Page 34 of The Maid Married To The Billionaire

Undeterred, he laughed and extracted a long, drugging kiss. A wave of intoxicated happiness washed over Skye. She had said yes to the insanity. But from her point of view, it would be a sensible move as the authorities would much prefer a couple to adopt the children. She would be fine, she told herself urgently, she would live in the moment and look neither forward nor back. Life was too short for regrets and far too colourless without Enzo.

An hour later, just as she was drifting on the edge of sleep, Enzo sprang out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and stabbed a number into his phone.

‘Who on earth are you calling this late?’ she mumbled, watching the unbuttoned jeans slide down to his hip bones, leaving her to look at a flat hard stomach traversed by a dark furrow of hair.

‘Chiara, a friend of mine, and it’s not too late an hour for a party girl and the best wedding planner in Italy,’ he explained, switching to liquid Italian and settling into a very long and animated conversation while Skye slowly wakened, galvanised into the act by those magic words, ‘wedding planner’.

‘Wedding planner?’ she queried as he set his phone aside with an air of satisfaction.

‘Yes, she’ll fly over here tomorrow. We’re thinking the Maldives. We could do with a bit of sunshine.’

‘TheMaldives?’ she exclaimed.

‘It’s the right time of year and then we’ll be home here for Christmas.’

‘Enzo, I would need permission from the authorities to take the children out of the country!’

‘Then get it organised. Set up a meeting for us, whatever...’ Enzo spread an eloquent brown hand to underscore his urgency. ‘We have to get this show on the road and there’s some stuff I can’t do for you. I’ll ring my grandparents and tell them what’s happening at breakfast time. You should put Alana on alert. I assume you want her at the wedding? And we ought to consider a nanny for the occasion as well.’

Now fully awake as that detailed list of instructions penetrated, Skye sat up in bed and stared back at him, her eyes huge. He was overflowing with raw energy, dark eyes glittering, vitality and impatience splintering from every inch of his long, lean body. ‘It’s one in the morning, Enzo. What on earth are you planning to tell your grandparents about us?’

‘The truth, only the truth. It wouldn’t be fair to let them believe that we were a real for-ever couple, but that won’t stop them dreaming the dream and hoping we fall for each other regardless of what I’ve said.’ Enzo frowned. ‘They’ll be disappointed but there’s not much I can do about that.’

Skye tried and failed to come up with a conversational response. He had silenced her. ‘We could get married here,’ she pointed out weakly.

‘Not very festive. It’s dull and damp and wet. I like sunshine.’

Skye nodded slowly. ‘I’ll contact our case worker when the office opens.’

‘My legal team will take care of any legalities involved.’

‘So, it seems we are definitely getting married,’ she commented shakily.

‘And all you need to worry about is what you wear,’ Enzo asserted with satisfaction.

He would make her happy, he reasoned. He would stay married to her until she had her life and her future plans sorted out. He reckoned that that would take at least a year to achieve. A year was no time at all. It would be a practical arrangement that met both their needs. And he needed her, he needed her very much at present, although he was certain that that driving need to be with her would fade as time moved on.

CHAPTER NINE

‘ILIKETHEtree and the traditional colours,’ Enzo declared from the kitchen doorway a week later as Brodie whooped at his arrival and Shona began to fast-crawl towards him.

Skye gazed back at him for a split second, drinking him in like a dangerous drug. His tie was loose at his throat, stubble roughening his bronzed skin in denial of that sleek sophisticated elegance that was the norm for him. Instead, he simply looked all male and dangerously, smoulderingly sexy, particularly when he watched her through narrowed dark eyes framed with lashes so dense they doubled as eyeliner. Something clenched low in her tummy and she struggled to put her thoughts together again.

‘Dinner’s almost ready. Alana was here all afternoon and she helped me with the Christmas decorations. Keeping Shona away from the tree is a challenge but I put some soft things on the low branches, so that even if she pulls them, she can’t do much damage,’ Skye explained. ‘We’ve got another meeting with the case worker tomorrow. There are forms to fill in and they want to meet you again. That’s at ten. Can you make it?’

‘Yes.’ As she reached out to open the oven and check on dinner, Enzo stepped between her and the door and lightly grasped her wrist to deftly ease a ring onto her wedding finger.

Skye froze in surprise.

‘An engagement ring? I wasn’t expectingthat,’ she confessed with a frown of discomfiture, holding her hand up so that the light from the window illuminated the large oval stone that glittered and sent rainbow facets dancing across the tiled floor. ‘A sapphire?’

‘It’s a very rare blue diamond,’ Enzo told her casually. ‘But don’t get excited about it. It’s only window dressing.’

In receipt of that statement, the thrill factor dropped to zero for Skye, although she still could not help staring fixedly at the ring because the jewel was magnificent. Enzo had deliberately chosen to give her the ring in the kitchen and without ceremony, bluntly emphasising how far removed both the ring and their relationship were from real romance. ‘It’s beautiful. I won’t say thanks because I won’t be keeping it but I’m sure I’ll enjoy wearing it.’

‘An update on the wedding plans,’ Enzo continued. ‘My legal team tells me that a marriage in the Maldives wouldn’t be lawful, and my grandmother tells me that if I don’t get married in my childhood church she will be heartbroken. Therefore, we will get married in Italy, have the reception there and then fly on to the Maldives for a couple of nights.’

‘Yes, your grandmother has already phoned me to explain.’ Skye was amused to see that Enzo was disconcerted by that news. ‘Apparently your PA had my phone number and she passed it on. I spoke to your grandmother this afternoon. She may have forgotten to ask my shoe size but she got everything else there is to know about me in triplicate.’

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