Marchese's Forgotten Bride

by Michelle Reid

  Sandro picked up the polite duties of host, introducing everyone to each other—one of her hands held firmly trapped in his.

  Marco sent her a brief wry smile. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you properly at last.’

  But was it? Cassie found herself questioning as she laid her free hand in his. There was something restrained about his smile and his manner and even his tone of voice. Did he disapprove of her? Was he comparing her with the beautiful Phebe Pyralis and finding her lacking? Was he thinking about her and Sandro’s past association as he drew his hand from hers and turned away to greet her friend?

  Her throat went so dry she couldn’t even swallow. Finding a smile for Gio Rosario actually hurt her tense mouth. When the registrar appeared to invite them to follow her, Cassie froze so totally she had a horrible feeling she might just be going to faint.

  Great cop-out but—yes, please, she begged silently.

  Then Sandro was feeding his hand across her tense back, his long fingers curving into her waist. He urged her forward, his own grim, silent tension telling her that he was aware she was still fighting with herself about going through with this.

  ‘My reluctant bride,’ he drawled sardonically as his car sped them away towards the airport, leaving Gio and Ella standing on the town-hall steps, planning where to have lunch. Sandro’s brother had excused himself and rushed off directly after the ceremony was over, claiming a heavy work schedule.

  Cassie wondered if the word ‘ceremony’ covered what had been just thirty short minutes of soulless promises before she was elevated from plain Cassie Janus to the super-elegant Mrs Alessandro Marchese.

  ‘When you lost your voice halfway through your declaration, I half expected someone to stride through the doors and announce you were not lawfully free to marry me,’ Sandro mocked.

  Her quick-witted daughter had come to her rescue. Bella had tugged on her skirt and whispered, ‘You haven’t finished yet, Mummy,’ while everyone else had begun shifting their stance.

  I, Cassie Janus, take Alessandro Marchese…

  No wonder she’d frozen up. She’d finally been forced to refer to him by that name.

  ‘Look at the way your ring is sparkling, Mummy,’ Bella piped up, reminding them both that the twins were travelling with them.

  The perfect killers of adult conversation, Cassie mused with a smile at the twins. She glanced down at the sparkling diamond ring slotted on her finger next to the wedding ring which matched the one she’d almost dropped to the floor, she’d been trembling so badly as she’d tried to slot it on Sandro’s long, brown, rock-steady finger.

  Sandro reached across the twins’ heads and stroked one of those long fingers down her pale cheek. He didn’t speak. When she glanced up at his face he still said nothing, but there was a possessive glow burning in his dark eyes that spread a warm flush right through her tense body.

  His wife, her husband—for better and for worse now that the deed had been done. And the reason for that sat here between them, a small boy and girl wearing happy, contented faces.

  Oh, come off it, Cassie, she then told herself impatiently. In the end and no matter what you’ve been fighting or thinking or saying—you’re exactly where you want to be right now!

  The sun was beginning to set by the time they sank through the air in a sweeping circle around the kind of house and gardens that took Cassie’s breath away.

  To reach this far they’d travelled by private jet to Vespucci Airport in Florence, then transferred to one of Sandro’s private helicopters to make the sixty-kilometre trip south to arrive here, at the Marchese private country estate.

  The twins were tired, the bubble of overexcitement which had carried them through the start of their long journey chiselled away by too many hours of confinement, and they were unimpressed by this first view of their new home.

  On the other hand Cassie was beginning to truly realise just what kind of man it was she had married. She had known the Sandro of six years ago had come from money by his air of self-assurance, the quality of his clothes and the kind of flashy red sports car he had driven her around in then. When she’d met him again two weeks ago, she’d had to push him further up the moneyed ranking because of the sheer nature of who he had become as the controlling head of Marchese Industries.

  However, this huge square stone villa with its apricot stuccoed walls blushing warmly in the dying sunlight, surrounded by the kind of gardens you usually only saw in travel magazines, pushed him even further up the rankings to a place beyond her present ability to comprehend.

  ‘Welcome to the Villa Marchese,’ he murmured as they settled down on the ground. ‘What do you think?’ he asked Cassie curiously.

  ‘It’s—big,’ was all she could find to say.

  ‘It’s not a castle,’ their daughter said in disappointment.

  ‘So I can’t please anyone today.’ Sandro sighed out whimsically.

  ‘I saw a huge swimming pool,’ Anthony chipped in. ‘Can we swim in it now?’

  ‘Except for my son—a little,’ Sandro added ruefully.

  Opening the door, he climbed down then turned to lift the twins out. As though they’d been set free from a cage, they ran off towards the villa, putting Cassie’s heart into a fluttering panic because she had never let them move so far away from her before.

  ‘Sandro, catch them!’ she cried in alarm, moving without thinking what she was doing, so when she swung her legs out of the helicopter and went to lower herself to the ground she discovered the scary way that she was much higher up than she’d realised.

  By then it was already too late, and that first impulsive move continued to carry her forward. Her heart gave a thump, that fizzing feeling you got when you knew you were going to fall washing agitated tingles down her legs, and she let out a frightened yelp.

  Spinning around, Sandro ripped out a soft curse then came to her rescue, his strong arms banding around her body and gathering her up to hold her securely flattened to his long, hard length. Without even thinking about it, Cassie flung her arms around his neck and clung on for dear life.

  ‘I knew you would fall for me all over again once you’d seen my house,’ he said lazily.

  ‘It isn’t a joke!’ Firing a shaken look up at him, Cassie caught the smiling glint of his white teeth—the genuine laughter that reflected in his eyes. The dying sunlight was bronzing his fabulous features, his smooth forehead, his vibrant cheekbones, his jawline, the glowing patina of health that glossed his fleshless cheeks. Finally she collided with those sizzling gold flecks sparkling in his eyes, and that sinking feeling shot through her for a second time, only this one was down to the dizzying swoop of her own aching emotions, fighting against the hard, cold clutch of reality that he’d used her terribly six years ago for a one-night stand.

  ‘Put me down,’ she instructed.

  And watched the laughter die. Instead of setting her feet to the ground he strengthened the muscles in his arms. She saw what was coming, and her fingertips curled tensely into his shirt collar.

  ‘Sandro, no,’ she jerked out.

  ‘Dio, Sandro, yes,’ he delivered in a deep voice roughened by his intentions, and lifted her higher at the same time as he lowered his dark head to capture her mouth.

  And he took it with a fire-hot hunger. The old electric excitement dragging a helpless whimper from her in response. With a muffled groan of raw desire he drove his tongue deep into her mouth on a passionately sensual exploration that blew her defences wide apart. Her head fell back against his shoulder; her heart began to pound. It was dreadful and wonderful at the same time, because she needed this kiss so badly it was no use trying to kid herself any more.

  She wanted him. She was hungry for him, confused and mad and wild—and she kissed him back with every bit of singing, pulsing, throbbing passion that she had in her, yet aching tears filled her eyes when he finally allowed their mouths to part so they could draw breath.

  ‘You should have told me about her,’ she sobbed o
ut painfully.

  ‘I couldn’t.’ His voice sounded harsh, thick, unsteady. ‘I’d hurt you too much already by abandoning you. I could not hurt you again by telling you about her.’

  ‘You loved her—’

  ‘No,’ he denied fiercely, banding her more tightly to him. ‘We did not have that kind of relationship. She was my friend before she became my betrothed. We kind of drifted into the idea of marriage because it suited our two families but—damn,’ he husked, ‘she was nice!’

  Cassie shivered, wondering how he would have felt if poor Phebe had described him as just nice.

  ‘I loved her, but not in the way I should have done. I know that now but I did not understand then,’ he breathed raggedly. ‘She did not need my money because she had her own money. She did not need me to elevate her place in society because she already had that too. She did not expect great passion from me and she did not mind that I was more into work than being romantic.’

  ‘If you’re about to confess that the two of you made love by appointment then I don’t want to hear about it,’ Cassie sparked up brokenly.

  ‘We never made love! Hell—damn…!’ Setting her down on her feet, he fell into a rage of Italian curses while Cassie stood trembling and stared at him in stinging disbelief.

  There was just no way she was going to believe that one, knowing the depth and strength of his passions the way she did!

  ‘Before I left to come to England, we had even talked about calling our engagement off!’ he delivered harshly. ‘Because our betrothal was so high-profile we decided we should use the time I was away to think about it before we decided to cause some pretty heavy family waves.’

  ‘That’s a lousy let-out—’

  ‘You bet it’s a lousy let-out!’ Sandro agreed forcefully. ‘Do you think I’m not aware of that?’ he demanded. ‘Do you think I am not aware that the moment I set foot on British soil and saw you, I was using that damned excuse like some kind of mantra that absolved me of sin? Do you think I am not also aware that I shut all memory of you out because that had to be my punishment for wanting you more than I wanted her?’

  ‘Y-you think you killed her, I can understand that, but—’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ His head shot back, gold-flecked dark eyes pinning her with a stunned stare. ‘I didn’t kill Phebe—she almost killed me! She was driving the car! Didn’t you read the stuff about the accident Pandora put on Facebook?’

  Eyelashes trembling, Cassie shook her head. ‘I w-was scared there would be photographs of your injuries.’

  ‘There were.’ Sandro swallowed tensely. ‘It took them hours to cut us out of the car. For myself I don’t remember anything about it and I have only thin sketches of what came before. But I remember that Phebe was tense, distracted, telling me something—’ he lifted his fingers to his brow ‘—I can’t remember what, but I can see her tension—feel it. But I blamed it on my own tension because I knew I had to tell her about you, then—Dio,’ he swore when he saw the tears running down Cassie’s cheeks. ‘Don’t you dare weep on me, cara,’ he warned, ‘or I will not be responsible for what happens next, or where it happens!’

  Cassie controlled the tears with an inelegant sniff. Sandro muttered something else in Italian then stepped in close to ravage her soft, quivering mouth.

  ‘You—’

  ‘Just shut up,’ he groaned when she tried to speak again, his next kiss bruising her mouth as if he wanted to punish her for thinking at all. ‘Can’t you tell when a man is crazy about you?’ he demanded roughly. ‘Is it not enough that you embarrassed me when you made me drop like a stone at your feet?’

  ‘Your guilty conscience did that—’

  ‘You did that!’ he countered fiercely. His eyes were fierce, the way he was crushing her to him again was fierce. ‘You, with your beautiful green eyes spitting hell at me—you!’

  They were still standing on the gravel platform built to take the helicopter. Neither had noticed that the pilot had quietly slipped away or that their children’s voices had faded, or that the grey-framed windows in the apricot-stuccoed villa were lined with interested faces.

  But Cassie remembered the children now. ‘Sandro, the twins have disappeared!’ A flare of alarm set her wriggling in his arms.

  He pulled her back again. ‘There is an army of staff employed here, every one of them capable of watching over two children without my having to relinquish what I have here.’

  ‘And what do you have?’ Cassie looked at him.

  ‘A wife,’ he said. ‘My woman, shackled to me in more ways than one.’ The tension in his arms made sure she was aware of at least one other way she was shackled to him. ‘You love me. You’re as crazy about me as I am about you. Why don’t you give in and just tell me so I can relax my guard and move this on?’

  A small frown puckered the top of Cassie’s nose as she continued to look at him. Her teeth fastened into her kiss-swollen bottom lip. He was shamelessly arrogant, and shamelessly sure of himself. But…there was something else about him that was niggling at her right now.

  ‘Move this on where?’ she asked cautiously.

  His tense mouth broke into a wry kind of smile. ‘Well, not to a girly pink bed, that’s for sure,’ he drawled.

  And that was it—the thing that had been nagging at the back of her mind right through this whole heated conversation. ‘You’ve remembered everything!’ she choked out.

  ‘Mmm,’ he smiled.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because I needed to hang on to your sympathetic side until I had you caught, tethered and incarcerated here,’ he explained. ‘Allowing you to believe I was going to drop to the ground whenever we had a fight made your defences crumble.’

  ‘But that’s—’

  ‘Sneaky, devious, underhand?’ Sandro suggested.

  ‘When?’ she demanded. ‘When did you remember?’

  ‘At Angus’s house….’ he said without a single hint of remorse. ‘I spent the next three days in my brother’s care while my head bombarded me with six forgotten weeks of pure hell and misery. Letting you continue to believe I was still struggling with flashbacks was the perfect diversion tactic to keep you focused on what really mattered.’

  ‘Which was you, of course,’ Cassie sighed out.

  ‘And what you really felt about me,’ Sandro extended.

  The children came tearing around a corner of the house then, with several members of his staff in hot pursuit. From being travel-tired they’d suddenly found a new lease of energy that made Sandro sigh.

  ‘I don’t suppose you would like to tell me you love me before we have to break this off for a while…?’ he murmured hopefully.

  Not before you say it first, she thought.

  ‘Mummy, you’ve just got to come and see how big this house is!’ Anthony called out excitedly.

  ‘It almost as big as a castle!’ his twin enthused. ‘And they—’ Bella pointed towards the cluster of people standing back now that the twins had reached their parents ‘—won’t let us jump in the swimming pool.’

  ‘I don’t think they understood us when we said we can swim,’ Anthony explained.

  ‘I think they did,’ their father murmured indistinctly, then very casually to Cassie, ‘I will punish you later for holding out on me,’ he warned.

  ‘Well, that sounds—interesting,’ she responded primly.

  And found herself scooped unceremoniously off the ground. ‘Excuse us,’ he said to their surprised assembly. ‘We have a…tradition to get out of the way.’

  Then while Cassie clung to him, red-faced, he sent the twins a reassuring smile. ‘Your mother is…tired. I’m going to put her to bed. If you really want to swim, use the heated indoor pool—but not without at least two grown-ups to accompany you, got that?’

  The twins nodded. So did Sandro, then he dealt out a smooth set of instructions to his hovering staff, which boiled down to them keeping the twins entertained and out of their way for an
hour or two—or three—then he strode off towards the house with the sound of their children whooping as they turned their excited attention on the waiting staff.

  ‘An outdoor and an indoor pool?’ Cassie murmured in wonder.

  ‘Impressed?’ He glanced down at her.

  She nodded. ‘And these…traditions you mentioned?’ she prompted.

  ‘A threshold to negotiate,’ he answered. ‘A marriage bed to find. And a very large, disgustingly ostentatious, very, very sexy diamond necklace to unearth from my pocket. I have other traditions to attend to,’ he added loftily, ‘but they require a few special magic words to…set them in play.’

  Staring up at his cool, dark features, Cassie slid her arms a little further around his wide shoulders. The tip of her tongue appeared to run a delicate line across her upper lip. The glossy thickness of his eyelashes folded downwards to watch the telling little action, then lift upwards again to pin her with a deadly look.

  Sexy, unbearably sexy, Cassie thought as her pulse began to drum to a heavier beat. Sandro stopped walking. The tension heightened, simmering like electricity between them both.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted.

  They were still standing out in the dying sunshine, the solid shape of the villa still several long strides away. Cassie moved in his arms, snaking that bit closer to the intimate lure of his stubborn mouth. ‘You say it first.’

  ‘What you really want is my beating heart laid out on a platter, don’t you?’ he murmured narrowly.

  ‘Mmm,’ Cassie confirmed. ‘You see, I have these terrible words still rolling round my head I have not forgiven you for…’

  She was referring to the telephone call. Sandro knew that, just as he knew what she was not saying here. He was going to have to work very hard to overwrite that piece of brutality.

  ‘You have to know, bella mia, that those words were not spoken by the man you see standing here,’ he imparted soberly. ‘That guy lost himself six long, miserable years ago and only found himself when he set eyes on you again. If you think about it, that’s a hell of a statement to make about loving you.’

  Put like that, he was right, and it was one hell of a statement, Cassie acknowledged, vulnerable, river-green eyes floating over the solemn beauty of his face. Six years ago she’d fallen in love with Sandro Rossi. When she made that fatal phone call to him, a different, broken version of him had taken his place. Even when they met up again it was not that Sandro she’d fallen in love with but a guy called Alessandro Marchese—for once the different name started to make a mad kind of sense.