at her. Picking up the chair she had been sitting in earlier, she carried it across the room to set it down against the wall next to the door.
‘Here,’ she said abruptly. ‘Sit down before you fall down again.’
When he swayed a little she was compelled to reach out and grasp his arm. Firm, warm skin and solid muscle flexed against her palm and her fingers as he allowed her to guide him into the chair, folding his long body down onto it before leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.
‘My apologies,’ he said as Cassie snatched her hand away, his voice sounding thick and slurred.
Cassie said nothing, hating what was running through her now because it was all too complicatedly wrapped up in her son and the way Anthony could look when he was feeling poorly but trying his hardest to deny there was anything wrong with him until she gave him no choice but to accept it.
‘I am not drunk,’ this father of her children insisted from under cover of his massaging fingers.
So he’d heard her say that? ‘Fine,’ she responded. ‘Whatever…’ she added with a heck of a lot more indifference because she didn’t like the way she was beginning to feel.
‘I do not drink alcohol,’ he persisted, probably driven to do so by her tone. ‘If you had been observing me during the evening you might have noticed that I still had the same glass of wine I began the evening with… until it smashed to the ground when I did, of course,’ he added with a dryness which seemed to give him back some energy, and he straightened in the chair.
He still looked like death. Cassie suppressed the need to shudder. ‘Then you’re sick,’ she said, ‘and if you’re sick you need to see a doctor.’
‘Sí,’ he acknowledged. ‘I will do so after we talk…’
That threat alone was enough to slam all her defences right back into place again. She tensed up, her body going rigid inside the little black dress. ‘I don’t think so,’ she refused.
‘You know me, yes?’ he persisted. ‘But for some reason you prefer to deny it.’
‘What is this?’ Cassie flashed out on a flare of anger. ‘Some kind of weird game you’re trying to play with me, or has your English deteriorated along with your ability to stand up on your own?’
He stood up, long, powerful legs thrusting up off the chair without a hint of a stagger, and, letting out a sharp gasp, Cassie was suddenly regretting the taunt when she found herself standing toe to toe with the lean, hard, very vital version of Sandro towering over her, as intimidating as hell.
‘This is no game, I promise you,’ he stated grimly. ‘You speak to me as if I am your enemy. What is it you are trying to hide?’
‘I’m trying to hide something?’ Cassie’s green eyes opened wide. ‘Let’s get this straight, Sandro. You blanked me! You turned your back on me! When you had no choice but to face me at the table you greeted me like I was some absolute stranger then still had the damn barefaced cheek to ask me if we’d met before!’
‘So you do know me!’ Something bright burned out of the centre of his eyes and he stepped even closer, almost blocking out the light in the tiny back room.
Cassie started trembling, her senses clamouring like maniacs because he was too close now and they certainly knew him. They could feel him, smell him, even taste him. Six years without her so much as setting eyes on him meant absolutely nothing to them, she was discovering, especially when she had never let another man get this close to her since him!
‘Back off,’ she urged, turning her hands into ready clenched fists tucked tightly in against her ribs.
He didn’t seem to hear her, and his colour was coming back, pouring rich olive tones into his skin, the power emanating from him now showing no hint of the weakness he had been displaying a minute before. ‘You know me,’ he repeated as if it was some kind of major breakthrough. ‘What I need to know is how you know me!’
‘I don’t know you, Mr Alessandro Marchese,’ Cassie flared up in hot opposition to his intimidating stance. ‘Briefly, however, I used to know a real rat of a man called Sandro Rossi!’
There—it was out. He’d made her say it.
‘Happy now?’ Her green eyes blistered him a hostile glance. ‘Though, why you needed me to admit to something we both clearly would prefer to forget is a complete mystery to me. Now back off,’ she repeated icily, ‘before I start yelling for help at the top of my voice!’
He went one step further and turned his back on her, reeling on the heels of his shoes. ‘Dio mio,’ he breathed. ‘Somehow I knew it.’
‘Knew what?’ Cassie all but shrilled at him.
‘That we had met before.’
‘And this,’ she muttered, ‘is the craziest conversation I’ve ever been involved in!’
‘You don’t understand…’ As he spun around again, severe shock lashed his skin to the fabulous bone structure, making Cassie’s stomach churn into trembling knots. ‘You see, I don’t remember you…’
Standing trapped by her own open-mouthed disbelief, ‘How dare you say that?’ she breathed.
He frowned. ‘You are confused. I understand that.’ Lifting a hand out towards her, when her green eyes sparked and her creamy shoulders racked backwards in violent protest, he sighed and dropped the hand again. ‘This is the reason I said that we need to talk.’
Talk…? Pushing out a deeply scornful laugh, she said, ‘When you can toss out lies as glibly as you do, Sandro, trust me, talking with you is a complete waste of time!’
‘I do not tell lies!’ he denied, stiffening up in furious objection to the charge.
‘Then what about the one when you promised to come back for me then didn’t bother?’ Cassie challenged, firing up with hurt along with the question that had been burning holes in her heart for six long years. ‘Or the one on the telephone when you denied we’d even met?—“I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Please don’t ring this number again!”’ she quoted word for crucifying, thick and hurtful word.
‘I said that…?’ He’d gone totally white again.
‘Give me a break.’ Dragging her eyes away from him because she did not want to see or accept that the way he kept changing colour like that had to mean he was being hit hard by something pretty shattering tonight. ‘Once upon a long time ago I might have been an easy target where you were concerned—but not any more!’
‘I do not believe I said something as cruel as that to you,’ he breathed in thick denial, his long brown fingers clenching at his sides. ‘It is not in my nature to speak to anyone like that!’
‘Well, you said it to me.’ Cassie had to tug her lips together when they tried to wobble uncontrollably because nothing had ever wounded her as much as those cruel words of rejection had done. ‘Am I allowed to leave here now or have you got anything else you want to talk about?’
‘No one has attempted to stop
