Page 20 of The Maid Married To The Billionaire

‘I don’t want to open it,’ Skye admitted dully. ‘It just rakes it all up again and plunges me back into what a pathetic mistake I made with him.’

‘Ask Paola to check it first. She’s a really tough lady,’ Alana said admiringly. ‘I’ve signed up for a martial arts class starting after Christmas purely from seeing her in action in that car park with Ritchie. It was so cool.’

‘Involving Paola would be gutless. This ismyresponsibility,’ Skye declared, lifting a knife off the table where they had had their lunch to slit open the envelope.

She read Ritchie’s letter with a sinking heart and a growing sense of disbelief. There was no expression of regret, no admission of fault beyond a reference to her ‘fall’ and his apparent hope that she had recovered andcalmed down. It infuriated her almost as much as it intimidated her and when she read to the end and realised that he was trying to get her to meet up with him, her tummy turned over queasily at even the suggestion.

She tossed the letter over to her sister. ‘He’s trying to get me to agree to see him.’

‘Of course, he is. He’ll be wanting you to drop those assault charges. He’s going to lose his job and may well go to prison,’ Alana pointed out. ‘Have you “calmed down”?’

‘Not in the slightest. I’ll never forget or forgive what he did to me.’

‘So, will you agree to tell Enzo I’m in for that assistant night-shift manager promotion at the Blackthorn?’ Her sister was returning to an earlier conversation.

‘I don’t think it would be fair,’ Skye parried a second time.

Alana grimaced. ‘He owns the blasted place! It would mean nothing to him!’

‘He’s done me enough favours,’ Skye countered.

Alana rolled her eyes. ‘You’re the one doinghimfavours. Fake girlfriend? Trip to Glasgow?’

‘Alana, look at what he’s had done to Mavis. She’s transformed,’ Skye argued. ‘He must’ve spent hundreds of pounds on that car.’

‘I reckon thousands,’ her sister opined. ‘It didn’t even look that good when Mum bought it ten years ago.’

Enzo arrived home to an empty house and was greeted rapturously only by Sparky.

‘Skye and her sister went out shopping,’ Paola reported. ‘Antonio and Matteo are with them.’

Enzo reheated the meal left for him in the microwave and wondered if Skye really thought he was stupid enough to need the step-by-step instructions she had left for him, but, on another level, he was telling himself that he should be relieved that Skye was absent. Their relationship—and even the word threatened a man who didn’t have relationships—had a weird lack of boundaries and hehadsent her those showy flowers on prominent display in the hall. Sheworkedfor him, he reminded himself fiercely. She was an employee even if she didn’t feel like one, any more than the kids and the dog felt like an employee’s dependants. He had got too close to her, become too involved. Intelligence warned him that he should pull back. Having eaten, he went into the room he was using as an office and stubbornly ignored the sounds of Skye and her siblings returning home.

Skye couldn’t sleep that night. She had wanted to see Enzo and she hadn’t seen him and then had warned herself that she had no need to see him either. Theclingyhousekeeper, knocking on the door with an offer of supper? No, that was not a label she sought. She grimaced.

Around one in the morning, weary of tossing and turning, she went down to the kitchen to have a cup of tea and dug Ritchie’s letter out of her bag to have another look at it. She refused to be scared of him or of anything he had written. Unhappily, all those nasty little jabs about how overly emotional she could be, how she jumped to conclusions, how she always thought the worst in situations and dramatised herself washed over her afresh and knocked her flat. Rereading the letter had not been a good idea, she acknowledged. Even mulling over his criticisms of her after he had violently assaulted her was crazy.

Enzo heard Skye heading downstairs and worried that something was amiss. He climbed out of bed and tugged on a pair of jeans, deeming a T-shirt unnecessary. Barefoot, he descended the stairs without a sound and saw Skye sitting at the kitchen table, her head buried in her folded arms, her narrow shoulders shaking.

‘What’s wrong?’ Enzo demanded, striding over to her, registering that she was quietly crying.

‘Go away,’ she told him hoarsely. ‘I’m having a mini breakdown and I don’t need an audience!’

‘What’s this?’ Enzo lifted the letter off the table. ‘He had the nerve to write you aletterafter what he did?’ he bit out incredulously.

Enzo read it and rolled his eyes, tossing it back down on the table while Skye mopped her eyes and struggled to regain control. ‘You can tell he’s abusive simply by the stuff he writes. He beat you up and he’s finding fault with you!’

‘I know. How could I have been foolish enough to move in with a man like that?’ she gasped, stricken, and leapt out of her chair to rush over and put on the kettle. ‘Do you want something to drink?’

‘Water will do me.’

Enzo breathed in deep and slow, hating that sense of being out of his depth, but there was no use pretending that he was experienced at comforting distressed women when he had always avoided distressed women like the plague. As he followed her across the spacious kitchen, he rested both hands on her slender shoulders in an effort to ground her.

‘You didn’t know what he was like until you moved in with him. People don’t wear their secrets, flaws and kinks like badges. They keep up a front to lure you in until you trust them. But you’re not to blame. He’s a weirdo and I’m dropping that letter into the police tomorrow morning.’

‘Thanks,’ she muttered. ‘But I’m just so angry with myself.’

‘Try being angry withhim! How dare he send you flowers and write to you after assaulting you?’ Enzo framed in a raw undertone. ‘Call your solicitor and update him about this. I’m quite sure that the police will have warned your ex to stay well away from you and now he’s harassing you.’

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