Ignoring her scattered clothes, the ripped reminders of an explosive passion that hadn’t lasted the night, she pulled on the same frock she’d arrived in. Thank goodness Marco or his staff had had the foresight to have her things sent on from the hotel to Marco’s penthouse. Scraping her hair back, she didn’t bother with make-up. Why would she? Who would notice? Picking up the phone, she checked on flights home to England and then booked a cab to the airport. She’d got enough money to fly home, and there was no point in staying—not on Marco’s terms.
Just thinking about it made her so angry she had to blink back tears. She had never been a victim, and she wasn’t about to start now. When things went wrong, she did something about it.
When the cab driver called to say he was outside, she checked around one last time to make sure she’d got everything—and then stopped, frozen to the spot, at the sight of Marco’s cheque on the hall table. She picked it up and studied the amount. She studied the bold script of Marco’s signature. She couldn’t imagine what he’d been thinking when he’d come up with such a ridiculous amount, let alone what she had been thinking when she’d accepted it. There was enough money here to send her godmother around the world first class with money to spare. A second call from the cab driver distracted her.
‘Coming now,’ she answered.
* * *
‘Cassandra...Cassandra?’
He stared around the empty penthouse. Where the hell was she? He had expected a welcome, a smile, and a whole lot more. Was she still in bed? He felt a buzz of anticipation as he went to find out.
The buzz didn’t last long. His room was empty, the bed neatly made. He knocked on the bathroom door...
Nothing.
He checked inside to be sure.
He searched the whole place, but it was silent and empty. There was no sign of her—no clothes on the floor, nothing out of place, not even a scribbled note to indicate where she had gone. And he’d distinctly told her to expect him later. He went back to the hallway where he’d left her cheque beneath a plant pot on the console table. Where she couldn’t have missed it.
His cheque was still there.
He thought about calling her on his phone and then changed his mind. She must have gone back to the hotel. He dialled the number and reeled at the information that the receptionist gave him. Signorina Rich had called by to pick up her passport and suitcase on her way to the airport.
She’d left him?
He huffed a humourless laugh. Maybe it was for the best that she’d gone. The strength of his desire for Cassandra was warning enough to end it now. He would have done, if she hadn’t gone.
But she’d gone.
Dio! He was her employer. She couldn’t just walk out on him.
Striding across the room, he snatched up the cheque. Gripping it in his fist, he rang his PA. ‘Find her.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He slammed down the phone, refusing to accept that a small part of him couldn’t let Cassandra go—not completely.
* * *
Cass made sure she wasn’t easy to find. Her experience in Tuscany had bruised her. Bought and paid for like her mother, she was determined that she would not suffer the same fate. No one knew better than she did that a clean break with the past was the only chance anyone had to move forward. The person she had been in Rome wasn’t her. Or, rather, it wasn’t the person she wanted to be. She was Cass, plain and simple—not some glittering socialite with a rampant sex life, who stayed the night with the boss in order to keep him sweet.
Not everything was doom and gloom. Her godmother had flown to Australia to join her son, explaining that he had sent the fare for her, and, on Cass’s recommendation, she had rented out her house to bring in some extra cash while she was away.
This was just the opportunity Cass had needed to quit the address Marco’s people held on file for her and start over. She got a job at another supermarket, which paid just enough money to rent a small house in a nearby village. Her new home was tiny, but she loved it. She had put up a notice in the local post office, offering her services as a gardener, and to her surprise she was soon fully booked. With that and her work on the tills she was almost too busy for regret—until the day she fainted on the job, and an elderly lady she was serving asked her if she was pregnant...
‘No. Of course not,’ she protested, laughing at the absurdity of the question. ‘What makes you think that?’ But even as she spoke, a spear of alarm stabbed deep.
‘A strong, healthy girl like you has no reason to feel faint—unless you’re ill, which I doubt. I’ve had six children myself,’ the old lady confided, ‘so I know the signs.’