time you were with her?”
Maximos pulled over to the side of the road and turned in his seat to look at her, and even in the dim light of the interior his expression was fierce, forbidding. “I was not with her. I care about Sophia, but I do not love her and would not marry her.”
Cass looked at him, seeing the strong proud lines of his face in the shadowed light of the car interior. “So she’s never been your lover?”
“No!” His voice thundered in the car. “No. Any more questions?”
Cass looked away. “Not at the moment.”
“Good.” He started the car and resumed driving. The rest of the brief trip was finished in silence. But as Maximos pulled up in front of his family’s palazzo, the house having passed from one generation of Guilianos to the next for nearly five hundred years, Maximos broke the silence. “You’ve changed,” he said tersely. “You used to be strong. Optimistic. You’re so insecure now.”
Insecure. That was one way of putting it. “Things were different then,” she said.
“Not that different.”
Cass almost laughed out loud, thinking he was joking but as she caught sight of his face, she realized he wasn’t. “Things are very different, Maximos.”
“Think about it. You still have your job. You have your apartment, your work, your friends—”
“But not you.” How could he not get it? How could he value her love—relationships—so little? “You were everything to me.”
“I never wanted to be everything. I never asked to be everything—”
“Forget it. Let’s just drop it.” Cass swung the car door open. They’d been sitting in the driveway, the ornate lights from the plaza shining on the deserted square, turning the cathedral façade a yellow-gold, illuminating the elegant balconies fronting the Guiliano palazzo.
Maximos pursued her up the front steps. “I cared about you, Cass. I cared more than you know, but you know you’re responsible for your own happiness, just as you’re in charge of your own destiny. It’s the one thing we agreed on when we met, it’s what attracted me to you. You were strong and independent—”
“And I still am.” She took a breath. “Sort of.”
“Unacceptable.”
“Caring for you changed me. It made me want more—”
“But sometimes there just isn’t more.”
She pushed through the front door. “You say that—”
“And I mean it.” He caught her by the shoulder and turned her around, the dim light of the entry hall shadowing both of their faces. “You got what I could give you. I saw you when I could. And it wasn’t a lot. I know it. We were a weekend thing. Once a month, two weekends a month, just now and then.”
She closed her eyes, counted to five, tried to keep from losing her temper. “Yet I was available every weekend,” she said carefully, “free each evening.”
“You had your own life—”
“I had work,” she interrupted shortly, opening her eyes to look at him. “But outside of work you were my life.”
Maximos inhaled sharply. “Your mistake. Not mine.”
Heat and sensation exploded inside her. Cass shuddered at the brutal tug on her heart. How could she feel so much? How could she still hurt like this? The pain was so intense she had to smile to hold the tears back. Was this love? Was it hate? All she knew for certain was that this emotion held her in its thrall, had bewitched her mind, taken control of her senses.
What she wanted…needed…
She shook her head once, a short dazed shake, the same dazed sensation she’d had since meeting Maximos two and a half years ago. “As I said, let’s drop it. Let’s just call it a night. I can’t fight with you anymore, I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t enjoy it.” She felt tears sting her eyes. Not when I like loving you so much better.
The butler appeared, formally greeting Maximos and after turning on lights for them, quietly disappeared.
“Your coat,” she said, peeling off Maximos’s dinner jacket and handing it back to him. “Thank you.”
He inclined his head. “I’ll see you up.”
“I can find my way.”
“I’m heading that way myself. It’s easy enough for me to walk you to your room.”
“Well, in that case, since you’re not going out of your way…” She was teasing him and smiling crookedly, he gestured to the marble-and-gilt staircase, where the white carerra marble had darkened to almost lavender with age.
At the top of the stairs, Maximos flicked on more lights brightening the second floor landing with its dark red paint and the profusion of oils by the Italian masters.
“This is a beautiful home.”
“I don’t come home as often as I should. My mother is always asking me to come visit.” He sighed and then laughed. “Seems I can’t make anybody happy. You never saw enough of me. My family doesn’t see enough of me—”
She shot him a swift glance, sizing him up, seeing all at once his magnificent profile, the dark thick fringe of eyelash, the sultry coloring contradicted by such fierce, masculine features. He was gorgeous. Glorious. Proud. Sicilian. And obviously not interested in a long-term, monogamous relationship. “Then who does?”
“Good question,” he answered, walking her to her room, again turning on lights for her, before crossing to the windows and drawing the heavy velvet curtains closed. “I suppose my staff sees quite a bit of me. Clients. Customers. Automotive engineers.”
“You’re introducing a new car in the new year?”
“It’s being unveiled soon.”
“Exciting.”
“Mmmm,” he said, noncommittal, before changing subjects. “The house is old, but it does have an intercom. My mother insisted on it when my father was ill several years ago. You can call the kitchen if you need anything to eat or drink, or if you require something from housekeeping.”
“Thank you,” she said, thinking that just looking at him made her hurt. Just looking into his dark eyes made her want.
He’d discovered her turquoise gown on the bed. “What the hell happened to your dress?”
When she didn’t answer she saw him lift her ruined gown, the delicate fabric of the bodice in shreds. Maximos’s brow furrowed, his expression darkening. “Sobato did this.”
She didn’t have to say anything. Maximos knew, and he swore softly. “I should just kill him and be done with all of this.”
She took the gown from him, balling it up and tossing it
