Modern Romance November Books 1-4. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ someone was busy dealing cards across a light-washed table in the centre of a darkened room somewhere in the Outback?

      ‘What did he start, Molly?’ prompted Salvio softly.

      ‘Gambling.’ She stared down at her short, sensible fingernails before glancing up again to meet the ebony gleam of his eyes. ‘It started off with fruit machines and then he met someone in the arcade who said a bright boy like him would probably be good at cards. That he could win enough money to buy the kind of things he’d never had. And that’s when it all started.’

       ‘It?’

      Molly shrugged. ‘I think Robbie was still missing Mum. I know he’d been frustrated and unhappy that we’d been so poor while she was alive. Whatever it was, he started playing poker and he was good at it. At first. He started winning money but he spent it just as quickly. More quickly than it was coming in. And the trouble with cards is that the more you want to win—the worse you become. They say that your opponent can smell desperation and Robbie was as desperate as hell. He started getting into debt. Big debt. But the banks didn’t want to know and so he borrowed from some pay-day lenders and they...they...’

      ‘They came after him?’ Salvio finished grimly.

      Molly nodded. ‘I managed to use most of my savings to pay them off, though there’s still an outstanding debt which never seems to go down because the interest rates they charge are astronomical. I wanted Robbie to have a fresh start. To get away from all the bad influences in his life. So he went to Australia to get the whole gambling bug out of his system and promised to attend Gamblers Anonymous. That’s why I was working for the Averys. They were hardly ever in the house so I got to live there rent-free. Plus they paid me a lot of money to look after all their valuable artefacts. They said their insurance was lower if they had someone living permanently on the premises.’

      ‘And then I came along,’ he mused softly.

      Molly’s head jerked back as something in his tone alerted her to danger. ‘I’m sorry?’

      His bare shoulders gleamed like gold in the soft light from the lamp. ‘A young attractive woman like you must have found it incredibly limiting to be shut away in that huge house in the middle of nowhere working for people who only appeared intermittently,’ he observed. ‘It must have seemed like a gilded prison.’

      ‘I was grateful for a roof over my head and the chance to save,’ she said.

      ‘And the opportunity to meet a rich man who might make a useful lover?’

      Molly’s mouth fell open. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

      ‘I don’t think so, mia bedda,’ he contradicted silkily. ‘I base my opinions on experience. It’s one of the drawbacks of being wealthy and single—that women come at you from all angles. You must have acknowledged that I was attracted to you, and I can’t help wondering whether you saw me as an easy way out of your dilemma. Were the bitter tears you cried real, or manufactured, I wonder? Did you intend those sobs to stir my conscience?’

      Molly sat up in bed, her skin icy with goosebumps, despite the duvet which covered most of her naked body. ‘You think I pretended to cry? That I deliberately got myself pregnant to get you to pay off my brother’s debts? That I would cold-bloodedly use my baby as a bargaining tool?’

      ‘No, I’m not saying that. But I do think that fate has played right into your hardworking little hands,’ he said slowly. ‘Don’t you?’

      Her voice was shaking as she shook her head. ‘No. No, I don’t.’ Pushing the duvet away, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, acutely conscious of her wobbly bottom as she bent down and started pulling on her discarded clothes with fingers which were trembling, telling herself she would manage. Somehow. Because she had always managed before, hadn’t she? Fully dressed now, Molly turned round, steeling herself not to react to his muscular olive body outlined so starkly against the snowy white bedding. ‘There’s nothing more to be said, is there?’

      He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Oh, I think there’s plenty which needs to be said, but not tonight, not when emotions are running high. I need to think first before I come to any decision.’

      Molly was tempted to tell him that maybe he should have done that before he had taken her to bed and then come out with a stream of unreasonable accusations, but what was the point in inflaming an already inflamed situation? And she couldn’t really blame him for the sex, could she? Not when she had been complicit every step of the way. Not when she had desperately wanted him to touch her.

       And the awful thing was that she still did.

      Tilting her chin upwards and adopting the most dignified stance possible—which wasn’t easy in the circumstances—she walked out of Salvio’s bedroom without another word.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      A COLD BLUE light filtered into the tiny bedroom, startling Molly from the bewildering landscape of unsettled sleep—one haunted by Salvio and the memory of his hard, thrusting body. Disorientated, she sat up in bed, wondering if she’d dreamt it all. Until the delicious aching at her breasts and soft throb between her legs reminded her that it had happened. Her heart began to race. It had actually happened. At the end of an evening’s service she had informed her employer she was pregnant with his baby.

      And had then been carried up the staircase and willingly had sex with him, despite all the things he’d accused her of.

      Did he really believe it was his wealth which had attracted her to him, when she would have found him irresistible if he’d been covered in mud and sweat from working the fields?

      Slowly, she got out of bed. She didn’t know what Salvio wanted. All she knew was what she wanted. Her hand crept down to cover the soft flesh of her belly. She wanted this baby.

       And nothing Salvio did or said was going to change her mind.

      She showered and washed her hair—pulling on clean jeans and a jumper the colour of a winter sky before going downstairs, to be greeted by the aroma of coffee. In the kitchen she found Salvio pouring himself an inky cupful, and although he looked up as she walked in, his face registered no emotion. He merely gestured to the pot.

      ‘Want some?’

      She shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I’ll make myself some tea.’ She was certain herbal tea was better for babies than super-strong coffee, but mainly she welcomed the opportunity of being able to busy herself with the kettle. Anything rather than having to confront the distracting vision of Salvio in faded jeans and a sweater as black as his hair. She could feel him watching her and she had to try very hard not to appear clumsy—no mean feat when that piercing gaze was trained on her like a bird of prey. But when she couldn’t dunk her peppermint teabag a moment longer, she was forced to turn around and face him, glad he was now silhouetted against the window and his features were mostly in shadow.

      ‘So,’ he said, without preamble. ‘We need to work out what we’re going to do about the astonishing piece of news you dropped into my lap last night. Any ideas, Molly?’

      Molly had thought about this a lot during those long hours when sleep had eluded her. Be practical, she urged herself. Take the emotion out of it and think facts. She cleared her throat. СКАЧАТЬ