Page 43 of The Maid Married To The Billionaire

‘Not in the car,’ Enzo said stubbornly, lean brown hands flexing round the steering wheel. ‘But I should mention that your ex may be behind the arson at the factory. Apparently, there’s evidence that his car was parked nearby in the middle of the night. The police suspect that he has an axe to grind with me.’

‘Oh, my word.’ Skye covered her shaken face with spread hands.

‘It’s not your responsibility. Don’t let him overshadow our lives. Put your ordeal with him behind you and don’t look back.’

That was easier said than done, Skye reflected unhappily. Ritchie would never even have known of Enzo’s existence had she not moved into his house and started working for him. Of course, she felt guilty.

The house was unusually quiet. ‘Where are the children?’

‘Isabel took the kids to that indoor playpark in town.’

Equipped with a cup of coffee, Skye sat down in the sitting room. Enzo hovered restlessly by the door. For a moment she simply feasted her eyes on him, the lean, strong face with the classic features that had mesmerised her from their very first meeting. Sexual awareness lurched low in her body and she was embarrassed by her susceptibility. She couldn’t ever look at Enzo without thinking of how it felt when he kissed her and touched her or without noticing how the energy in the room flared in his highwire presence.

‘I’ll keep it brief,’ Enzo promised tautly. ‘When I first mentioned marriage to you, I attached a lot of absurd conditions to the agreement but everything’s changed—at least for me, it has. I want to keep you.’

Her brow indented. ‘As in...?’

‘I want it to be a proper marriage. I want us to be permanent.’

Skye swallowed with difficulty.Permanent?Her lilac eyes flew wide in her heart-shaped face because she was stunned by that announcement. ‘But—’

‘Obviously I’m in love with you.Crazyin love with you,’ Enzo breathed in a roughened undertone, spreading his hands wide in emphasis. ‘Everyone else saw it but me. I didn’t realise. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t wait to get back here to you and the children every night. I honestly believed I wouldn’t ever fall for anyone again and then it happened without me registering it.’ He winced at that acknowledgement.

‘Crazyin love with me?’ Skye repeated with an arrested expression on her flushed face.

‘Perhaps I’m not very attuned to what goes on in my head when it comes to the emotional stuff. At the beginning, I genuinely believed that I only wanted to help you, but the more time I spent with you, the more I wanted you, the more I liked you and the more reasons I found to keep us together.’

Skye nodded with a dreamy smile now starting to dispel the once tense line of her mouth. ‘So, my engagement ring isn’t only window dressing?’

‘No. I wanted a ring on your finger, a ring that told everyone that you were mine, but I didn’t want to admit that because it went against the rules I set at the start. We were supposed to be like friends with benefits, practical, unemotional, no attachment.’

‘You picked the wrong girl. I’m seriously attached to you,’ Skye admitted chokily, the turmoil of her roused emotions bringing tears to her eyes. ‘I was so scared of getting hurt but I couldn’t stop myself feeling more and more for you every day...and when we were in the Maldives, well...’ Skye plucked at her dress and evaded his gaze. ‘You made me feelsospecial—’

‘Are you saying you love me too?’

Skye rose from her seat and closed both arms round him. ‘I was scared of losing you. I thought maybe you were panicking and you’d taken on too much with us all and that you wanted out of our marriage again. And last night you said we had to have a serious talk about us! How much sleep do you think I got after that?’ She struck his shoulder weakly with her fist in punishment for that sleepless night. ‘Sometimes you don’t think stuff through, Enzo. Of course I assumed it was something bad and that I was going to lose you.’

‘Always such a pessimist. You couldn’t lose me if you tried. I will always be here for you. I have never felt like this before, so committed to one person that sometimes it’s a struggle to stand you being out of my sight,’ he confessed ruefully. ‘I don’t ever want to let you go. When you got hurt yesterday, it felt like my world had come crashing down. I attempted to picture my life without you and Icouldn’t.’

‘But I’m OK,’ she reminded him firmly, hands straying inside his jacket to the warmth of his chest, lingering over the muscles indented there, revelling in the warmth. And now she finally felt as though she had a proper right to touch him, to make her own moves without fear of what she might be revealing. ‘I love you so much and tonight, I’m going to show you—’

Lining his fingers with hers, Enzo walked her towards the stairs. ‘I’m out of bounds until you get medical clearance.’

‘You can forget that. The way I see it, I got medical clearance the moment I left the hospital and this is a very special day and, right now, we’re alone in the house.’

‘Skye, I love you, but—’

‘No buts. I don’t want to wait until tonight.’ On the landing, she kissed him with all the passion she had often tried to tone down.

Enzo lifted her off her feet with a groan. ‘This is why I love you. You’re stubborn and fiery and you stand up to me, so I suppose I have to compromise.’

‘Compromise will besoworth your while,’ Skye told him sunnily.

A wicked grin slashed Enzo’s wide sensual mouth as he settled her down on their bed. ‘You’re mine now,’ he said thickly.

Skye yanked him down on the bed by the edge of his jacket. ‘You’re mine too.’

Enzo doffed his jacket with enthusiasm and embarked on his shirt buttons. Skye shimmied out of her stretchy dress and he tugged her into his possessive arms and held her tight. ‘I’ve got you.’

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