my party. I need you there to help us celebrate.”
CHAPTER ONE
“YOU’RE certain you want to do this?” Emilio asked, his tone mocking. “It’s not too late to leave.”
Cass stood perfectly still on the palazzo’s steps, briefly blinded by the intense light of the setting sun, and refused to let herself see-think-feel beyond the moment.
She had to do this.
She didn’t have a choice.
“The second you walk through the doors it’ll be too late.” Emilio was still talking, his words rushing over her like the warmth of the dazzling Sicilian sun. “If you’re going to run scared, do it now.”
Cass’s head jerked up and she forced herself to look at him, focus on his face. Emilio’s lips were curved and yet his eyes were hard. This was no game.
“Once inside those doors, you’re committed.” Emilio leaned toward her, dominating her. He’d once been Maximos’s best friend and former business partner but the two were enemies now. “Don’t think you can run away then.”
The ugliness in his eyes repelled her. She turned her head, smoothed her black skirt, made sure her fitted lace blouse lay flat over the waistband of her narrow skirt. “I’m not running,” she said huskily, before glancing up at the imposing face of the palazzo, the Giuliano family villa. The tall slender stone columns flanking the doorway supported a lovely iron balcony. Smaller iron balconies framed each of the white painted French doors overlooking the medieval piazza. It was a beautiful impressive home.
But why shouldn’t it be? Maximos was a beautiful impressive man.
Beautiful, impressive and cruel.
For a moment Cass felt nothing but grief. Grief borne of loss, the pain nearly as stunning as it had been six months ago when it felt as though Maximos had driven an iron nail into her heart.
Every breath hurt.
Every thought blistered.
Every emotion, pure agony.
She drew a sharp breath, remembering, reliving the pain. He’d destroyed her. Shattered something precious inside her. In the blink of an eye. In the parting of lips. In the single beat of the heart.
Fire raced through her veins now. Fire, anger, grief.
She’d loved him. Loved him more than she thought she’d ever love anyone and it had meant nothing. She’d just been a body. In his bed.
Emilio’s hand shot out, touched her arm. “If this is to work, he’s got to believe we’re together, that our relationship is serious.”
“He’ll believe it.” She swallowed hard, fighting the surge of emotion. She’d never liked Emilio—not when Maximos first told her about him, and her opinion hadn’t changed after a day traveling with him from Rome—but she needed him. He was her ticket into Maximos’s home. “I haven’t come this far to fail now.”
“So when are we getting married?” Emilio persisted.
“April 16.” Cass’s eyes burned. Maximos despised Emilio—no, despise wasn’t a strong enough word—make that hate. Maximos hated Emilio, and once Maximos saw the two of them together—she inhaled hard, sharply, pain splintering through her—he’d hate her, too.
“Where did we meet?”
“At the EFFIE Awards and we immediately hit it off.”
Emilio smiled. “And how did I propose?”
“During a romantic weekend in the Seychelles. The wedding is now just six months away. Did I forget anything?”
Emilio reached out, brushed a golden-brown tendril of hair from Cass’s brow. “He’ll never forgive you.”
For a moment she couldn’t breathe, her chest burning, heart on fire.
She didn’t want Maximos to hate her…didn’t want him to see her as the enemy. She’d once been his. She’d belonged to him body and soul…but wasn’t that why she’d agreed to do this in the first place?
Close the door on the past?
Focus squarely on the future?
Establish a future?
She put her hand to her middle, her insides churning, stomach knotting. It had been over six months, six months since the end of their relationship and she was still barely functioning, still dragging herself through the days, stunned, broken, catatonic.
Intellectually she knew this couldn’t continue. She was dying at work, losing accounts, losing respect. She couldn’t let a broken heart ruin her life.
It was time to move forward. She had to move forward, which is why she’d agreed to play the part of Emilio’s adoring fiancée.
“It won’t be pretty,” Emilio said, his voice dropping, the warning clear and yet he was also eager. Exhilarated.
It boggled her mind how much men loved war. And this was war, a horrible war that used love and betrayal instead of bullets and guns.
Emilio had invited her to join him at Maximos’s sister’s wedding, suggesting they pretend to be romantically involved because he wanted blood, Maximos’s blood, and she’d accepted Emilio’s invitation because in her own way, she wanted blood, too.
Her chest burned, fire, fire, and she felt only desperation to put an end to this madness. That she could have ever loved Maximos so deeply… that she could have ever given three years of her life to him, waiting, always waiting…
“Fine,” she said softly, facing the fire, letting the awful heartbreak burn, and it raged. Hot. Furious. Feverish. She’d been torn in half by love and now she’d fight, and fight hard. “I don’t want it pretty. I just want peace.”
She’d spent the worst six months of her life, the absolute worst months imaginable, trying to accept that she and Maximos were over. Finished. Through. And even after her body had stopped the wretched aching—experiencing a brutal physical withdrawal—her mind played games, turning every night, every dream, every man on the street into phantoms of Maximos.
She’d lived without him six months. It had felt like six years. She’d died a hundred times in the months since they said goodbye and in all that time, in all those months, there hadn’t been a call. A card. A word.
He simply let her go. But why shouldn’t he? She was just his mistress. He was entitled to have who he wanted, when he wanted. He was entitled to take and forget. After all he was Maximos Giuliano and she’d never asked for anything from him but sex.
Abruptly Cass moved forward, quickly climbing the villa’s broad stone front steps, the sun behind them painting the door a violent red. Before she could entertain second thoughts, she rapped hard on the stately front door and stepped back.
Seconds later the immense wooden front door opened. Emilio turned to Cass, flashed her a cunning smile. “Congratulations, Cass, darling. You’ve
