Modern Romance November Books 1-4. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ much from him. Not now. She’d thought she could rely on kindness until she’d realised she didn’t really know him at all. And now her heart began to pound with anxiety as she wondered whether she should have given herself so easily to him. Could she really hope for respect in the circumstances?

      She found herself studying him from between her lashes as she met the hard glitter of his eyes.

      ‘So now what?’ he questioned slowly.

      She took him literally, because wasn’t it simpler all round if she remained practical and continued to do her job? ‘I ought to go down and turn off all the lights—especially the tree lights.’

      His face was incredulous. ‘Excuse me?’

      She pushed her hair away from her face and wriggled into a sitting-up position, though she was careful to keep the top of the duvet modestly covering her breasts. ‘I haven’t switched off the lights on the Christmas tree—and there’s also the fire, which we’ve left unguarded,’ she said. ‘I can’t possibly go to sleep until all that is in place.’

      ‘The fireguard?’ he echoed disbelievingly, looking momentarily bemused before nodding. ‘Wait here,’ he said, and climbed out of bed.

      Quite honestly, Molly didn’t feel as if she had the strength or inclination to go anywhere—especially not when an unclothed Salvio was walking towards the door, seemingly unaware of the fact that it was the middle of winter and the snow was thick on the ground outside. She gazed at him as if hypnotised—her eyes drinking in the pale globes of his buttocks, which contrasted so vividly with the burnished olive of his thighs. And then he turned round, frowning with faint concern as he surveyed her, as if he had suddenly remembered that she’d just announced her pregnancy and wasn’t quite sure how to deal with her any more.

      ‘Can I get you anything?’

      She guessed he was being literal too and that it would have been pointless to have asked for a crystal ball to reassure her about her baby’s future. And pointless to have asked for some affirmation that he wasn’t planning on deserting his unplanned child, even if he wanted nothing more to do with her. But unlike her brother, Molly had never been a fantasist. She cleared her throat and nodded. ‘A drink of water would be nice.’

      She waited for him to say something like, I’ll bring it to your room, but he didn’t. Which presumably meant it was okay to stay here.

      Of course it was okay to stay here—they’d just had sex, hadn’t they?

      But it wasn’t easy to shrug off a lifetime of being deferential and Molly even felt slightly guilty about rushing into the luxurious en-suite bathroom and availing herself of the upmarket facilities. She splashed her face with water and smoothed down her mussed hair before returning to the bed and burrowing down beneath the duvet.

      And then he was back and Molly quickly averted her eyes because the front view of the naked Neapolitan was much more daunting than the back had been—particularly as he seemed to be getting aroused again.

      Did he read something in her expression? Was that why he gave a savage kind of laugh as he handed her the glass of water? ‘Don’t worry,’ he grated. ‘I’ll endeavour to keep my appetite in check while we discuss how we’re going to handle this.’

      The large gulp of water she’d been taking nearly choked her and Molly put the glass down on the bedside table with a hand which was trembling. ‘There’s nothing to handle,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m having this baby, no matter what you say.’

      ‘You think I would want anything other than that?’ he demanded savagely.

      ‘I wasn’t... I wasn’t sure.’

      Salvio climbed into bed, disappointed yet strangely relieved that her magnificent breasts weren’t on show, meaning he’d be able to concentrate on what he needed to say and not on how much he would like to lose himself in her sweet tightness again. He pulled the cover over the inconvenient hardening of his groin. Was she really as innocent as she seemed? Physically, yes—he had discovered that for himself. But was she really so unschooled in the ways of the world that she didn’t realise that she was now in possession of what so many women strived for?

      A billionaire father for her baby.

      A meal ticket for life.

      And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Fate had thrown him a curveball and he was just going to have to deal with it.

      ‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said suddenly.

      She blinked. ‘Me?’

      The sigh he gave wasn’t exaggerated. ‘Look, Molly—I think you’re in danger of overplaying the wide-eyed innocent, don’t you? We’ve had sex on a number of occasions and you’ve just informed me you’re pregnant. Ordinarily I wouldn’t be interested in hearing about your past, but you’ll probably agree that this is no ordinary situation.’

      Molly’s heart clenched as his cruel words rained down on her. Wouldn’t another man at least have pretended to be interested in what had made her the person she was today? Gone through some kind of polite ritual of getting to know her. Maybe she should be grateful that he hadn’t. He might be cruel, but at least he wasn’t a hypocrite. He wasn’t pretending to feel stuff about her and building up her hopes to smash them down again. At least she knew where she stood.

      ‘I was born in a little cottage—’

      ‘Please. Spare me the violins. Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?’ he interrupted coolly. ‘Parents?’

      Molly shrugged. ‘My father left my mother when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis,’ she said flatly.

      She saw a flare of something she didn’t recognise in his black eyes.

      ‘That must have been hard,’ he said softly.

      ‘It was,’ she conceded. ‘Less so for me than for my little brother, Robbie. He...well, he adored our mother. So did I, obviously—but I was busy keeping on top of everything so that social services were happy to let me run the home.’

      ‘And then?’ he prompted, when her words died away.

      Molly swallowed. ‘Mum died when Robbie was twelve, but they let us carry on living together. Just me and him. I fought like crazy not to have him taken into care and I succeeded.’

      His dark brows knitted together. ‘And what was that like?’

      She thought she detected a note of sympathy in his voice, or was that simply wishful thinking? Of course it was. He was cruel and ruthless, she reminded herself. He was only asking her these questions because he felt he needed to—not because he wanted to. For a moment Molly was tempted to gloss over the facts. To tell him that Robbie had turned out fine. But what if he found out the truth and then accused her of lying? Wouldn’t that make this already difficult situation even worse than it already was?

      ‘Robbie went off the rails a bit,’ she admitted. ‘He did what a lot of troubled teenagers do. Got in with the wrong crowd. Got into trouble with the police. And then he started...’

      Her voice tailed off again, knowing this was something she couldn’t just consign to the past. Because the counsellor had told СКАЧАТЬ