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‘Looks like he was lucky that he got you,’ Amy remarked, petting the quiet animal at her feet. ‘He seems relaxed.’
‘And my sister, Annabel, has offered to look after him when I travel,’ he told her quietly.
‘Everything covered. You’re very organised,’ Amy remarked, peering out of the windows as the traffic moved slowly past the bright sparkly windows of shops bedecked in their festive finery. ‘I love Christmas. It makes me feel warm inside—’
‘I’m not much of a fan. In my family home, it was never fun for children. Christmas was about formal entertainment for the adults.’
Amy nodded her head, guessing that by the sound of it he had been raised in a prosperous and educated household. ‘Well, I never had a proper Christmas growing up because my mother didn’t celebrate it, but that didn’t put me off the whole season,’ she confided. ‘I know it’s very commercial these days, but that doesn’t stop me enjoying the traditional stuff like the carols and beautiful decorations or even the fact that most people smile more at this time of year. And the children are alwayssoexcited...’
‘There are no children in my life.’ Sev shook his head slowly. ‘Andit’s only now occurring to me that next year I’ll have a niece or nephew to spoil. My sister is pregnant.’
‘That’s wonderful.’
‘Sometimes, you can be a little naïve,gioiamia,’ Sev countered. ‘Annabel has no partner for support, she’s on her own but for me...and the family, who mean so much to her, have turned their backs on her. This is a testing time for her.’
‘But she’s not alone as long as she has you and soon she’ll have her child as well,’ Amy responded calmly, undaunted by his critical comment. ‘Everything has an upside and a downside. All that really matters is the way you choose to look at it.’
Sev widened his magnificent glittering bronze eyes in mockery. ‘I’m of a more practical nature.’
‘That’s pretty obvious,’ Amy riposted as the limo drew to a stately halt and Sev helped her out to stand in front of an enormous town house. ‘This...is where you live?’ she prompted with dry-mouthed emphasis.
‘I like a central location,’ he said casually.
Amy swallowed hard and climbed the steps of the tall, classically elegant Georgian property, which she knew had to have cost millions of pounds. The yawning gap in their financial situations shook her rigid. Of course, she had guessed that he was well off when she first saw the limousine and the driver, but she had dimly assumed that that mode of travel could be a work-related business perk rather than a personal expense. A glimpse of his home, however, could not be so conveniently explained away. Clearly, Sev was wealthy,verywealthy. She preceded him into a wide, graciously furnished hall where he was greeted by an older woman from whom he ordered what he called ‘supper’. She hoped it would be substantial because she needed food to ground her in surroundings in which she felt seriously out of her depth.
Harley trotted confidently into a contemporary drawing room where he leapt up onto a sofa. Sev said something and the dog slowly removed itself from the seat to drop down on a rug instead. ‘He’s not perfect yet,’ Sev commented. ‘But he’s getting there. Take a seat.’
Sev lounged by the fireplace, looking impossibly gorgeous, and every time she glanced in that direction she could feel her face warming and her body heating to an uncomfortable degree. He offered her a drink, but she demurred, knowing she would fall asleep on him if she took alcohol on an empty stomach. It was a relief when the older woman bustled in with a tray heaped with snacks, and coffee followed, strong and stimulating, exactly what she needed to stay alert.
Harley shuffled over to her feet and nudged at her ankles, in search of both food and affection. Conscious that Sev was training him, she didn’t give him any scraps, but she stretched a hand down to fondle his silky ears.
Sev watched her pour the coffee and extend a cup and saucer to him and an overwhelming hunger filled him because she was so gentle with the dog. He had only ever seen that innate soothing tenderness in Annabel before and, if he was honest with himself, he had viewed it as a dangerous trait that would lead to her being hurt. And how right he’d been there!
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ Amy asked, conscious that she had made serious inroads into the delicious snacks while he stood back, content with a coffee. ‘I’m afraid that I have a very healthy appetite.’
‘Nothing wrong with that. I ate earlier.’ As Sev settled his empty cup down on the tray, the fine fabric of his trousers pulled across his lean muscular thighs and another surge of heat flashed through her. He had a beautiful body and the thought embarrassed her, but she had never been so aware of a man’s physicality before, was shaken by the manner in which her attention was continually drawn to him. Sev simply radiated earthy sex appeal.
His phone rang and he pulled it out with a frown. ‘Sorry, I need to take this...’
Her violet gaze clung to him as he walked restively across the spacious room, talking to someone he called Ethan, whom he was evidently surprised to hear from. The conversation swiftly grew abrupt because Sev was shooting anxious questions that made it clear that some woman was ill or had been hurt in some way. Anxiety stamping his lean, darkly handsome features, he said that he would be coming straight to the hospital.
In a rush, Amy stood up. ‘Look, I’ll head home. I gather you’ve got an emergency on your hands—’
Sev groaned out loud. ‘No, you can come with me. I don’t know how to handle this. That was a family friend. My sister is in hospital under observation. She fell and there’s a chance that she could have a miscarriage.’
‘Oh, my goodness, how ghastly! Why on earth would you want me to intrude?’
Pale below his olive skin, Sev settled glittering bronze eyes on her. ‘Because I haven’t a clue how to handle this but I suspect that you’ll know exactly what to say. I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Ethan says she’s hysterical and that she needs to calm down. She does get a bit overwrought when her feelings are involved.’
‘Who’s Ethan?’ Amy pressed.
‘A family friend, a doctor. She phoned him for advice when she started bleeding and he took care of her admission but he’s not in obstetrics. I’ve authorised him to get a consultant in so that we know what’s happening.’
‘From what I’ve heard there are no guarantees with a threatened miscarriage. You just have to wait and see,’ Amy told him uncertainly.
‘This is not how I expected this evening to go,’ Sev murmured heavily. ‘My apologies.’
CHAPTER FOUR
