He lifted his shoulders as if to concede the point. ‘I’m not going to deny that at first I felt trapped. Who wouldn’t in that kind of situation? But once I’d got my head around it, my feelings began to change.’
Molly felt the lurch of hope. Could she believe him? Did she dare to? She remembered the way he’d kissed her belly yesterday—and how loving she’d felt towards him as a result. And that was dangerous. When she stopped to think about it, everything about this situation was dangerous. ‘So this time you’re not asking me to marry you because you have to?’ she continued doggedly. ‘You’re saying you actually want to?’
‘Yes.’ His shadowed jaw tightened. ‘I do. For old-fashioned reasons rather than the unrealistic expectations of romantic love. I want a family, Molly. I didn’t realise how much until the possibility was taken away from me. I want someone to leave my fortune to—because otherwise what’s the point of making all this money? Someone to take my name and my genes forward. Someone who will be my future.’
Molly’s heart clenched as she listened to his heartfelt words. She thought of his pain when he’d lost his career and fortune in quick succession. She thought about the woman who had betrayed him at the worst possible time. The woman he had loved. No wonder he had built a wall around his heart and vowed never to let anyone touch that heart again. She drank in the hardness of his beautiful face. Could she dismantle that wall, little by little, and would he allow her close enough to try? She knew it was a gamble—and, despite all the stern lectures she’d given her little brother, a gamble she intended to take, because by now she couldn’t imagine a life without him.
But if she was to be his wife then she must learn to be his equal. There had been times in the past when she’d told Salvio what she thought he wanted to hear because that was all part of her training as a servant. But it wasn’t going to be like that from now on. From now on they were going to operate on a level playing field.
‘Yes, I will be your wife,’ she said, in a low and unemotional voice.
He laughed, softly. ‘You drive me crazy, Molly Miller,’ he said. ‘Do you realise that?’
The look she gave him was genuine. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘I think,’ he observed drily, ‘that’s the whole point. Now come here.’
He was pulling her into his arms and for a moment Molly felt uncertain, because she had her period and surely... But the touch of his fingertips against her cheek was comforting rather than seeking and the warmth of his arms consoling rather than sexual.
‘I’m sorry about the baby,’ he whispered against her hair, so softly that she might have imagined it.
It was the first time he had ever held her without wanting sex and Molly pressed her eyelids tightly shut, her face resting against his silky shoulder, terrified to move or to speak because she was afraid she might cry.
THEY WERE MARRIED in Naples in a beautiful church not far from the home of Salvio’s parents. The ancient building was packed with people Molly barely knew—friends of the family, she guessed, and high-powered friends of Salvio’s who had flown in from all around the world. Most of them she’d met the previous evening during a lavish pre-wedding dinner, but their names had flown in one ear and out of the other, no matter how hard she’d tried to remember them. Her mind had been too full of niggling concerns to concentrate on anything very much, but her main anxiety had been about Robbie.
Because Salvio had quietly arranged for her brother to fly from Australia to Naples as a pre-wedding surprise and Molly’s heart had contracted with joy as Robbie had strolled into the restaurant where everyone was eating, flashing his careless smile, which had made many of the younger women swoon.
She had jumped to her feet to hug him, touched by Salvio’s unexpected thoughtfulness, as she’d run her gaze over her brother in candid assessment. From the outside Robbie looked good—better than he’d looked in a long time. He was tanned and fit, his golden curls longer than she remembered, and his clothes were surprisingly well chosen. But she’d seen his faintly avaricious expression as he’d taken in the giant ring on her finger and the expensive venue of the sea-view wedding reception.
‘Well, what do you know? You did good, sis. Real good,’ he’d said slowly, a gleam entering his grey eyes. ‘Salvio De Gennaro is minted.’
She’d found herself wanting to protest that she wasn’t marrying Salvio for his money but Robbie probably wouldn’t have believed her, since his teenage years had been dedicated to the pursuit of instant wealth. She’d wondered if his reluctance to maintain eye contact meant that his gambling addiction had returned. And had then wondered if she was simply transferring her own fears onto her brother.
But she wasn’t going to be afraid because she was walking into this with her eyes open. She’d made the decision to be Salvio’s wife because deep down she wanted to, and she was going to give the marriage everything she could. Who said that such a strangely conceived union couldn’t work? She was used to fighting against the odds, wasn’t she?
Holding herself tall, she had walked slowly down the aisle wearing the dress which had been created especially for her by one of London’s top wedding-dress designers. The whole couture process had been a bit of an ordeal, mainly because a pale, shiny fabric wasn’t terribly forgiving when you were overendowed with curves, but Molly had known Salvio wanted her to look like a traditional bride. And in her heart she had wanted that, too.
‘Your breasts are very...generous.’ The dressmaker had grunted. ‘We’re going to have to use a minimising bra, I think.’
Molly had opened her mouth to agree until she’d remembered what she’d vowed on the day of Salvio’s proposal. That she was going to be true to herself and behave like his equal because the strain of doing otherwise would quickly wear her down. And if she tried to be someone she wasn’t, then surely this whole crazy set-up would be doomed.
‘I think Salvio likes my breasts the way they are,’ she’d offered shyly and the dressmaker had taken the pins out of her mouth, and smiled.
The look on his face when she reached the altar seemed to endorse Molly’s theory—and when they left the church as man and wife, the strangest thing happened. Outside, a sea of people wearing pale blue and white ribbons were cheering and clapping and Molly looked up at Salvio in confusion as their joyful shouts filled the air.
‘Some of the supporters of my old football club,’ he explained, looking slightly taken aback himself. ‘Come to wish me in bocca al lupo.’
‘Good luck?’ she hazarded, blinking as a battery of mobile-phone cameras flashed in her face.
‘Esattamente. Your Italian lessons are clearly paying dividends,’ he murmured into her ear, his mouth brushing against one pearl-indented lobe.
Just that brief touch was enough to make her breasts spring into delicious life beneath the delicate material of her wedding dress and Salvio’s perceptive smile made Molly blush. Lifting up her bouquet of roses to disguise the evidence of physical desire, she thought how perfectly attuned he was to her body and its needs. Their sexual compatibility had been there from the start—now all she needed to concentrate on was getting pregnant.
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