Marchese's Forgotten Bride(27)

‘There isn’t any history,’ she lied, wishing with every aching pulse she had in her that it was the truth.

‘Pull the other one, Cassie. That guy almost ate you up and you almost spat him out in disgust. And all of that came before you laid him out cold on the floor!’

‘I did not lay him out,’ she denied.

‘No, you just jumped on him afterwards, called him Sandro and almost wept all over his shirt. The next thing we know you’re being hustled away into a back room and we’re being spun a line about jet lag and migraine headaches and get a glimpse of neither one of you again. You know the guy, Cassie,’ Ella insisted. ‘Everyone at BarTec knows you know the guy. Even the MD confirmed that our new boss couldn’t keep his eyes off you all evening. And the beautiful Miss Batiste was not happy about it if the way her lovely dark eyes had turned cat-like was a judge.’

‘She can keep him. I don’t want him,’ Cassie burst out unthinkingly then could have bitten off her unruly tongue.

‘Oh, wow,’ drawled Ella, ‘that sounded to me like a bitter woman talking.’

‘Look,’ she said, straightening her wilting shoulders and hunting around for an explanation that would shut Ella’s curiosity up, ‘I don’t know him exactly but I—I used to know an…acquaintance of his…’ which wasn’t an outright lie, she reflected grimly ‘…and that’s it. No mystery.’

There followed a long silence that made Cassie’s tense fingers pluck at the quilt covering her bed. Then Ella spoke again. ‘He knows the twins’ father.’

Cassie closed her eyes on a silent groan. ‘Will you please put your imagination to bed?’ she pleaded. ‘And while you’re at it put yourself to bed at the same time, because that’s where I’m going!’

‘Yeah, right,’ mocked Ella. ‘To dream of no-good Italian love-rats that get a girl pregnant then dump her, and their handsome acquaintances that drop down dead in shock when the twins are mentioned.’

‘Weird dreams for you to have, sweetie,’ Cassie mocked right back. ‘I wonder what the bodybuilder would think if he knew…?’

‘Clever,’ Ella acknowledged. ‘Now tell me where you disappeared to with him.’

As she discovered she was staring at the black dress on its hanger, Cassie’s next excuse lit like a lightbulb in her head. ‘I managed to drench my dress in the—commotion,’ she said, telling yet another lie that wasn’t quite a lie. ‘His driver brought me home.’

And right there on the back of that second twist on the truth, she realised she’d found a couple of reasonable excuses which would allow her to show her face at work on Monday morning. Sandro was a distant acquaintance. He’d sent her home in his car.

‘Listen, Ella,’ Cassie murmured seriously, ‘I want you to keep your suspicions to yourself about my connection to Mr M-Marchese—’ she hated saying that name ‘—being more than a distant acquaintance to me. I can’t afford to put my position at BarTec at risk because rumours go rife that make it too uncomfortable for us to work together there.’

‘Calm down,’ sighed Ella, ‘I’m your friend, not your enemy. You should know I wouldn’t dream of saying any of this to anyone else but you!’

‘Thanks,’ Cassie mumbled. ‘Sorry,’ she added.

‘So I should think. You know,’ her friend added slowly, ‘Jason Farrowalso shot his big mouth off about your father and Alessandro Marchese’s father both being friends with Angus.’

‘Really?’ Cassie was so surprised by that piece of information she couldn’t stop letting Ella know it.

‘If you need a good excuse to let loose on BarTec’s curious minions, I would use that connection if I were you. Especially since the MD has already started that ball rolling for you.’

‘Bless you, Ella,’ Cassie whispered, feeling stupidly weepy now.

‘Don’t mention it,’ Ella replied. ‘Maybe one day you’ll trust me enough to give me the real story, hmm?’

Maybe, Cassie thought, knowing that Ella already had a pretty good handle on it anyway.

The weekend passed by on a whirl of busy normality with no sight or sound of Sandro—if she didn’t count the number of times he visited her dreams, waking her up with the hot drive of his body joined intimately with hers. Dreams like that were so very shocking she’d huddled beneath her duvet, horrified by the vividness of her imagination and ashamed by it. She hated him, she tried telling herself. She didn’t understand what had made her do what she’d done with him. It whittled away at the self-belief she’d spent all these years earning back since the last time he’d done his best to wreck it.