gennaro.

  He turned to look at her, his gaze lazy as it ran a slow and comprehensive journey from her head to the tips of her toes.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he questioned solicitously.

  Trying not to be distracted by the very obvious stirring at his groin, she nodded. ‘Fine, thank you,’ she said politely. ‘That sleep I had on the plane was wonderful.’

  ‘Then stop standing there looking so uncertain.’ Pushing aside a tumble of cushions, he patted the space beside him on the giant sunbed. ‘Come over here.’

  It occurred to Molly that if she wasn’t careful she would end up taking orders from him just like before, but it was probably going to take a little time to acclimatise herself to this new life. To feel as if she had the right to enjoy these lavish surroundings, instead of constantly looking around feeling as if she ought to be cleaning them.

  Aware of the sensual glitter of his eyes, she walked across the patio and sank down next to him. Straight ahead glimmered a sea of transparent turquoise, edged with sand so fine it looked like caster sugar. To her left was their own private swimming pool and any time they wanted anything—anything at all, as they had been assured on their arrival—all they had to do was to ring one of the bells which were littered around the place and some obliging servant would appear.

  She stuck out her feet in front of her, still getting used to toenails which were glinting a fetching shade of coral in the bright sunshine.

  ‘You’ve had a pedicure,’ Salvio observed.

  She blinked and looked up. ‘Fancy you noticing something like that.’

  ‘You’d be amazed what I notice about you, Molly,’ he murmured. ‘Is that the first one you’ve ever had?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’ She lifted her chin a little defensively. ‘I suppose that shocks you?’

  ‘Not really, no. And anyway—’ he smiled ‘—I like being shocked by you.’

  His hand was now on her leg and she felt his fingertips travelling slowly over her thigh. Little by little they inched upwards and her mouth grew increasingly dry as they approached the skimpy triangle of her bikini bottoms. She swallowed as his hand came to a tantalising halt just before they reached the red and white gingham. ‘Salvio,’ she breathed.

  ‘Sì, Molly?’ he murmured.

  ‘We’re outside. Anyone can see us.’

  ‘But the whole point of having a private villa,’ he emphasised, ‘is that we can’t be seen. Haven’t you ever wondered what it might be like to make love in the open air?’

  She hesitated. ‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘So why don’t we do it?’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Right now.’

  She swallowed. ‘If you’re sure we really can’t be seen.’

  ‘I may be adventurous,’ he drawled, ‘but I draw the line at rampant voyeurism.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ she whispered encouragingly.

  Salvio smiled as he trailed his lips down over Molly’s generous cleavage which smelt faintly of coconut oil and was already warm from the sun. Through her bikini top a pert nipple sprang into life against his lips and he thought how utterly entrancing she could be with that potent combination of shyness and eagerness, despite her lack of experience. ‘You are for my eyes only,’ he added gravely, hearing her sharp intake of breath as he began to undo the sarong which was knotted around her hips. ‘Except you are wearing far too much for me to be able to see you properly.’

  The sarong discarded, his finger crept beneath her bikini bottoms to find her most treasured spot, where she was slick and wet. Always wet, he thought achingly. Her enjoyment of sex was so delightfully fervent that it made him instantly hard. He expelled a shuddering breath of air as she responded to his caress by reaching down to touch him intimately, and he moaned his soft pleasure. He liked the way she encircled him within those dextrous fingers and the way she slid them up and down to lightly stroke the pulsing and erect flesh. He liked the way she teased him as he had taught her to tease him and to make him wait, until he felt like her captive slave. But today his hunger would not be tempered and he could not wait, his desire for her off the scale. He had let her sleep on the plane because she had looked exhausted after the wedding, but now his appetite knew no bounds. The bikini was discarded to join the sarong as he wriggled his fingers between her legs. She jerked distractedly as he found her tight bud, her nails digging into his bare shoulders as he increased his rhythmical stroke.

  ‘You like that,’ he observed, with a satisfied purr.

  ‘Don’t...don’t stop, will you?’ she gasped.

  He gave a low laugh. ‘I have no intention of stopping, bedda mia. I couldn’t stop, even if I wanted to.’ But suddenly he no longer wanted to pleasure her with his finger and, positioning himself over her, he parted her thighs and drove into her. He groaned as she matched each urgent thrust with the accommodating jerk of her hips. He revelled in the feel of her, the taste of her and the smell of her. Was it because there was no need for a condom that sex with Molly felt even more incredible than it had done before? Or because he was the one who had taught her everything? She’d never taken a man into her mouth before him, nor sucked him until he was empty and gasping. Just as she’d never had anyone’s head between her thighs other than his. He closed his eyes as excitement built at a speed which almost outpaced him. Was he really so primitive that he got some kind of thrill from having bareback sex with his one-time virgin? He drove into her again. Maybe he was.

  She began to come, her moans of pleasure spiralling up from the back of her throat and hovering on the edge of a scream, so that he clamped his mouth over hers in an urgent kiss. He felt the rush of her breath in his mouth and the helpless judder of her body clenching around him—and his own response was like a powerful wave which crashed over him and pulled him under. With a groan, he ejaculated, one hand splayed underneath her bottom while the other tangled in her silken hair. Beneath the Barbadian sun he felt the exquisite pulsing of his body as passion seeped away.

  For a while he just lay on top of her, dazed and contented, his head cushioned on her shoulder as he dipped in and out of sleep. But eventually he stirred, his fingertips tilting her jaw, enjoying the beatific smile which curved her lips as she opened her eyes to look at him.

  ‘So. We have a choice,’ he said slowly. ‘We can get dressed again and ring for drinks, or I can go inside and fix us something and you can stay exactly as you are, which would be my preference.’

  She hesitated for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t mind you waiting on me for a change,’ she said. ‘Unless you’re going to do that helpless man thing of making a mess of it because it’s domestic, so that you’ll never have to do it again.’

  His mouth twitched into a smile as he rose from the lounger. ‘Is that what men do?’

  ‘In my experience—well, only my working experience, of course. Every time.’

  ‘Not this one.’ He picked up the battered straw hat which had fallen off, jamming it down so that the shadow of the brim dar
kened his face. ‘I don’t like to fail at anything, Molly.’

  She watched him go. Was it that which had hurt the hardest when his life had imploded around him—the fact that he would be perceived as a failure? Had that been at the root of his reluctance to return to Naples very often? Yet he had picked himself up and started all over again. He had made a success of his life in every way, except for one. Just before they’d boarded his private jet to fly here, he’d told her how delighted his parents were that he had chosen her as his bride and she found herself thinking how skewed life could be sometimes. His mother hadn’t liked Lauren Meyer, but Salvio had loved her. He’d told her that himself. And if this marriage was to continue, she must resign herself to the fact that she would only ever be second-best.

  But that had been her life, hadn’t it? It wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to it. When you worked in other people’s houses you had to put yourself second, because you were only there to help their lives function smoothly. You had to be both efficient yet invisible, because people didn’t really see you—only the service you provided.

  Did Salvio see her? she wondered. Or was she simply a vessel to bear his child? The woman he had transformed with his vast fortune, so that she could lie in a Barbadian paradise, looking out over an azure sea as if she’d been born to this life?

  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.

  ‘Salvio?’

  He stared at her reflected image in the glass. ‘Mmm...?’

  She hesitated. ‘You remember our wedding day?’

  ‘I’m hardly likely to forget it, am I?’ he questioned drily. ‘And even if I had, it wouldn’t be a diplomatic thing to admit after a mere three months of marriage. What about it?’

  ‘Well.’ His response didn’t sound very promising but Molly forced herself to continue. ‘I was wondering whether your charitable organisation ought to include some kind of football sponsorship, which I notice it doesn’t do at the moment.’

  ‘Some kind of football sponsorship?’ he repeated slowly.

  ‘Yes. You know—you could offer a financial scheme for a promising young player from a poor background.’ Again, she hesitated. ‘To help the type of boy you once were,’ she finished, on a rush.

  There was a pause while he finished knotting his tie and when he spoke, his voice was cool. ‘But I don’t have anything to do with football any more, Molly. You know that. I walked
away from that life many years ago.’

  ‘Yes, I know you did. But things have moved on now. You saw all those people wearing your old club’s colours who came to wish you luck on your wedding day. They...they love you, Salvio. You’re a legend to them and I just thought it would be...nice...’ Her words faded away. ‘To give something back.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’ Moving away from the mirror, Salvio swept his gaze over his wife, who looked all pink-cheeked and tousled as she lay amid the rumpled mess they’d just made of the bed. A muscle began to work in his cheek. He’d thought that, given her previous occupation, she would have been a rather more compliant partner than she was turning out to be. He’d thought it a generous gesture to give her a seat on the board of his charity and had expected her to be grateful to him for that. But he’d imagined her turning up regularly at meetings and sitting there quietly—not to suddenly start dishing out advice. Surely she, more than anyone, must have realised it was inappropriate as well as unwanted? ‘I really don’t think it’s your place to start advising me on how I spend my money, Molly,’ he drawled.

  She went very still. ‘Not my place?’ she echoed, the colour leeching from her face and her dark lashes blinking in disbelief. ‘Why not? Do you think the one-time servant should remain mute and just go along with what she’s been told, rather than ever showing any initiative of her own? Are you making out like there’s still all those inequalities between us, despite the fact that I now wear your ring?’

  ‘There’s no need to overreact,’ he said coolly, even though that was exactly what he did think. ‘And I really don’t want an argument when I’m just about to fly to the States. We’ll talk about it when I get back.’ He dipped his head towards her with a smile she always found irresistible. ‘Now kiss me.’