Page 52 of His Housekeeper's Twin Baby Confession
But the way he’d been looking at her tonight at the party told her the jig was up. Everywhere she’d looked, he’d been there. At one point during the evening she’d taken a full tray from one of the waiters and within seconds Massimo had been there, taking it from her and handing it to someone else.
He’d said in a low voice, ‘This is ridiculous, Carrie. You do not serve. You supervise. And I’ve changed my mind.This—’ here he’d gestured to her and then the room in general ‘—is not working for me.’
The intensity of his gaze had stopped her from saying anything and he’d melted back into the crowd—well, as much as someone like himcouldmelt, when he stood head and shoulders above almost everyone else.
She went and stood at one of the doors, looking into the party. It was winding down now. She didn’t know how he did it, but Massimo had some magical way of letting everyone know that it was time to go home. There were never the scenes of debauchery here that she imagined he must have witnessed as a child.
The butler came and stood beside her. ‘You were up earlier than me today, Carrie,’ he said. ‘You take off. I can look after things from here.’
She looked at Dave. ‘Are you sure? The events manager is standing by, to make sure the last guests get away without delay and the initial clean-up has started.’
He nodded. ‘It’s all sorted. You head off.’
The thought of escaping Massimo’s brooding gaze and their inevitable conversation was too much to resist. Carrie slipped away, and when she got to her room she ran a bath, stripping off and sliding into it with a groan of thanks.
She put her hands on her burgeoning belly. It felt hard. Her breasts were definitely bigger too, the areolae changing colour. She felt...ripe. Full of something she couldn’t quite understand. An edgy sense of restlessness.
Whenever she’d caught Massimo looking at her this evening she’d felt a very unwelcome jolt of awareness, as if he could see right through her clothes to the naked flesh underneath.
One hand drifted to her breast, cupping its weight. She let her fingers graze the nipple and gasped out loud at the immediate sensation. She’d been feeling sensitive, but had had no idea just how close to the surface it was.
The edginess she’d been feeling dissipated for the first time in weeks. Trapping her nipple between two fingers was inducing a delicious feeling of tension. Acting on pure instinct, she put her other hand between her legs, where she could feel the slippery evidence of her very obvious desire.
Had it been brought on just from watching Massimo from across the room? Or had it been building since the last time she’d slept with him?
The thought of never sleeping with him again made something reckless move through Carrie, and she pressed her hand against herself—hard. It wasn’t enough. She slipped two fingers inside herself and her back arched at the sensation. She started to move, desperately chasing the coiling tension deep inside, as her other hand squeezed her breast. She imagined it was Massimo’s big hand between her legs, his fingers filling her as he urged her toCome for me, Carrie... That’s it...come on...let go...
She did—in a helpless rush of undulating pleasure.
It took her a moment to realise she could hear knocking, and a voice.
‘Carrie?’
Massimo.
Carrie panicked in a wave of hot mortification. Had she literally conjured him up out of her fervid imagination?
She called out, ‘I’m in the bath...give me a minute.’
She cursed him as she got out and dried herself roughly, before pulling on a voluminous robe. Her body was still pulsating. She was red in the face. She put her hair up in a rough knot. She cursed him again, and went to open the door.
He was standing on the other side, bow-tie undone, top button open. She would have thought him every inch the disreputable rake, if she didn’t know that he was actually quite serious and conscientious.
That only made her heart squeeze.Weak heart.
She pulled the lapels of her robe together like a virgin maiden. ‘I was having a bath. Is everything all right? Dave said he’d look after the last of the party...’
Massimo waved a hand. ‘It’s fine...they’re all gone now.’
Carrie was glad he couldn’t see through to her skin, where her blood was still pulsing. Seeing him here like this in a tuxedo so soon after she’d just been—
’What can I help you with?’ she blurted out, trying not to remember what she’d just been doing.
He said, ‘It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.’
Carrie blinked. ‘Yes, it is.’
She usually spent Christmas alone in her suite. A couple of times other staff had invited her for dinner, but she’d made up an excuse. Christmas wasn’t an especially significant time of the year for her. It had always just been her and her mother, and she’d learnt very early that she shouldn’t ask for things that made her mother feel she had to work harder to provide.
