‘I know…’ he bent his dark head to touch his warm lips to her ear ‘…fabulous hatred, amante mia. I can’t wait to enjoy it some more.’
With that rich promise ringing in her head, he walked them into the shop, her hand secured inside his. The way he received instant gushing attention kept her quiet and meek because—well, there was only room for one ego in the shop and to watch Sandro turn his arrogant Italian ego full on was something she discovered she would not have liked to miss.
They were escorted to a private room from where he plied her with diamonds and rubies and sapphires. He waved away the emeralds with long-fingered contempt because, ‘They cannot compete with your beautiful eyes, bella mia,’ he told her. When she lifted those beautiful emerald eyes to stare at him as if he’d turned into some weird caricature of himself, his lazy grin told her he knew exactly how he was behaving and was enjoying doing it.
He was different all round, Cassie realised, light-hearted, more expressive, expansive in his language and his warm, sensual drawl. He draped her in diamonds, necklaces, bracelets, and made her cheeks burn like fire when he used the tips of his long fingers to delicately position a huge white diamond droplet between the thrusting warmth of her breasts.
‘Will you stop it?’ she hissed at him when the assistant moved off to collect another tray of mind-boggling trinkets. ‘I’m not going to let you buy me any of them. And I feel like a bimbo!’
‘I’m buying you this one,’ he said, leaning against the table while she stood in front of him. ‘I’m going to eat it on our wedding night as a sexy side dish while I am eating you.’
‘You’re mad,’ she breathed helplessly.
‘Crazy,’ he agreed. He didn’t need to extend that to ‘crazy for you’ because it was written in his eyes as he caught up the diamond droplet and lifted it to his lips before settling it between her breasts again.
Cassie knew she had started to fall fathoms deep in love with him again when it occurred to her that this madly extravagant display he was putting on was not about playing games or about his ego or even the shockingly sexual atmosphere he was generating deliberately.
He was, quite simply, being the other Sandro she’d met years ago. The relaxed, light-hearted, teasing, charming, gorgeously expressive Sandro she’d spent two amazing weeks falling deeper in love with every day. This was Sandro being happy. It hit her really hard just how unhappy he had been since they’d met up again—and the reason for the change…?
She’d stopped fighting him. She’d given him what he wanted and agreed to marry him. She didn’t think this was even about the twins. He might not remember her but, as he kept on saying to her, he knew her. He’d slipped back into wanting her from almost the first moment their eyes had met again, and now he was courting her—because this crazy romantic side to his nature came so beautifully naturally to him.
That had to mean something, didn’t it? It had to mean that his instincts were not playing him false and if—when—his memory did return it was not going to reveal some terrible, dark reason as to why he’d shut her out in the first place.
They chose a diamond cluster ring that sparkled on her finger. And matching wedding rings studded with tiny bright diamonds set into rich yellow gold.
From there he changed his mind again and decided to take her to lunch at a busy pub, where they had to stand up at a bar table to eat and the lunch crowd pressed in all around them but they didn’t notice because they were talking—really talking the way they had used to do, about everything and anything.
Engrossed.
Touching, always touching each other without really being aware of doing it, his fingers toying with her fingers, stroking her cheek, the tumbling waterfall of her hair. Her fingers feeding him crisp slices of green apple from her dessert dish he bit into with his even white teeth, always making sure he grazed her tingling fingertips at the same time. Other women stared covetously at him and enviously at her. And the sexual magnetism purred around the two of them like the idling engine of a dangerously powerful car.
It was as if he was recreating their first afternoon together without being aware of it. And Cassie sank beneath his magical spell. As they walked back down Bond Street with his arm resting about her shoulders she expected them to start shopping as he’d said they would, but he shrugged that idea away with, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’
Tomorrow suddenly felt bright and exciting because it had to mean he intended to spend it with her.
Cracks only began to appear in the veneer of their reincarnation when he came back with her to her apartment and saw how they lived for the first time.