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Not just anyone.
Lady Avery.
Molly’s footsteps slowed, her heart crashing frantically against her ribcage as she met the accusing look in her boss’s pale eyes.
‘So, Molly,’ Lady Avery said, in a voice she’d never heard her use before. ‘Did you sleep well?’
There was a terrible pause and Molly’s throat constricted, because what could she say? It would be adding insult to injury if she made some lame excuse about why she was creeping out of Salvio’s room at this time in the morning, carrying a balled-up pair of tights. And now she would be sacked. She’d be jobless and homeless at the worst possible time of year. She swallowed. There was only one thing she could say. ‘I’m sorry, Lady Avery.’
Her aristocratic employer shook her head in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe it!’ she said. ‘Why someone like him could have been interested in someone like you, when he could have had...’
Her words trailed away and Molly didn’t dare fill the awkward silence which followed. Because how could Lady Avery possibly finish her own sentence without losing face or dignity? How could she possibly admit that she had been hoping to end up in Salvio’s bed, when she was a married woman and her husband was in the house?
Molly’s cheeks grew hot as she acknowledged the shameful progression of her thoughts. Behaving as if the Neapolitan tycoon were some kind of prize they’d both been competing over! Had the loneliness of her job made her completely indiscriminate, so that she had been prepared to leap into bed with the first man who had ever shown her any real affection? ‘I can only apologise,’ she repeated woodenly.
Once again, Lady Avery shook her head. ‘Just get back to work, will you?’ she ordered sharply.
‘Work?’ echoed Molly cautiously.
‘Well, what else did you think you?
??d be doing? We have ten people coming for dinner tonight, in case you’d forgotten. And since this time I’m assuming you won’t be obsessing about one of the guests, at least the meat won’t arrive at the table cremated.’ She gave Molly an arch look. ‘Unless no man is now safe from your clutches. I must say you’re the most unlikely candidate to be a femme fatale. Just get back to work, will you, Molly, before I change my mind?’
‘Y-yes, Lady Avery.’
Unable to believe she hadn’t been fired on the spot, Molly spent the next few weeks working harder than she’d ever worked before. She went above and beyond the call of duty as Christmas approached and she tried to make amends for her unprofessional behaviour. She attempted ambitious culinary experiments, which thankfully all turned out brilliantly. She baked, prodded, steamed and whipped—to the fervent admiration of the stream of guests which passed through the mistletoe-festooned hallway of the house. And if Lady Avery made a few sarcastic digs about Molly hanging around hopefully beneath the sprigs of white berries, Molly was mature enough not to respond. Maybe her boss’s anger was justified, she reasoned. Maybe she would have said the same if the situation had been reversed.
And it didn’t matter how busy she was—it was never enough to stop her thoughts from spinning in an unwanted direction. She found herself thinking about Salvio and that was the last thing she needed. She didn’t want to remember all the things he’d done to her. The way he’d stroked her face and lips and body, before pushing open her thighs to enter her. Just as she didn’t want to think about the way he’d whispered ‘bedda mia’ and ‘nicuzza’ in that haunting dialect when they’d both woken in the middle of the night. Because remembering that stuff was dangerous. It made it all too easy to imagine that it mattered. And it didn’t. Not to him. He’d been able to walk away without a second glance and Molly had told him she was able to do the same.
So do it.
Stop yearning.
Stop wishing for the impossible.
* * *
It was four days before Christmas when two bombshells fell in rapid succession. Molly had just been about to drive to the village, when she came across Lady Avery standing in the hallway—a full-length fur coat swamping her fine-boned frame. Her face looked cold. As cold as the wintry wind which was whistling outside the big house and bringing with it the first few flakes of snow.
‘Molly, don’t bother going to the shops right now,’ she said, without preamble.
Molly blinked. She’d made the pudding and cake and mince pies, but she still had to pick up the turkey and the vegetables. And hadn’t they run out of satsumas? She looked at her boss helpfully. ‘Is there something else you would rather I was doing?’
‘Indeed there is. You can go upstairs and pack your things.’
Molly stared at her boss in confusion. ‘Pack my things?’ she echoed stupidly. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you? It’s really quite simple. Surely there’s no need for me to spell it out for you. We no longer require your services.’
‘But...’
‘But what, Molly?’ Lady Avery took a step closer and now Molly could see that all the rage she’d been bottling up since Salvio’s departure was about to come spilling out. ‘I hope you aren’t going to ask me why I haven’t given you more notice, because I really don’t think the normal rules apply when you’ve abused your position as outrageously as you have done. I really don’t think that sleeping with the guests ever made it into your job description, do you?’
‘But it’s just before Christmas!’ Molly burst out, unable to stop herself. ‘And this...this is my home.’
Lady Avery gave a shrill laugh. ‘I don’t think so. Why don’t you go running to your boyfriend and ask if he wants you over the holiday period? Because it’s not going to happen, that’s why. Salvio will have moved on to the kind of women he’s more usually associated with by now.’ Her pale eyes drilled into Molly. ‘Do you know, they say there isn’t a supermodel on the planet he hasn’t dated?’
‘But why...why wait until now?’ questioned Molly in a low voice. ‘Why didn’t you just fire me straight away?’
