Marchese's Forgotten Bride(36)

Angus laughed too. ‘Meeting him halfway would be much less painful.’

Meet him halfway over what though? The twins? Well, she’d already accepted she had to do that for their sake.

‘If it helps, I think your father would have approved of him.’

Turning round, Cassie walked back to Angus and leant down to press a kiss against his cool, bony cheek. ‘Stop playing Cupid for your own amusement,’ she scolded, then added more softly, ‘And you look tired, so we’re going to leave before you exhaust yourself trying to soften me up for Sandro.’

But Sandro didn’t need Angus to champion his cause because he’d found two much better candidates for the role—as she discovered ten seconds later when the French windows suddenly flew open to let the twins run inside along with a gust of cool air.

‘Guess what, Uncle Angus,’ Bella announced, ‘our mummy and daddy are going to get married!’

‘And we’re all going to live in Italy!’ Anthony tagged on.

Having spun around in time to catch the excited glow on the twins’ faces, Cassie raised her eyes to meet with Sandro’s steady gaze and just froze.

He’d planned all of this with the precision of an army general. She could see it declared right there in the cool expression stamped on his face. He’d taken the neutral ground she’d offered him for this meeting at Angus’s home and invaded it before she’d even got here. Then he’d moved on to phase two, by wooing the twins into accepting him as their father, then wooed them some more with what must amount to them as the solid gold prize!

Marriage—a real family unit. A home together in an exciting new place. And he’d mapped it all out for the twins during an improvised game of football played out on Angus’s lawn.

Clever, smooth, stunningly slick, she allowed him as she continued to stand there taking in his supremely relaxed almost arrogant stance, while the twins shot past her to go and lean on the arms of Angus’s chair. They were telling him everything, though Cassie barely listened. They were ordering him to hurry up and get well so he could come and visit them in Italy. And throughout this minor commotion they were creating, Sandro did not let his gaze drop from hers.

Sandro suspected that if they’d been alone she would be issuing another hit to his face. He’d outmanoeuvred and trapped her before she’d been aware there was a trap to be sprung.

Marriage. ‘The only answer,’ he announced under cover of the twins’ excited chatter.

He watched her lips part and quiver. He watched the ice in her eyes melt to a dull shade of green. Hurt, he recognised with a twinge of remorse which still did not touch his resolve. ‘Next week,’ he extended. ‘Arrangements are already in place for a quiet civil ceremony here in London. We will do the proper wedding thing later, once we are…settled as a family.’

‘Why?’ she breathed.

Breaking his lock on her eyes, instead of answering he flicked a glance towards Angus. Like a puppet pulled by the younger man’s strings, the older man rose up from his chair and led the twins out of the room on the promise of a snack before they had to leave.

The silence their departure left behind hung around Cassie’s throat like a noose. Sandro moved away from the French windows to place the twins’ coats down on a chair then turned back to face her. The cool breeze outside had blanched his skin of some of its warm colour and she could smell the fresh air still permeating his clothes. Like herself, he was wearing casual jeans and a sweater, the difference being that his outfit was designer quality whereas hers was made up from the cheapest high-street bargains she could find. But then everything about Sandro was like that, she mused bleakly—designed to impress: his dominating height, the undeniable physical attraction built into his long, masculine framework, the silky blackness of his hair even when it had been ruffled by a breeze, and the stunning bone structure that made up his too-handsome face. Naked he looked fabulous, dressed he looked fabulous—but did the quality of the inner man match the quality of the outer shell?

No. Inside he was a sneaky, conniving, ruthless operator with his attention concentrated solely on himself. On what he wanted. On what he decided suited him.

Folding her arms tight across her slender ribcage, ‘Talk to me or I walk,’ she threatened when he still made no effort to justify what he’d done.

‘No, you won’t,’ he countered evenly. ‘You’re too committed to putting the twins’ feelings before your own.’

The fact that she knew he was right about that did not make Cassie feel less hostile towards him. ‘Is that why you set me up like this?’