Marchese's Forgotten Bride

Jenny said nothing; however, her wide-eyed expression had plenty to say, which had Cassie clutching her robe to her throat. ‘S-sorry,’ was all she could find to offer to the other woman. ‘I should have called you to—’

A sound directly behind her sent her head swivelling round as the twins barged past her with excited shrieks, totally uncaring that their mother was dressed in her bathrobe, only caring about one thing: reaching Sandro, who had come out of the bedroom, when Cassie would have much preferred him to remain hidden away in there. Now he was filling the tiny hallway with his lean, dark presence as he greeted the children with light touches to their heads and smiles.

She didn’t know how he’d done it in the time available but he’d pulled on his shirt, trousers and shoes—no socks, she noticed with an inconsequence which almost made her burst forth with a hysterical laugh. His dark hair was mussed, eyes still heavy with what they’d been doing, the cuffs of his shirt hanging loose around his wrists. He might as well have stepped out here naked, she thought helplessly, cheeks burning all the more. When he caught her expression he raised a wickedly satirical eyebrow then stepped up and drew her back against him with an arm he looped around her waist.

The twins were talking ten to the dozen to him. Bella had a grip on his other hand while Anthony became tangled up in his feet. Ignoring her tension, he looked at the older woman over the top of Cassie’s tumbled blonde head and said, ‘Ah, the only person in the world to whom my future wife will entrust the care of our children. It is a great pleasure to meet you at last, Mrs Dean…’

Charm oozed from every beautifully accented syllable. Jenny wasn’t immune to it. By the time they closed the door, the short and portly fizzy grey-haired lady who’d been happily married for forty-five years had been totally and incurably seduced into adoring a man equipped to turn any woman’s head when he set his mind to it.

‘That was horrible,’ Cassie breathed as she wilted against the wall behind her, her whole body still wearing a heated blush.

‘I assume by your reaction that your neighbour isn’t used to catching you out like this,’ Sandro said dryly.

If he’d meant it as a joke, Cassie wasn’t laughing. With no gap in between she turned from hot to ice. He was implying that she brought other men here for a quick roll on her bed—or was he asking her if she did?

Whichever; aware of the twins’ presence or she would be tearing angry holes into him, ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured frigidly, and with a twist of her body she disappeared to the other side of her bedroom door before he could say anything else.

How dared he make such an insulting assumption—how dared he believe he even had the right to comment on her love life?

Her bed still wore the imprint of their bodies. On a flare of skin-flaying anger she stepped over to it and yanked the duvet straight with more violence than the task warranted. The floor was littered with their discarded clothing. It reminded her of the bedroom in his apartment as she started scooping them up. Perhaps these fevered losses of control were all they were fit for, she posed bitterly as she tossed the clothes down onto the bed.

Had he dared to say that because it was how he ran his own life? Was he so used to being caught out with his pants down that he could be so casual about it? Her breath seethed out from between her tense teeth as she stripped her robe off. Beyond the closed bedroom door she could hear the twins talking excitedly to him and his deep-timbred responses.

How was she supposed to have carried on a sex life with two children always around? she felt like opening the door to toss at him! He was the one who’d maintained his sexual freedom for the last six years! She was the one who’d had it thoroughly curbed before it had barely begun!

And he still hadn’t answered the question about his relationship with Pandora Batiste. For all she knew he’d been bedding the dark-haired beauty throughout his disappearance this week!

Dragging on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved skinny top, she spent a few minutes putting her clothes away then picked up Sandro’s remaining clothes and took them with her out of the bedroom and into the living room, where the sight which met her eyes stopped her dead.

Sandro was sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa, long legs stretched out beneath the coffee table. Bella was on his lap—curled there wearing a rapt expression Cassie had never seen on her daughter’s face before and it hurt something tender inside her to see it there now. Anthony was standing by Sandro’s right shoulder, gravely instructing him how to fashion an aeroplane out of a piece of brightly coloured A4 paper. The room already wore the evidence of several failed attempts, though she doubted that someone with Sandro’s agile capabilities needed so many tries to get the simple construction right.

And Sandro himself held his daughter safe within the curve of an arm while his dark gaze was fixed intently on his son. Tears stung the backs of Cassie’s eyelids because she could see the wonder in his expression as he listened to Anthony, feel the edge of his vulnerability in the arm he had looped around Bella. All three were bonding in their own unique fashion, Bella with her innate tactile nature by cuddling, Anthony with the serious practicality of his technical skills, Sandro by accommodating both twins’ needs, at the same time bonding them together as a heart-wrenchingly tight trio.

For the first time in the twins’ five-year existence Cassie learnt what it felt like to be a separate part of them, and it hurt. She saw what the twins had been missing having no contact with their father. She saw what Sandro had missed out on by not knowing them.

The reason why she had Sandro’s clothes draped over her arm felt suddenly petty. What had she been intending to do with them—toss them at him before she threw him out on an act of angry bitterness that would have severed that fragile bond she was witnessing here?

She turned away from the living room undetected, and went to place the clothes back on the bed before slipping quietly into her tiny kitchen, where she stood, staring out of the window with no idea what she was thinking, or what she was feeling, only aware that something inside her had changed.

The emphasis on what was important had changed, she realised after a few minutes. For the last ten mad days she’d been totally focused on her own emotions—anger, resentment, suspicion, betrayal, the heated passion that kept flaring up between her and Sandro, usually followed by fresh confrontation because everything inside her was so mixed up and defensive and at war. The twins’ wants and needs had become swallowed up by it all; now they rose to the surface and swamped everything else beneath a shivery wave. They needed a father whether or not she needed a husband. They needed Sandro even though she knew she was still fighting demons about him.

‘What’s wrong?’

His quiet voice came from the kitchen doorway. Turning her head, she saw him sta

nding there with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets and his shirt still open at its collar and cuffs. He looked sombre, wary, as if he’d picked her mood up from the other room and forced himself to come in here.

‘Where are the twins?’ she questioned quietly.

‘Watching television.’ His eyelids were half covering his eyes. ‘I saw you watching us together. You looked—gutted.’

Gutted? ‘No.’ Cassie found a brief wry smile from somewhere. ‘Come to my senses, more like.’ She turned to face him fully, slender arms crossing her ribcage as she leant back against the unit behind her. ‘What is your family going to say about you turning up in Florence, married to me and the father of five-year-old twins?’

‘My family?’ The hooded look altered into a frown.

‘Gio mentioned at the restaurant the other night that you have a large family,’ Cassie enlightened. ‘He said you’re good with families because you have a large one yourself.’

‘I have a mother, two older sisters and my brother, Marco—I don’t understand your drift.’