living in the house and she was to have daily contact with him.
That night, the tree trimmed and placed in a giant half-barrel and installed ready for decoration in the cluttered entrance, Amy went up to bed, satisfied that she had kept busy because she had gone through the drawing room with labels and the transformation was on its way. Once the clutter was put away, the house would look much better. Sev had left her in peace to work, a state of affairs she had told herself she was very grateful for, even though she didn’t quite believe it after a long bath and climbing into her spacious bed, the comfiest she had ever lain on.
Just as she was reaching out to douse the light, the door opened and framed Sev, clad only in a towel.
In a surge of surprise, she sat up, violet eyes wide and startled. ‘Sev...what—’
‘Well, if it’s just sex,’ he murmured very softly, ‘we don’t need to stop, do we?’
Unprepared for that approach, and the experience of having her own statement tossed back to her in provocative challenge, Amy stared back at him and knew there was nothing she wanted more than Sev in her bed. A sort of might-as-well-be-hung-for-a-sheep-as-a-lamb outlook gripped her.
The silence hummed and perspiration broke out on her upper lip. ‘I suppose not,’ she mumbled unevenly.
Not a shy bone in his lean, muscular golden body, Sev dropped the towel and vaulted in beside her. ‘So we’ll keep it simple,’ he told her. ‘Just you and me...we’re exclusive... OK?’
‘OK,’ Amy responded sunnily, wondering if he could be so insane as to imagine that, pregnant and ordinary as she was, some other man was likely to want to run off with her, particularly when she had Sev. Who would run out on Sev? Her face fell again. Or did he think she was flighty, a bit easy? Likely to go with the first guy who asked? He was naïve, she decided. Nothing was that simple, particularly with a baby involved.
‘We’re living here together now,’ Sev added.
‘Are we?’ Amy wondered what it was about Sev that meant he always had to push against her limits, force her that extra mile, throw in something else she hadn’t even had time to think about and catch her on the hop. Maybe that was just Sev. Maybe he literally thought in the moment, didn’t do all the agonising she did in fear of making a wrong decision.
‘Sì...’ Sev lapsed into Italian in shock at the commitment he had just made, yet that same statement of intent had not fazed her at all. He marvelled at her calm. She had caught him without even trying to catch him and now he was where he had believed he never wanted to be, he reminded himself grimly, involved with a woman in a steady relationship for the first time ever, and on some level it scared him to know that, also for the first time ever, he had boundaries to his freedom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ONLY TEN DAYS LATER, Amy lowered her maternity jeans while the technician wielded the wand over the little bump that was developing much faster than Amy had appreciated it would. That was the main reason that Sev had got away with kitting her out with an entire new wardrobe, she conceded ruefully, because, with neither income nor clothes that fitted any longer, she hadn’t had much choice. Surprised by the rate of her expansion, the consultant Sev had insisted she see had sent her straight upstairs for a scan.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ the technician carolled in apparent delight. ‘Mummy and Daddy are expecting twins...’
Amy went into shock and just lay there like a felled tree, gaping at the screen as two little blips were pointed out. Sev’s grip became so taut he was almost crushing her fingers.
‘Two...’ Sev said gruffly.
A nightmare, by his estimation, Amy thought sadly. One baby was a lot to handle, the prospect of two could only strike a resolutely single man as a nightmare. That wasn’t how she felt but, although she was certain that Sev would not be that frank and hurt her feelings, secretly that had to be how he felt, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
‘How soon will we know the gender?’ Sev asked shakily, the slight tremor in his usually calm voice all too revealing.
It would be quite a few weeks, he was told, and armed with that knowledge they returned to the consultant. In company with the older