‘You prefer to hurt and disappoint our children?’ he challenged, settling his long frame into the plush leather seat.
‘I have a right to consider my own feelings too!’
‘Then perhaps you prefer me to use more ruthless methods to convince you,’ he offered, using those ink-dark eyes to convey his meaning to her.
He was talking about sex, reminding her of the clinch they’d just shared in the park and her own lack of control. Cassie’s lips parted and trembled revealingly. Heat drenched her bones. She could fight him any which way there was to fight him—except when he touched her. She hated the fact that Sandro knew it. This physical hold he had over her laid waste to the six years she’d spent rebuilding her respect for herself.
Sandro didn’t remember her but, like any good-looking, sexually active male, he could pick out an easy target and go for it—because it was there to take. The difference with her was that he was prepared to offer marriage because of this turn of fate that linked them via the twins. Without them she would be just another notch on his bedpost, another conquest to love and leave. And no amount of justification due to his lost memory was ever going to rid her of the gut feeling that even without the car crash he would have left her anyway.
I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Please don’t call this number again.
A shiver ran down the length of her taut backbone. Cassie wrenched her eyes away from him, wishing badly she could wipe those words from her memory, then maybe she wouldn’t feel so at war with herself, as well as with him.
Had he spent the last few days with Pandora?
Did she really want to know?
The car moved off with the smoothness of a thoroughbred. As they drove in front of the BarTec building, she remembered what Ella had told her just before Sandro had arrived to interrupt.
‘You’ve terminated my employment, haven’t you?’ The question left her husky and taut.
‘What makes you think that?’
Turning to look at him, she saw genuine curiosity glinting in his eyes and he even portrayed that sexily. Definitely at war with herself now, Cassie relayed what Ella had said about her shadow taking over her duties.
‘So you’ve decided I did this to pile the pressure on you?’
‘Well, didn’t you?’
He frowned with impatience. ‘You cannot commute to London from Florence, cara, and a more trusting woman would have worked that out for herself. But in answer to your accusation…no, I have not terminated your employment. You are merely on a few months’ leave in which to get married and resettle in another country. When you are ready—if you decide you want to continue to work—then we will find you a position in one of my organisations that work out of Florence.’ He waved a long-fingered hand. ‘It is a decision I will leave to you.’
Not even slightly mollified by that perfectly reasonable speech, ‘Gosh, my one small concession in a battery of your pre-decided edicts. Thank you!’ she said.
‘It was not a concession,’ he denied. ‘If you knew me better you would know I don’t make them…I actually believe you have a right of choice whether or not you want to continue to work after we marry.’
‘If I marry you.’ Cassie still couldn’t seem to stop hedging on that subject. It was as if some itchy instinct was obstinately stopping her from giving in to him. ‘And you can say what you like, Sandro, but the truth is that you want me cornered, isolated and helpless so I’ll stop arguing with you.’
He heaved out a heavy sigh. ‘If I was being that ruthless then it didn’t work! Believe it or not, I thought that we had the marriage issue tied up!’
‘If you believed that then why didn’t you call me to warn me that my shadow was there to learn my job?’
‘Because…’ He stopped, his lips coming together with a grim, hard snap. He frowned and looked away from her, only to immediately look back again, frustration playing games with the set of his face. ‘I was busy, OK?’ he said finally. ‘I had…things to do that put me out of range of a satellite link. And will you please desist from perching on the edge of the seat emulating a stern school headmistress?’ he bit out suddenly, waving a long-fingered hand at her tense attitude. Then he really shocked her with a sudden, totally unexpected eruption of anger. ‘And fasten your damn seatbelt!’
She was startled enough to jerk in surprise, the lightningquick way he snaked across the gap between them and physically pressed her back into the seat stunning Cassie into uttering a sharp cry.
‘You fool,’ he muttered, dragging the seatbelt around her and pushing it firmly into its lock. ‘Trust me, cara, you do not want to know what it feels like to hit something at speed without this in place!’