Marchese's Forgotten Bride

With Cassie still lying limp-limbed and trembling beneath him, his badly aimed joke brought her alive on a quivering flood of skin-flaying offence that had her pushing him off her before she reared up and swung on him wildly, landing the flat of her hand hard against the side of his face.

Gasping and shaking and dimly horrified by her own outburst of physical violence, ‘Are you referring to the single night we spent there before you upped and left me?’ she sliced into him chokingly. ‘You really like to live up to the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, macho-rat remit, don’t you, Sandro? Two weeks wooing me and one night screwing me. Mission accomplished, so forget that one, leave her pregnant and move on to the next!’

Having collapsed on his back beside her, Sandro took the full blast of her shaking anger the same way he’d taken her slap to his face—with total stillness, nothing showing on his face now except her finger marks standing out on his cheek. And his lack of reaction only made Cassie want to hit him again; she wanted to pummel his chest with her fists!

Instead she scrambled off the bed with a snaking move of trembling limbs and looked wildly around for something with which to cover herself up. She saw Sandro’s shirt lying draped half on and half off the side of the bed and shuddered, spinning away from it. She would rather be flayed alive than wear that next to her now-cringing flesh. How dared he make a joke of what they’d just done here? How had it happened? How had she let him reduce her to this? Grabbing a pillow up off the bed, she hugged it to her front, a well of hot tears building in her throat. Oh, God, she hated herself—she hated him! And her legs could barely hold her

upright, her insides still singing like sinful traitors triumphing over what Sandro had done for them.

On a stinging shot of shamed energy she began urgently gathering up her clothes, refusing to look at him, refusing to notice how he was still lying there, saying nothing, or how the hand was back up at his face, long fingertips pressing into his creased brow.

Clutching the pillow to her front along with her skimpy jumble of clothes now, she turned and headed for the door. She had to get away. She just had to—

‘I cannot believe I did that to you.’

The husky sound of his denial froze Cassie taut and quivering in the doorway. ‘Can’t or don’t want to believe it?’ she shook back.

Without thinking, she spun to look at him in time to watch him roll off the bed to land beside it on his feet. Each beautifully toned inch of him was captured by the light from the single lamp burning golden by the bed, sweat-glossed sleek, powerful muscles that expanded and contracted in a lithe display of masculine potency that turned her ravished muscles to hateful, trembling mush.

Why did he have to be the only man who could do this to her? ‘If you ask me, Sandro, your biggest problem is that you don’t seem to want to know yourself—which in my view makes a complete mockery of your so-called lost memory!’

He flinched, one of his hands sweeping out in a sharp, slicing gesture meant to cut her bitter words to shreds. Shaken by the violence of the action, Cassie just stared as he jerked into movement, striding across the room to disappear through a door, closing it behind him with a quiet thud that left her standing there with her heart writhing around in her chest in self-disgust at what she’d let him do to her—again.

A sob of revulsion broke free from her throat and she dropped the pillow and spun around to leave the bedroom at a wild run, making for the bright white bathroom where her foolish downfall had begun. The harsh lights hurt her burning eyes as she dragged on her flimsy briefs and fumbled feverishly with the zip on her dress. She hadn’t found her stockings but she didn’t care, she told herself as she wriggled her bare toes into her shoes.

All she wanted to do was to just get the heck out of here without having to face him. As she turned towards the door she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and a stinging flood of tears lashed her aching throat. She looked like a plump-lipped, hot-cheeked lush! Her hair was all over the place, its waterfall layers all tangled and mussed, and her eyes were so dark she looked as if she’d been indulging in some kind of drug!

Which she had in a way, she thought helplessly as she wrenched her gaze away from her gut-crawling image. She’d indulged in the drug of irresponsible sex, and coming down from it was the worst feeling she’d ever experienced! Snatching the bathroom door open, she sped across the hallway and into the living room with the intention of retrieving her purse from where Sandro had tossed it and getting the heck out of here!

Only to find herself jerking to a sinking, shuddering standstill when she saw Sandro there in the room.

He was standing beside a cabinet which stood open to reveal a selection of bottles and glasses. He’d pulled his trousers and his shirt back on but half the buttons were left unfastened and his feet were bare, the smooth style of his hair roughed up. He looked pale with strain but hard and grim and he held a glass slotted in his fingers that definitely did not have water in it.

‘Whisky,’ he said, catching the fluttering direction her gaze had taken. ‘I decided I might be better off becoming a drunk before you lay any more shocks on me.’

‘There are no more shocks.’ Cassie struggled to get even those few words past the thick blockage in her throat.

‘You think not?’ He scraped a set of fingers through his hair, oddly managing to smooth it without, Cassie was sure, that being his intention. ‘Try climbing inside my head, cara,’ he invited grimly. ‘It is a minefield of shocks and questions.’

He took a gulp at his drink.

It was yet another change in his personality Cassie found she had to struggle with. She’d seen the ultra-sophisticated businessman and the smooth expert charmer. She’d seen shock completely debilitate him and felt the explosive thrust of his anger scare her almost out of her wits. He’d been weak, he’d been strong, he’d been frighteningly vulnerable and ruthlessly passionate when he’d taken her to his bed. Right now he just looked unbearably cynical and chillingly remote, as if he’d slammed his defences into place.

And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, she decided as she hovered tensely on the threshold of the room, desperately wanting to snatch up her purse and just go, yet held glued to the spot by a bubbling growth of concern because she could see the strain of what was happening to him was really making itself felt now and he looked so dreadfully pale.

‘Sandro, please, don’t drink that,’ she murmured unsteadily. ‘I don’t think—’

‘Tell me the date you claim we were together,’ he cut in right over her.

‘We were together!’ Cassie instantly flared up.

‘All right,’ with another one of those angry slashes with his hand, ‘tell me when we were together, then!’

Needing to take in a breath of shaky air, Cassie named the date.

Sandro made a jerky movement that was almost a flinch. ‘For how long?’

‘I’ve told you this too—’