‘No.’ He softened the sting out of his refusal by claiming her ready mouth with his. ‘We get married in less than thirty-six hours. No more sex before then. I’ve got standards,’ he informed her loftily.
Cassie widened those velvet-green eyes, the tightly moulding front of her jeans pressing up against him. He wanted her and denying it was useless when the evidence was so on show.
‘I will not confuse the twins by being the first man they find in your bed before we’re married,’ he determined, using the words to tell her that he still regretted making that earlier quip about her other lovers.
‘Very honourable,’ she praised him mock-solemnly, ‘although you could creep out of here before sunrise…’
Using the spread of his hands to pull her even closer, ‘Not so honourable,’ he admitted, ‘more a case of being aware that the walls in here are paper-thin and you can be—noisy.’
He grinned at the becoming blush that spread into her cheeks. ‘I won’t have time to see you tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I have too many things I need to do.’
‘I thought we were going shopping.’ Sandro frowned down at her.
‘For my wedding clothes? I think that’s one small chore you can trust me to pull off without your input.’
‘You mean you’re shutting me out in punishment because I won’t let you drag me back to bed.’
The spark that hit her eyes told him he was right. He released a sigh, then added a soft laugh. Beautiful, he thought as he looked down at her. Shy, feisty, stubborn, sexy. Intelligent, independent—and almost his.
And he had to get out of here before he burnt his boats, gave in and told her everything. Honourable? No. Ruthless and manipulative and calculating? Yes, he was all of those things. Plus a coward, for not daring to take a risk by trusting her with what he knew.
Combing his long fingers into her hair, he tilted her head back, the burning heat of his kiss telling her what he really wanted to do, before he was muttering a husky goodnight and getting out while he still could.
Cassie closed the door and leant into it with a silly, dreamy smile on her face. She took that smile into her bedroom and slept with it, woke up the next morning with it still in place. After delivering the twins to school she spent the rest of the day rushing around putting her affairs in order in readiness for her move to Florence.
By the time she arrived back at her flat, she was too tired to do much more than drop into the lumpy old armchair with her purchases piled around her aching feet. The telephone sitting on the bookcase by the chair started ringing. Smiling because she thought it must be Sandro calling her, she reached out to pick it up, but it wasn’t Sandro.
‘OK, let’s have it,’ Ella’s voice came streaming down the line at her. ‘Did you know our gorgeous boss was involved in a serious car accident around the time he got you pregnant with the twins?’
Sighing, Cassie sank more deeply into the chair. ‘Yes.’
There was a short, sharp pause before Ella murmured, ‘You’re a dark horse, Cassie Janus. I called him a rake on the take yesterday and you went out of your way to deny it, when all along you knew the guy’s fiancée died in the same accident! He left you to go back to her, didn’t he? You weren’t just a babe in the arms of that handsome rat, you were the rejected third of a sleazy love triangle. No wonder he hit the floor whe
n he saw you again—his damn guilty conscience sent him there!’
Cassie was floundering in a dizzy world of too much traumatic information. For several seconds she believed she was going to be the one to black out.
‘Come on, Cassie—give!’ Ella’s voice spiked her eardrum.
‘H-how did you get to hear about this?’ she whispered.
‘BarTec’s buzzing with it,’ Ella enlightened. ‘It’s even on Facebook! That vindictive bitch Pandora put it there!’
The phone rang again five minutes later. Cassie was still sitting in the chair. This time when she picked up the receiver it was Sandro.
‘Cassie…’ he said urgently.
He knew. He’d been warned.
‘I hate you,’ she whispered and put down the phone.
Sandro had been engaged to marry someone else when he’d pursued her in Devon. He’d used a different name so he couldn’t be found out and all that rubbish about two names had been just a cover-up. He’d lied to her and he’d betrayed his fiancée.
Had she had an old Italian name like Sandro? Had she been beautiful? Had she been lovely and sweet and innocent and nice? Had she died, unaware that her fiancé had cheated on her? Was she allowed to cling to that small hope at least?
Like someone trapped in a daze, she got up from the chair and walked over to the cabinet where her laptop was housed when she wasn’t using it. Five minutes later she was sitting at the dining table, staring at the most beautiful, dark-haired creature she had ever seen. Her eyes were blue, her smile was warm, and she was standing next to Sandro with his arm securing her to his side.
…Alessandro Marchese Rossi, the eldest son and heir to Italian industrialist Luciano Marchese, and Phebe Pyralis, the only daughter of the Greek industrialist Anton Pyralis, celebrating their engagement, which forges an alliance destined to set the industrial world on its ears…