Marchese's Forgotten Bride

by Michelle Reid

  Pressing her lips together, Cassie nodded, accepting that he had a point. The emotional ride they’d been travelling on for the last two weeks had not been conducive to social introductions; even Angus would agree with that, since he’d been dragged onto the ride with them for a while.

  ‘Your family knows about your blackouts?’

  This time his tension was more obvious. ‘Would you like to get where you’re going with this, cara, because I am lost.’

  Cassie wished she knew but she didn’t. Something was nagging at her but she couldn’t quite work out what that something was. ‘I suppose it bothers me that we don’t really know anything about each other,’ she said as she tried to sort her own head out. ‘Yet here we are, planning to get married like two reckless teenagers—’

  ‘The evidence of our two five-year-old children hijacks the teenager part of that,’ Sandro mocked.

  ‘That’s just arithmetic,’ she dismissed. ‘I still don’t know you and you can’t even remember me. The twins deserve a stable family environment. They don’t deserve a set of parents who marry in haste for their so-called benefit, only to repent their decision later in front of them.’

  ‘I will not regret marrying you,’ Sandro stated firmly.

  Cassie took in a breath. ‘Well, I think we should wait.’

  ‘No,’ he refuted and now he was really uptight, hands out of his pockets and clenched.

  ‘I think it would be kinder to the twins in the long run if we—’

  ‘No!’ he repeated with an angry rasp. ‘I want marriage and I want it now. The twins expect it and I will not let you ruin what I am trying to build up with them! What the hell has got into you in the half an hour since we made love to each other?’

  What had happened? Well, there was a clever question, Cassie thought unhappily. Then it hit, the nitty-gritty of what was bothering her.

  ‘You made the assumption that I’ve had a string of lovers coming into this apartment,’ she told him. ‘If you knew me better you would know I would never do that in front of my children—’

  ‘Our children—’

  ‘And I don’t like the way you voiced that assumption as if it didn’t matter to you if I had introduced the twins to a long line of passing-through uncles. What do you think that tells me about your casual attitude to sex?’

  ‘I don’t do casual sex!’ he denounced angrily, then took in a deep breath. By the time he let the air back out of his lungs again he had shot down the short length of the kitchen so he was standing directly in front of her, his hand coming up to cup her cheek. ‘Any woman with experience would know a man doesn’t fall apart as I do with you if he was putting it out there like a damn stud,’ he imparted huskily. ‘You, mi amore, are not a woman of experience. Therefore my comment earlier was crude and unwarranted. I apologise for making it.’

  Her intake of air ready to speak was stopped by the gentle pressure of his fingers against her lips. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just shut up and stop looking for excuses to get rid of me. We all belong together—remember that leap of faith.’

  Was that what she was doing—looking for excuses to get rid of him? Searching his frowning dark eyes, Cassie decided that yes, she probably was. What kept on flaring up between them scared her. It seemed to happen with no reason or sense.

  ‘You want me. I want you. We can work on the rest,’ he said firmly. ‘Trust me. Trust yourself. We both want this.’

  This, she discovered, was the kind of slow, gentle kiss that muddied her brain up. This, was his hands gently stroking her face. It wasn’t sexual, it wasn’t even close to it. It was tender and reassuring and…oh, God, she just fell into it like a needy fool, pushing her niggles aside—once again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SANDRO stayed with them at the flat until the twins were tucked up in bed and asleep. He’d raided the fridge and cooked them all pasta, turning the whole thing into a family event in which everyone was expected to participate.

  And he did it with a smooth, flirtatious light-heartedness that papered over the cracks in his own splintered veneer. Cassie had shaken him when she’d gone back to questioning their marriage. He hadn’t been expecting it; now his conscience was troubling him because he’d asked her to trust him when he knew her instincts were not playing her false.

  ‘I will come back first thing in the morning,’ he promised, drawing the words along her delicate jawline with the warmth of his breath.

  ‘You could stay…’

  He could stay. The soft invitation came with the sinuous move of her body against his. For the first time she was coming on to him and he knew, with fierce regret, he had to push her away.

  ‘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…

  She didn’t want to read on but like a fool she just couldn’t stop herself. There were photos and articles about the glittering couple, links to reports on the accident she couldn’t bring herself to click on. Then her own face was suddenly looking back at her from a picture taken at the restaurant, followed by a damning exposure which placed Cassie as Sandro’s secret lover at the time his fiancée had been killed. The existence of the twins was mentioned, followed by the assumption that their affair had taken place virtually beneath Angus’s roof, though nothing could be further from the truth. If she’d met Sandro through Angus she would have known all about him and there would have been no affair—and ultimately no twins.

  Nausea took a sudden hold of her, sending her lurching to her feet and rushing for the bathroom, but she didn’t make it there because someone put their fingers on her doorbell, keeping it pealing like a Klaxon in her throbbing head and forcing her to go and answer it even though she didn’t want to see or speak to anyone.

  Sandro was standing there. He looked different—tough strains of tension locked onto the taut contours of his face.

  ‘OK,’ he spoke quickly. ‘I should have told you.’

  A strangled sob and Cassie tried to shut the door in his face. His hand snaking out to slam against the wood stopped her so she spun around and walked away. She heard the door click into its housing as she took up position in front of the casement window.

  He followed her into the room, filling the doorway. She found her eyes grazing down his full length, dressed to its usual impeccable high standards in a steel-grey silk suit. He looked what he was, she thought bitterly, a lean, sleek sexual predator with a ruthless streak that cut right through to the core of him.

  His angry eyes flicked around the room as if looking for something.

  ‘They’re not here,’ Cassie told him. ‘If they had been I would not have let you in.’

  He shifted his tense, wide shoulders as if shaking off her cold stricture, his gaze alighting on the laptop standing open on the table where she’d left it. Grim lips biting together, he strode over to it and with a touch from a long finger made the screen leap into life. His stillness clawed at her raw nerve-endings as she watched him watch his own history roll across the screen. The glittering betrothal, the tragic car accident, then the final exposure of her role in his life and the twins.

  Wrapping her arms around her body, she tightened them until her ribs hurt. ‘You turned me into the other woman and I didn’t even know it,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.

  ‘I don’t want to hear you tell me you’re sorry!’ Like a wounded animal she went on the attack. ‘I just want you to tell me why you lied to me!’

  ‘I did not lie.’ Reaching out, he closed the laptop.

  ‘Oh, I forgot, you don’t remember me.’ Her sarcasm hit a nerve because he turned on her then.

  ‘All right!’ he flung at her. ‘So I’ve known since the first night we met again why I had forgotten you! Guilt is why I wiped you out of my head, Cassie! Sheer, gut-crucifying guilt!’

  Hearing him actually voice the stark, crawling truth of it drained the blood from her head. Sandro didn’t look as if he was feeling any better. He was standing there rigid, looking as stunned as she was by his own confession.

  His guilty confession! It was no wonder he kept on blacking out—he couldn’t live with himself! This big, strong, dynamic male with the body of a warrior and the machinating mind of a general had learnt the hardest way possible that he actually possessed a conscience!

  ‘You bastard,’ she breathed with the frailest flimsiness because she didn’t dare test the strength of her voice against what was backing up behind it.

  ‘Sí,’ he agreed.

  ‘The way you treat w-women, I can actually understand why Pandora did what she did!’

  He stiffened his backbone. ‘What is that supposed to imply?’

  ‘Hell has no fury,’ Cassie supplied with thick, tremulous mockery. ‘She was your lover before I came along. You must have—’

  ‘She was not my lover.’

  ‘What was she, then?’

  ‘My assistant,’ he said. ‘My—’

  ‘Personal assistant?’

  ‘No!’ he raked out. ‘And quit with the sarcasm,’ he growled impatiently. ‘My relationship with Pandora is purely professional! OK…’ He sighed out harshly when he read her expression. ‘So I knew she had…feelings for me. I decided to do something about it to help her get over her…infatuation, by removing her out of my sphere and putting her in charge of BarTec while I turned my attention to other things! She did not like it but she did look forward to the challenge so accepted the opportunity! Then you came crashing back into my life, and it’s clear now that she allowed her feelings for me to override her professional common sense!’

  ‘Did you ever sleep with her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you ever want to sleep with her?’

  ‘No!’ he bit out. ‘If you want the truth, she had become a pain in the damn neck! When Gio told me she was giving you a hard time at BarTec, I decided it was time I did something more permanent about her…emotional attachment, so I sent her back to Florence with notice to find herself another job. This…’ the laptop was waved at ‘…was her vindictive response!’

  ‘OK,’ Cassie whispered. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Grazie,’ he responded with stiff-necked thinness, not in the least bit happy about being put on the rack about Pandora in the first place.

  ‘Don’t think for one second that I forgive you for any of it!’ She instantly fired up. ‘You should have told me about your f-fiancée, Sandro!’

  ‘I tried to several times but…’ he stopped to sigh then pushed his fingers through his hair ‘…I knew it was going to hurt you. And I could not predict how you were going to react. So I decided to wait until we were safely married before I explained about—about Phebe.’ He couldn’t even say her name without swallowing first! ‘And I also had to think about what was best for the twins.’

  ‘Don’t you dare bring them into this!’ Cassie ch
oked out. ‘And I am not in the least bit impressed by your excuses! Right from the start it’s always been what you decided. What you wanted to do! Well, what about me and what I might have wanted?’

  ‘You wanted me,’ he declared harshly. ‘From the moment you looked at me in that damn restaurant, Cassie, you—wanted—me! Well, now you have me, tied, trussed and bloody gift-wrapped! I’m giving you what you wanted!’

  ‘Y-you conceited devil!’ she gasped.

  ‘I wanted you the same way. Why deny it that we both want the same thing?’

  ‘I did not want to be the cross you’ve decided to bear to salve your lousy guilty conscience!’

  She hated him for turning her into that—she would hate him forever for it!

  ‘Did she—your fiancée know about me?’ she spun at him chokily.

  ‘No,’ he roughed out.

  One tiny chink of relief in a black storm of shame and misery, Cassie thought painfully.

  ‘She came to meet me at the airport the day I left here,’ he continued heavily. ‘We hit an oil spill on the way into Florence. She—died later…’ He took another thick pause for several long seconds before he added, ‘I think that’s all you need to know.’

  Cassie nodded as a sickly quiver of muddled emotions riddled her insides. She felt sorry for poor, tragic, beautiful Phebe Pyralis. She even felt a pang of sorrow for Sandro and what he had lost that night. A six-week black hole in his memory seemed like nothing now when held up against the vivid images he had just sketched out.

  Two people, a car, an oil slick, two broken bodies…Her hand went up to cover her mouth. Two lives shattered in the skidding grind of twisting metal. Three more lives—her own and the twins’—spinning off into the black hole Sandro’s mind had become.

  ‘“I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you,”’ she whispered. ‘No wonder you said those words to me.’ His brain had refused to let him remember her on any level, even her cry for help.

  He threw back his shoulders, his fabulous bone structure fiercely pronounced. ‘What I said to you that day was—is—unforgivable,’ he accepted tautly. ‘All I can say in my defence is that I did not remember you. And Phebe…’ he stopped to swallow, his expression raw and ravaged ‘…Phebe and I were both left in deep comas after the accident. She—she did not come through it…I did…’