Marchese's Forgotten Bride

‘You feel it,’ she insisted.

‘I thought you did not want to come near me again.’

It was a taunt, a soft and husky-voiced kind of taunt that made the muscles around Cassie’s heart flutter in response. She opened her mouth to insist that she didn’t want to be near him, then on a heavy sigh she changed her mind and sank down beside him on the bed, slumping her shoulders in a weary gesture of defeat.

‘Tell me what’s wrong with you,’ she requested.

He was silent for so long that she thought he must have gone to sleep but when she turned her head to look at him he was still watching her through those unfairly captivating, fathom-dark eyes and a lump formed in her throat because—oh, dear God—she knew deep down inside her that she was still in love with him.

‘They knew what was going on—Gio and your brother the doctor,’ she prompted. ‘I saw it in their faces the moment I opened the door to them. For ninety-nine per cent of the time you’re so strong and vital I would challenge a tank to try and knock you over…’ without knowing she was doing it, she reached out to rest her hand against his chest above his beating heart ‘…but I’ve seen you drop twice now, and you usually rub your brow and frown just before it happens as if—as if—’

‘I’m in pain, which I am,’ Sandro finished for her. ‘The car accident left a—pressure on my brain which makes itself felt now and then.’

‘So it isn’t just m-me that causes it?’

She sounded so vulnerable when she said that, Sandro released a small sigh and his hand arrived to cover hers. ‘It can be bad sometimes…’ He hedged the question.

‘Bad enough to make you pass out—a lot?’

‘No,’ he denied. ‘Occasionally—rarely. I get these flashes of memory which hit me out of nowhere. They’re sometimes followed by…’

‘A complete shut-down.’

‘Sí.’

‘Can anything be done to ease the—pressure?’

‘Can we talk about the twins instead?’

The twins…! Once again, Cassie was hit by a jolt of reality. ‘Oh, heck,’ she gasped, jumping to her feet. She’d done it again and forgotten all about the twins! Flicking a glance at her watch, ‘It’s late. I’ve got to go…’

‘To relieve the babysitter?’ He sounded grim again.

‘Yes.’ Looking around her, trying to remember where she’d stashed her stockings in her rush to hide the evidence of what they’d bee

n doing in here, she explained, ‘Jenny is very good but I promised her I would be back home by midnight—’

‘Like Cinderella.’

‘No…’ impatience added bite to her answer ‘…like a single mother who cherishes a reliable babysitter so does not take advantage of her time!’

Sandro frowned at his watch then, noted what Cassie already knew—that she had only fifteen minutes left to her midnight deadline—and with a lithe stretching movement he discarded the cover and rose up off the bed.

‘I will take you—’

‘No!’ Cassie cried out. ‘You should have stayed where you were! I can call a cab—’

He turned on her, scowling now as if she’d offended his masculinity. ‘Either I take you home or you will use my driver!’ he slammed out with a force that made Cassie blanch.

‘All right!’ she shot back in quivering reaction. ‘I’ll let your driver take me! I don’t know why you needed to shout.’

‘Grazie,’ he teethed out, and reached over to pick up a phone by the bed.

Cassie bit into her bottom lip to stop herself from saying anything else. Having stabbed in the required number, he pushed the phone to his ear and showed her the length of his back.

To Cassie it was another one of his cold dismissals. In response to it she spun on her heel and walked out of the bedroom. Every time they held a conversation, they went from calm into a raging storm without any pause in the middle. Now her insides were fizzing with—she no longer recognised what it was that was going on inside her or what was making her wait around in the hallway until he joined her there.

When he appeared, striding towards her with his expression still drawn and now irritable too, she could not stop herself from asking, ‘Will you be all right here on your own?’