Marchese's Forgotten Bride

‘Think what it will do to the twins if you pull back from me now.’

Her eyes slid to her pile of shopping. She did as he said and thought about the twins. They needed him now—wanted what he was offering them. She could not take their happiness away from them because she had deep problems with what Sandro was.

‘I won’t sleep in your bed.’ The condition leapt from her lips without her knowing she was going to say it.

She didn’t look up when, after a few seconds, Sandro said quietly, ‘Fair enough,’ and left the apartment without saying another word.

A tactical retreat from the conniving, lying, manipulating general, she recognised, not liking herself one little bit for weakening her stance against him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SANDRO glanced at his watch, his tension tangible as he paced the town-hall foyer like a jungle cat constrained in a cage. Happening to glance up, he glared at the two men who were standing watching him.

‘Say a single word and I will hit the pair of you,’ he growled as he put in a couple more restless strides.

‘They are on their way,’ Gio Rozario dared. ‘The traffic is bad.’

‘If you’re this uncertain about her, Alessandro, then maybe you should think twice about—’

‘You might be my brother and a damn good doctor, Marco, but you have no clue what it is you are talking about!’ He swung around forcefully on his brother. ‘So keep your damned opinion to yourself.’

The way Marco held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and backed right off only made Sandro feel as if there was still a chance that he was going to lash out anyway.

He turned on his heel and strode back the way he had come. His brother had issues about what he was doing. But then, despite his medical training, Marco could not see what was going on inside his head. Marco could scan it, give an expert diagnosis on it, declare it perfectly healthy other than for a six-year-old scarring that would never go away. But he could not read its thoughts or the emotions that ranted through it—or the urgency that was driving him and, through him, Cassie into this marriage.

He’d waited six long, blacked-out years for this moment—for this woman to become his wife.

‘The car has arrived,’ Gio said quietly.

Swinging round to stride back to the doorway, Sandro was in time to watch his driver lift Bella out of the car and set her down on the pavement at the bottom of the town-hall steps and felt a hand grab hold of his heart then close into a fist. His beautiful, golden-haired daughter looked the perfect image of her own idea of how a princess should look in a frivolously pretty pink dress.

Cassie had done that—fulfilled Bella’s dream for her, though she did not want the dream for herself.

His son arrived next, scrambling out of the car under his own steam to immediately start jumping on the bottom stone step. He was wearing jeans and trainers and a blue and red checked shirt. His son’s mother had not made the mistake of offending the small boy’s dignity by dressing him in fancy wedding clothes.

That fist around his heart tightened its grip.

Then tightened some more as he watched a pair of slender, very female legs slide out of the car, followed by the rest of this beautiful creature who was his reluctant bride. She was wearing white, a silky white skirt that floated around her slender knees and a lacy jacket that nipped her tiny waist. Strappy white high-heeled shoes elevated her delicate ankles, and she’d dressed her hair up with a single pink-petalled rose.

He watched her look up, watched her go still, watched her dense, dark, fabulous green eyes flutter a glance down his full length. His body fired up, his tension levels along with it.

Cassie found herself pinned to the pavement by an all-over sensation of prickly heat. From down here at the bottom of the steps Sandro looked taller than he really was, and darker than he really was, and ten times more stunningly

attractive than she wanted to believe that he was. His suit was black, beautiful, devastatingly elegant, his shirt so white it blinded her in the sun. Skin like warm olives, eyes as dark as pits and powerfully intense, his mouth so arrogantly firm yet so inherently sensual her lips gave a sting in recognition of what his could do to them.

She had to lower her eyes before she could make herself move again, her slender-heeled shoes suddenly feeling too fragile to support the odd new whirlpool heaviness that had taken over her legs. The twins were already running up the steps towards him, shouting out to him, expecting and receiving the kind of warm, smiling welcome they’d already become used to receiving from him.

Cassie followed at a slower pace, aware that she should not be doing this—did not want to be doing this, yet every nerve-ending she had was urging her onward as if Sandro was drawing her there with his indomitable will.

Bella was doing twirls for him, Anthony tugging on one of his hands while telling him something she didn’t think Sandro heard because his attention was still fixed on her. And her heart was pounding, the knowledge that she should not be feeling anything for him acting like a tormenting sting in her throat. When she reached the top of the step and was finally forced to lift her chin and look up at him, that all-over feeling of prickly heat changed to a quivering wash of helpless female awareness she wished so badly she didn’t feel.

Dense, dark brown eyes grabbed hold of her eyes. He reached for her hands and lifted them to his lips. ‘You look sensational,’ he told her.

Then Ella came running up the steps, looking harassed and breathless. ‘Sorry I’m late. The traffic is crazy…’

And her friend’s arrival saved Cassie from saying something stupid back to Sandro like—so do you.

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