‘I own right of say over your monthly salary,’ he reminded her with the smooth, calm thrust of a steely knife. ‘Perhaps what you don’t know is that I also own right of say over your reduced rent for this place. If you need confirmation of that, call Angus,’ he suggested. ‘He will tell you I bought his property portfolio at the same time I boug
ht BarTec.’
Cassie’s strangled gasp hurt her throat. She needed to stay leaning against the wall because her legs had gone hollow with shock. ‘I suppose you’ve been dying to tell me that from the beginning,’ she breathed hoarsely.
‘On the contrary, I would have preferred not to play these cards with you.’ The hard cast of his face took on a bleak, sardonic smile. ‘However, we don’t have enough time left to allow you to prevaricate while you…salve your wounded pride over something neither of us can do anything about.’
‘What pride?’ Cassie choked out. ‘I don’t have any. You’ve stripped me of it!’
Even the wall wasn’t going to hold her up now, she realised as her hollow legs turned to jelly along with her queasy stomach, and her quivering heart. Almost stumbling like a blind woman she groped her way around the sofa and sat down on it, curling into the corner of it like a cowering whipped dog.
‘Look…’ he sighed, clearly not liking the whipped-dog look ‘…we have to—’
‘Shut up. I hate you. Get out,’ she whispered in fierce loathing.
‘When someone breaks the rules they must expect to pay for it!’ Sandro suddenly rasped out. ‘Six years ago I broke the rules, but you have been the one paying for it. Now I must and I will repay that debt to you!’
He was talking about marriage again. But did he really believe that marrying her was repaying her for what he’d done? ‘I will not be the cross for you to bear on your rotten guilt crusade!’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
‘It’s how it sounds!’
‘All right, I will rephrase it.’ He took in a deep breath. ‘I broke the rules. The twins have been paying for it. Now it is time for me to repay my debt to them.’
‘Well, that just about crowns the insults you’ve been piling on me, doesn’t it?’
His answering sigh came with a frown that sent his fingers shooting up to his brow. Like someone riding on a see-saw of violently swaying emotions, Cassie felt the stomach-riddling clutch of her hatred switch to a heartsqueezing wrench of concern.
‘Don’t you dare black out on me, Sandro!’ she launched at him furiously.
‘I’m not—’
‘Yes, you are!’ On a groan of sizzling frustration Cassie unfolded her curled figure and rose to her feet.
She saw him tense as she approached him, then still when her fingers gripped his arm. Another second later and he was dropping his shoulders and swaying sideways to prop himself against the frame of the door.
‘What caused it this time?’ she questioned reluctantly.
He sketched out a half-smile. ‘The sweet, loving tone of your voice?’
‘Don’t joke,’ Cassie husked, her other hand already covering the thankfully steady beat of his heart. ‘You need to sit down—’
‘What I need is for you to stop fighting me.’
‘And do what instead—forgive you for your sins?’
‘Sí.’He dropped the hand from his face and looked at her, those deep-set dark eyes framed by unfairly long eyelashes reflecting a sombre beauty that clutched like a vice at her heart. ‘You have bought the dress, cara—I saw the shopping. You know deep down you care about me.’ Reaching up, he scored a thumb across her kiss-warmed, trembling mouth. ‘Hate me later, after we marry. I will be able to deal with it better then.’
Cassie drew her head back, away from his caressing finger. ‘And how can you be sure of that?’
He offered a tense smile. ‘Call it instinct.’
Instinct, she mocked. What he was doing was playing tunes on her sympathy. He was ruthlessly jumping on her moment of weakness that had brought her over here to him! His brow still wore the ghost of a pained frown, his stance still relied heavily on the door frame. And his hand was covering her hand now, pressing it into the heated shirt stretched over his beating heart.
‘I vow to you, on my own life, you will not regret it.’
Pressed, pushed, feeling the hurt again and aching with it, she snatched her hand away and walked back to the sofa to curl down into it, waging angry battles with herself now, as well as with him.