Page 27 of The Maid Married To The Billionaire

Pre-dinner drinks were served in a comfortable sitting room. Skye settled down with Alyson Davies and the two women discussed her visit to Dumfries House and the gardens there.

‘Do you have a garden of your own?’

‘No. I’ve never had a garden.’

‘Never?’ Enzo broke into their dialogue to query. ‘How did you get interested in the great outdoors, then?’

‘We always lived in an apartment, but my stepfather had an allotment where he grew all our vegetables,’ Skye told them with a smile. ‘He allowed me to have a little patch to grow annual flowers every summer.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ Alyson murmured, ‘what happened to your real father?’

‘Oh, that’s a very long story,’ Skye declared lightly. ‘And not one I’m comfortable sharing outside the family.’

A potentially awkward moment was smoothed over by Skye’s warm and ready smile. She was good with people, Enzo acknowledged, would be an asset at business socialising because she didn’t have a rude, unkind or pretentious bone in her body. He was starting to see why Skye had more effect on him than other women had. She trulywasdifferent. And he watched her, even while he talked to his host, noting the pink plumpness of her lower lip, the light glow of her beautiful eyes, the slender shapely legs crossing, one dainty ankle dangling, and his hunger for her mounted, making him tense.

Having promised to allow Alyson and Robinson the chance to give her a grand tour of their walled garden after breakfast the next day, Skye and Enzo headed upstairs to bed.

‘Am I allowed to ask about your birth father?’ he enquired. ‘Feel free to tell me to mind my own business if it’s painful.’

‘No, it’s not painful, just a little too personal to unpack in company. Mum got pregnant with me when she was at school. My father and her were sixteen and some people tend to be judgemental about that,’ she explained with a grimace. ‘Her parents threw her out andhisparents took her in. That lasted for about two years, long enough for Mum to conceive Alana, and then my father took off for a job on the oil rigs and never came back.’

‘Never?’

‘No, never. He didn’t stay in touch either. Once or twice, he sent money to help Mum out but nothing regular and by the time I was four, it stopped altogether. Mum had a rough time raising us.’ Skye sat down on the hard sofa by the wall while Enzo crouched down by the fire and fed it more fuel.

‘So, what did your mother do?’

‘She worked two jobs to get us out of his parents’ house because she didn’t feel she should be staying there, not when my father was sending photos of his new girlfriend and talking about making a visit.’

‘Dio mio...where did he think your mother and his children were going to go?’

‘As my grandparents then actually pointed out, their son wasn’t married to Mum and they had both been kids when they brought me and Alana into the world. I can see their point too and he was the son that they loved,’ Skye admitted, wanting to be fair to all parties involved at the time. ‘But it was very hard on Mum because she had no other family to fall back on.’

‘Certainly that must’ve been a challenge.’ Enzo suppressed his outrage on her behalf, recognising that when Skye didn’t make a drama out of her difficult childhood, he had even less right. Even so, it went against the grain when he looked back at his own idyllic years of development, cocooned in love and security and appreciation, even his awful little pictures put on display as though they were works of art when he had never had even the smallest ounce of talent in that department. It had never before occurred to Enzo to think of how lucky he had been to have such grandparents, who had given him a decent, loving home.

‘Mum got us into an apartment and kept on working and Steve, my stepfather, came along when I was about eight. It took him six years to persuade her to marry him because she didn’t trust men, but he was the best thing that ever happened for all of us. He adopted Alana and me and gave us his name. He was the best dad imaginable,’ she said sadly, her eyes misting over. ‘He was just an ordinary man, a taxi driver, but he was a lovely person.’

‘Rather like you...’ Enzo reached down to close her tiny hands into his and raised her, wiping the dampness from her cheeks with his thumb. ‘I can understand now why your mother started a second family.’

‘Brodie and Shona were their world...and they weresohappy together,’ she said chokily.

‘I haven’t even got that consolation. My parents’ marriage was a disaster. My grandparents were frank with me. My father was continually unfaithful, the sort of person who made promises and kept on breaking them. There were several separations and reconciliations. I was conceived during the last of those. I doubt their marriage would have lasted even had they lived,’ Enzo stated wryly. ‘Did you ever meet your father?’

‘No, and it doesn’t bother Alana and me,’ Skye confessed very quietly. ‘Actions speak louder than words and we knew how he treated Mum. Her life would have been so much easier if he had paid support for us but, even though we know that he was earning very well, he never once spared a thought for us and he didn’t treat his own parents any better. When they fell ill, it was my mum who helped them out. He was a deadbeat dad, a heartless son and no loss.’

‘Sometimes, you’re much tougher and less sentimental than I expect.’

‘Down to earth,’ she corrected with a rueful smile, lilac eyes soft and still a little misty from the tears that had overcome her when she had talked about her stepfather. ‘I learned to be, growing up.’

And it made him respect her, Enzo registered in surprise, suddenly aware that he had never respected a woman that way, at least not since his university days when he had learned that he had awarded his love and respect to the wrong woman. Her lies, the calculated treachery enacted by her and his best friend, had wrecked his faith in his fellow humans and he had shut down hard on his emotions, determined never to leave himself that vulnerable ever again.

Skye gazed up, her head tilted back, into Enzo’s glittering dark eyes, semi-shielded by his glorious lush black lashes, and her heart was racing and her breath was tripping in her throat. She knew in that moment just how much she had kidded herself when she had believed that she could step back, turn away,forgetabout him. Hardly a realistic possibility of that when she was obsessed with him, when she barely stopped thinking about him even when he was away from her, when in bed at night he wasallshe could think about. And here he was, already so much more interested in her than Ritchie had ever been, already so much more caring.

As he began to step back from her, an almost imperceptible flush accentuating his spectacular cheekbones, she shifted closer. ‘Just kiss me,’ she urged.

Enzo studied her as if she were insane. ‘I can’t...you said—’

‘What I said a few days ago doesn’t matter any more,’ she muttered in a rush. ‘It doesn’t matter that this is only a stupid rebound fling, it’s only what we feel that should count.’

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