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Cassie closed her eyes and saw the deep, dark chasms of Sandro’s eyes when he’d opened them and looked into her face. ‘Cassie—Madre di Dio…’ he’d mouthed weakly, then he’d closed his eyes again and Gio had pulled her away from him.
‘Please,’ she said anxiously, ‘will one of you go and find out how he is?’
‘You called him Sandro,’ Pandora Batiste took over, ignoring Cassie’s plea. ‘Nobody calls him Sandro. He despises it. He has been known to blow into a spectacular rage if he’s ever referred to by that name. So why did you—a supposed stranger to him—feel free to use it?’
A wry kind of smile tilted Cassie’s tense, pale lips. It was news to her that Sandro held such an aversion to the name, since it was he who’d given it to her in the first place. Call me Sandro. Will you allow me to buy you lunch? A coffee, then? OK, may I just sit here and worship in silence…?
‘You know each other,’ the glassy eyed beauty insisted. ‘I witnessed your initial shock when you first caught sight of him in the bar. I felt Alessandro’s shock when he saw you.’
With an effort Cassie lifted up her face to look at them both standing there, leaning against the desk with their arms folded and their eyes fixed on her while she sat shivering on her chair.
It annoyed her. Their whole superior and dominating attitude infuriated her. ‘You have no right to interrogate me like this,’ she protested.
‘We are not interrogating you,’ Gio denied the charge, ‘we are simply concerned about what took place and—’
‘Curious,’ Cassie amended curtly, feeling a return of some much-needed mental strength, ‘but I will not have this conversation with you,’ she informed the two of them. ‘And I would be more impressed by your so-called concern for Sandro if you were out there with him instead of in here with me.’
‘Alessandro is being taken care of—’ It was Pandora Batiste who stressed the name.
‘How can you know that?’ Cassie looked at her. ‘I would have thought your time could be better spent finding out why he passed out like he did!’
‘That’s what we’re doing—’
‘No, you’re not. You’re trying to bully information out of me that you have no right to demand. Is he drunk?’ she asked sharply then. ‘Has Sandro turned into a drunk, as well as a—?’
‘As well as a what?’ a different voice prompted from behind her.
Shooting to her feet, Cassie spun around to find the man himself standing in the office doorway. Her throat dried up. He looked dreadful, still as pale as death even if he was standing on his own two feet. And his eyes were too dark—as black as deep caverns hollowed into his skull.
‘Are you all right?’ She couldn’t stop the strained question from leaving her aching throat.
He didn’t answer. Flattening out his mouth, he just moved his eyes away from her to look at his two assistants and dismissed them with the barest shift of his dark head.
‘Damage control,’ he instructed as they both shot away from the desk in unison. ‘Jet lag, migraine—I don’t care what excuse you use so long as you make it convincing,’ he added as they walked towards him, ‘then find me a route out of here that does not require an audience.’
The door closed behind their retreating figures, leaving Cassie blinking at the mute obedience Sandro had commanded from them. If Pandora Batiste was his lover then she had to be a pretty darn subservient lover to take that kind of attitude on her beautiful chin.
As he returned his gaze to Cassie, she felt her own small chin shoot upwards in a defiant gesture brought on by what she had just witnessed. She was regretting now that she’d asked him how he was feeling, because he was clearly very all right, going by that tough performance. And if he was standing there like that and looking at her like that because he intended to bully her around in the same way, then he had another think coming.
Tension sparked in the atmosphere, generated mostly by her defiant stance. And still he said nothing, just slowly drifted his eyes over her as if he was carefully dissecting her inch by nerve-stripping inch.
How old was he now? she questioned as she suffered his scrutiny without allowing herself to flinch. Thirty-two—thirty-three? If he’d told her the truth about his age six years ago, that was. He’d given her a different name, so why not a different age? Anyway he looked years older right now as he stood there, leaning heavily against the door and with his face still drawn by the ravages of whatever it was that had sent him crashing to the ground in the first place.
Nor did he look so sensationally elegant, she noticed, her eyelashes flickering as she glanced down to where his shirt hung open at its snowy white collar and the knot of his tie rested low on his chest.
‘You have not answered my question.’
Cassie lifted her cool gaze back to his. ‘I have absolutely nothing to say to you,’ she informed him.
‘You had plenty to say to my two assistants.’
‘You think so?’ Her arms snapped up to wrap around her narrow ribcage in a piece of body language that had to be screaming self-protection at him. ‘Then why don’t you go and ask them for your answers so you won’t need to hold any kind of conversation with me?’
There was a short silence while his eyes narrowed. Her insides started to sting as if she were being attacked by a swarm of bees. ‘You are very hostile,’ he murmured eventually.
‘Yes, aren’t I?’ Cassie agreed. ‘And you don’t think I should be?’
To her surprise he offered up a gut-stingingly attractive half-twist of a smile. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.’
Baffled by that answer, Cassie pressed her lips together and waited to find out where he intended to go with this weird conversation. She had been expecting anger, she’d been expecting threats. He couldn’t want the ugly truth about the real him to come out because it would tarnish his super-charming image. Closeting himself away in this room with her was, in her view, only helping to increase the fever of speculation that must already be rife out there.
‘Look,’ she said when she couldn’t stand the silence between them any longer, ‘neither of us wants this confrontation, Sandro. So why don’t you move away from the door and I’ll just leave?’
‘Sandro,’ he echoed and uttered an odd laugh, then he lifted his hand to rub at his forehead when it suddenly creased with pain again, triggering a twinge of concern inside Cassie she did not want to feel.
‘I think you need to sit down,’ she advised stiffly.
‘Mmm,’ he responded but made no move to leave the door.
Watching him rub at his brow for a few seconds longer, she let out a sigh and gave in to the growing pulse of concern that was nagging at her. Picking up the chair she had been sitting in earlier, she carried it across the room to set it down against the wall next to the door.
‘Here,’ she said abruptly. ‘Sit down before you fall down again.’
When he swayed a little she was compelled to reach out and grasp his arm. Firm, warm skin and solid muscle flexed against her palm and her fingers as he allowed her to guide him into the chair, folding his long body down onto it before leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.
‘My apologies,’ he said as Cassie snatched her hand away, his voice sounding thick and slurred.
Cassie said nothing, hating what was running through her now because it was all too complicatedly wrapped up in her son and the way Anthony could look when he was feeling poorly but trying his hardest to deny there was anything wrong with him until she gave him no choice but to accept it.
‘I am not drunk,’ this father of her children insisted from under cover of his massaging fingers.
So he’d heard her say that? ‘Fine,’ she responded. ‘Whatever…’ she added with a heck of a lot more indifference because she didn’t like the way she was beginning to feel.
‘I do not drink alcohol,’ he persisted, probably driven to do so by her tone. ‘If you had been observing me during the evening you might have noticed that I still had the same glass of wine I began the evening with… until it smashed to the ground when I did, of course,’ he added with a dryness which seemed to give him back some energy, and he straightened in the chair.
He still looked like death. Cassie suppressed the need to shudder. ‘Then you’re sick,’ she said, ‘and if you’re sick you need to see a doctor.’
‘Sí,’ he acknowledged. ‘I will do so after we talk…’
That threat alone was enough to slam all her defences right back into place again. She tensed up, her body going rigid inside the little black dress. ‘I don’t think so,’ she refused.
‘You know me, yes?’ he persisted. ‘But for some reason you prefer to deny it.’
‘What is this?’ Cassie flashed out on a flare of anger. ‘Some kind of weird game you’re trying to play with me, or has your English deteriorated along with your ability to stand up on your own?’
He stood up, long, powerful legs thrusting up off the chair without a hint of a stagger, and, letting out a sharp gasp, Cassie was suddenly regretting the taunt when she found herself standing toe to toe with the lean, hard, very vital version of Sandro towering over her, as intimidating as hell.
‘This is no game, I promise you,’ he stated grimly. ‘You speak to me as if I am your enemy. What is it you are trying to hide?’
‘I’m trying to hide something?’ Cassie’s green eyes opened wide. ‘Let’s get this straight, Sandro. You blanked me! You turned your back on me! When you had no choice but to face me at the table you greeted me like I was some absolute stranger then still had the damn barefaced cheek to ask me if we’d met before!’
‘So you do know me!’ Something bright burned out of the centre of his eyes and he stepped even closer, almost blocking out the light in the tiny back room.
Cassie started trembling, her senses clamouring like maniacs because he was too close now and they certainly knew him. They could feel him, smell him, even taste him. Six years without her so much as setting eyes on him meant absolutely nothing to them, she was discovering, especially when she had never let another man get this close to her since him!
‘Back off,’ she urged, turning her hands into ready clenched fists tucked tightly in against her ribs.
He didn’t seem to hear her, and his colour was coming back, pouring rich olive tones into his skin, the power emanating from him now showing no hint of the weakness he had been displaying a minute before. ‘You know me,’ he repeated as if it was some kind of major breakthrough. ‘What I need to know is how you know me!’
‘I don’t know you, Mr Alessandro Marchese,’ Cassie flared up in hot opposition to his intimidating stance. ‘Briefly, however, I used to know a real rat of a man called Sandro Rossi!’
There—it was out. He’d made her say it.
‘Happy now?’ Her green eyes blistered him a hostile glance. ‘Though, why you needed me to admit to something we both clearly would prefer to forget is a complete mystery to me. Now back off,’ she repeated icily, ‘before I start yelling for help at the top of my voice!’
He went one step further and turned his back on her, reeling on the heels of his shoes. ‘Dio mio,’ he breathed. ‘Somehow I knew it.’
‘Knew what?’ Cassie all but shrilled at him.
‘That we had met before.’
‘And this,’ she muttered, ‘is the craziest conversation I’ve ever been involved in!’
‘You don’t understand…’ As he spun around again, severe shock lashed his skin to the fabulous bone structure, making Cassie’s stomach churn into trembling knots. ‘You see, I don’t remember you…’
Standing trapped by her own open-mouthed disbelief, ‘How dare you say that?’ she breathed.
He frowned. ‘You are confused. I understand that.’ Lifting a hand out towards her, when her green eyes sparked and her creamy shoulders racked backwards in violent protest, he sighed and dropped the hand again. ‘This is the reason I said that we need to talk.’
Talk…? Pushing out a deeply scornful laugh, she said, ‘When you can toss out lies as glibly as you do, Sandro, trust me, talking with you is a complete waste of time!’
‘I do not tell lies!’ he denied, stiffening up in furious objection to the charge.
‘Then what about the one when you promised to come back for me then didn’t bother?’ Cassie challenged, firing up with hurt along with the question that had been burning holes in her heart for six long years. ‘Or the one on the telephone when you denied we’d even met?—“I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Please don’t ring this number again!”’ she quoted word for crucifying, thick and hurtful word.
‘I said that…?’ He’d gone totally white again.
‘Give me a break.’ Dragging her eyes away from him because she did not want to see or accept that the way he kept changing colour like that had to mean he was being hit hard by something pretty shattering tonight. ‘Once upon a long time ago I might have been an easy target where you were concerned—but not any more!’
‘I do not believe I said something as cruel as that to you,’ he breathed in thick denial, his long brown fingers clenching at his sides. ‘It is not in my nature to speak to anyone like that!’
‘Well, you said it to me.’ Cassie had to tug her lips together when they tried to wobble uncontrollably because nothing had ever wounded her as much as those cruel words of rejection had done. ‘Am I allowed to leave here now or have you got anything else you want to talk about?’
‘No one has attempted to stop you from leaving,’ he husked out.
Caught by the raw strain she’d heard in his voice, Cassie made the stupid mistake of glancing at him again and saw that the hand was back up at his brow. Something creased up her insides to see such a big, powerful man standing there like that, but she refused to give the feeling room to grow.
‘Thank you,’ she said with icy curtness, and with a twist of her body she made herself turn to face the door.
Two seconds later she was on the other side of it with her eyes closed and her heart pounding as if she’d just run a mile. She had a feeling he’d swayed again but she had not hung around long enough to find out.
I don’t remember you, her brain threw up at her in a seething flash of derision. If he didn’t remember her then why had they had that confrontation at all?
The sudden sound of movement sent her eyes shooting open. The first thing she became aware of as her gaze became focused was that the whole restaurant seemed to have emptied while she’d been shut inside that tiny back room. The next thing to hit her was the low, buzzing sound of conversation floating up the stairwell and she realised that everyone must have moved back down to the bar.
Hovering at the top of the stairs, she swallowed tensely, trying to pull her ragged senses together before she had to go down there and face up to the full battery of BarTec curiosity she was certain would be waiting for her.
And she was trembling all over with reaction now. In the last couple of hours she felt as if she’d been fed through the emotional wringer a hundred times! First the shock of seeing Sandro standing in the restaurant bar entrance, then the stomach-curdling humiliation when he’d blanked her out.
I don’t remember you…
He’d remembered her OK when he’d plied that heated scan down her body! And he’d remembered her when the delayed look of shock hit his face!
And—no, she couldn’t go down there and face everyone. What was she supposed to say? Oh, we knew each other once. The memory of it drove him to drink wine until he was dropdown drunk.
I am not drunk…
Just another lie he’d fed to her. For what other excuse was there when a strong, healthy man just collapsed like that?
‘There is another exit,’ his deep accented voice quietly murmured.
Cassie swung around on her slender heels, so startled her heart burst back into an overloaded beat. Sandro had come out of the office without her hearing him and was now in the process of closing the door. Her defences shot back up, her insides catching her with a tight, dizzying squeeze because he looked so different—again—as if he’d pulled up his own defences and now the cool, smooth corporate giant was back on show. He’d even done up his shirt collar and straightened his tie, she saw, her mouth going dry when her head decided to throw up an image of her teasing fingers doing that for him on the morning he’d left for Florence, all those years before.
‘H-how do you know?’ She had a fight to push the question beyond the fresh lump of hurt blocking her throat.
‘I spoke to Gio.’ He started walking towards her and as she tensed automatically Cassie thought she saw an angry glint move across his eyes but he strode right past her, though his voice fed out the same moderate coolness when he said, ‘Follow me if you prefer to leave quietly. It’s this way…’
Continuing to hover for a few more moments, Cassie wavered between her two choices that really were not choices at all. She either bit the bullet and ran the gauntlet waiting for her down there in the bar or she bit the bullet and let Sandro lead her out of here by a back door.
‘Are you coming or not?’
He’d come to a stop in front of an emergency-exit door at the back of the room she had not noticed before. With a reluctance that had to show in her body language, she set her feet walking towards him, heavily aware she could not face those people downstairs. Although, she asked herself bleakly, how was she going to be able to face them in two days’ time when she went into work on Monday morning?
With a touch from his long fingers Sandro pushed down the heavy bar to spring the lock on the door. Beyond it was a narrow set of stairs lit by emergency lighting that barely scraped the stair walls.
‘Watch your step in those shoes; these treads are steep and narrow,’ he instructed.
Lips pinned fiercely together, Cassie watched him go first, the width of his shoulders stretching almost wall to wall. Following him, she curled her fingers like talons around the sloping banister rail because they tingled so badly with a need to reach out and clutch at his shoulders for extra support on the rickety stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs was a tiny vestibule. As he reached it he turned and stretched out a hand towards her.
‘Don’t be squeamish,’ he clipped out when she froze two steps up from him. ‘My fingernails are not tipped with poison and the bottom step is loose and uneven. If this exit meets health and safety requirements I am in the wrong business,’ he drawled as, once again, Cassie bit the bullet and settled her hand in his.
His strong, warm fingers closed over her cool, slender fingers. That same rush of electric recognition shot up her arm as it had done when she’d been forced to take his hand before. Concentrating all of her attention on the uneven steps, she arrived in the vestibule so close to him that her breasts brushed against his jacket lapel. Appalled by the pinch her nipples gave in response to the abrasive brush, with only the silk of her dress to act as a buffer, she very nearly did what she’d been trying not to do and fell off her spindly heels in her jerky effort to put space between them.
His other hand arrived low on her back to steady her. Instead of opening up a gap between them there was suddenly no gap at all. Unable as she was to stop it, a muffled breath left her throat and she looked up and was hit head-on by the glow of raw desire leaping out from his dark, dark eyes. His whole hard body pulsed with it. It was that instant, that hot, so stifling it held her breathless and horrified because the same dismaying heat was pooling low down inside herself, toying with intimate tissue that tugged and pulled.
Her throat hurt. She tried to swallow. The sense of being drenched in fine sexual static made her lips part to whisper something she couldn’t even understand herself.
