mouth was different. Harder. More brittle. And her eyes were like that, too.
“How is everything at work?” he asked, stopping before the room that would now be hers.
“Fine.” But her lips compressed and she didn’t sound fine.
“And at home?”
“Fine.”
“Cass—”
“Everything’s all right, Maximos,” she interrupted, her voice dropping, the pitch huskier than normal. “Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”
He pushed open the door to a softly lit room, the ceiling high, arched, the dark beams stenciled in the palest shimmering gold.
Cass stepped past Maximos to enter the luxurious bedroom. White lace-edged pillows looked plump and inviting on the bed while the coverlet was a rich apricot velvet embroidered with green and gold thread. The curtains at the three enormous windows matched the apricot coverlet and fragrant pink and apricot roses filled two silver vases, one on the nightstand and the other on the antique dresser against the wall.
The beauty of it was almost unfair, she thought, watching Maximos place her suitcase on a painted trunk at the foot of the sleigh bed.
The bedroom represented beauty and romance…love…and wasn’t it amazing how Maximos could afford to give her all kinds of material possessions, but not the one thing she craved most? “It’s a lovely room,” she said, aware that she had to say something, that the silence had gone too long.
“Good. Then you shouldn’t mind me locking you in it.”
She spun around, not at all certain if he was serious or joking. But his expression gave nothing away. His face was blank. His eyes shuttered. Suddenly she felt her lips curl up in a faintly amused smile. “As long as we weren’t locked in here together.”
His eyes creased. “And your fiancé? You wouldn’t miss him?”
Her chin lifted. “He’d find a way to rescue me.”
Maximos had the gall to laugh. “Emilio only knows how to save his own skin. I wouldn’t count on him playing hero now.”
“But he’s already a hero.” Their gazes locked, emotions hot, stakes high. “He adores me. Wants me. Unlike you.”
“I wanted you.”
“Naked. Compliant. Uncomplicated.” It was getting harder to keep her cool, mocking smile in place. “Sounds awfully superficial, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps. But I also think you’re deluding yourself if you think Sobato truly loves you. Sobato cares only about himself. I’ve known him since primary school. I’ve worked with him. Socialized with him—”
“You’re jealous.”
“Yes.” His dark eyes glittered. “I am jealous. I hate that you’re together, I hate the idea of him touching you, but I’m also afraid for you.” He was walking toward her, closing the distance between them. “Emilio is using you to get to me.”
Maximos stared down at her from his imposing height, everything about him strong, dark, taut. He had so much power, so much sheer physical strength he made other men look puny in comparison.
“Then his plan is working,” she whispered, heart thudding too hard inside her rib cage.
“And your plan? What is that?”
“I don’t have a plan.”
“You must. Or you wouldn’t be here with him now.” He took a step toward her, captured her chin, lifted her face to his. With the pad of his thumb he stroked the warm softness of her cheek gently, almost reverently. “You’re going to get hurt, carissima.”
Her heart ached. “I won’t.”
“You will.” He looked pained, the expression in his dark eyes one of anger. Suffering. “And you’ve no idea what hurt is.”
She couldn’t look away from his dark eyes, from the sorrow he’d known, from the things he’d experienced but wouldn’t share.
She didn’t know Emilio, she thought. But she also didn’t know Maximos. In many ways, Maximos was just as much a stranger as Emilio. Maximos had always been so private, so careful in what he said, and did.
The few details she knew about his personal life were details learned three years ago when she’d first acquired the Italia Motors account. Curious about Maximos the Great, she’d gone online one night and typed Maximos’s name into various search engines to see what information she could get, but the articles and references were surprisingly limited.
As she already knew, Maximos was cofounder and President and CEO of Italia Motors. He’d been educated in Rome but still called Sicily home. And that was it.
No mention of family, one way or another. No gossip. Nothing even about Emilio other than the fact that the founding partners of Italia Motors had decided to end their partnership and go their separate ways.
“And you know what hurt is?” she asked, unable to look away from his brooding gaze.
“Yes.”
The muscles in his face were so hard and tight that he reminded her of sleek polished marble unearthed from an ancient civilization.
How easy it had been to love him.
How impossible to lose him.
Looking back, she didn’t have to lose him. If she’d kept silent, kept her needs buried, hidden, secret, he would have never known she wanted—needed—more. He would have never known she ached for all that she’d never had. Love. Family. Children.
But she couldn’t stay quiet, couldn’t continue to deny what she craved most. And in the end she’d done the unthinkable and asked for more.
Cass Gardner, taunted at work for being Invincible Gardner, had finally admitted to someone else she needed more. And admitting that she had needs, unmet needs, had been the most difficult thing she’d ever done, the most difficult thing she could imagine doing.
Maximos was proud, but he had nothing on her in that department. She was fiercely proud, too, proud of her independence, proud of her strength, proud that she had never needed anything from anyone.
But Maximos had changed that. Maximos taught her what it was to feel…what it was to dream…
Only it had been just a dream because Maximos couldn’t, wouldn’t, give more. Maximos had liked sex, convenient sex, and she’d watched him go even as her heart shattered.
Just remembering made her eyes sting and Cass pulled free, retreating several steps, undone by the memory of needing and losing and learning to stop feeling, stop wanting, stop dreaming.
“Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?” Maximos’s voice followed her, his voice deep and bitter. “I know why you’re here. Sobato knows I’m working on a new design and he’s tried to get a set of plans twice now. He’s
