salon off to the right, the salon’s high ceiling stenciled in gold and rose and pale blue.
Emilio kept his arm loosely slung around her waist as they entered the salon even as the enormity of her decision, the incredible stupidity, hit her, a violent blow to the side of the head and she exhaled with a whoosh.
Why had she gone for the dramatic end, the death of hope, the burial of love?
Make that the burial of her love as he’d never loved her. He’d worshiped her body, and only then, when he’d found her convenient and available, the brutal truth made clear six months ago when she dared to ask…to whisper…for more.
Ice coated her heart and for a moment she felt like little Oliver Twist from the Dickens novel, begging, begging. Please, sir, can I have some…more?
And just like that Maximos had roared back, More? Did you say more?
Actually he hadn’t shouted. He hadn’t even asked her to repeat what she’d said. He’d simply given the Maximos acceptance, a half shrug, the calm, unruffled approach he took to all matters pertaining to her. To them.
Them. What a horrible little word. Them, just “the” with an m tacked on at the end.
Them.
But them, in terms of Maximos and Cass meant only one thing—sex. Hot, hungry, insatiable.
Just thinking of sex—Maximos—her body ached inwardly, the terrible craving still there, beneath the surface, her emotions still so volatile.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
The familiar voice sent icy prickles rippling down Cass’s spine. Maximos.
She stiffened helplessly, the hair rising on her nape. Slowly she turned toward the voice, her body hot and then cold and hot again. From the beginning she’d been aware of Maximos as pure energy, a life force, a life force that completely overwhelmed her own. And then she saw him.
Maximos.
Dressed impeccably, elegantly, in a dark suit that fitted him as only an Italian cut suit could, he wore a sage-green shirt and tie and his golden-olive skin looked more burnished than ever, his onyx hair more polished, his hard features more beautiful. No one had eyelashes thicker, darker, longer than Maximos. No one had a mouth that smiled so rarely but kissed so beautifully.
Her belly knotted. The desire nearly as painful as the heartbreak.
She tried to look away but couldn’t. She’d missed him too much. Missed his height. His build. His face. His body. She’d missed everything about him. But particularly his body. Missed the way his body stretched to cover hers, missed the way his hands wrapped around her wrists, missed the way he held her, made love to her, missed the tension of him—them—together.
There was sex, and then there was passion, and what they had was sex and passion—the hottest, most explosive, most intoxicating passion, the kind that grabbed hold of you by the throat and didn’t let go. The kind that owned you, possessed you, made you its slave.
There were other big men in the room, other men with height, but no one carried himself the way Maximos did. No one with his confidence. His arrogance. His intense physical presence. Even from across the room she felt aware of him. Too aware. And just looking at him she felt sick with longing. Missing. Desire.
Nothing in her life had ever felt as good as Maximos with her, against her.
Nothing in her life had ever felt as awful as Maximos leaving her, walking out the door.
“Good to see you, too,” Emilio said, filling the awful silence.
“You’ve no business being here,” Maximos said, ignoring Cass completely and she wasn’t entirely surprised. Once he moved forward he didn’t look back. He didn’t harbor regrets.
“I was invited,” Emilio answered, raising his wineglass in a mock salute.
“Not by my family.”
Emilio allowed himself a small smile. “No, by the groom’s family. My father and Antonio’s father go way back.”
“How extremely unfortunate.”
Emilio grinned. “Are you going to call off the wedding now?”
“No. I’ll just have to dispose of you. Quietly. Quickly.” Maximos flashed teeth, a savage wolf snarl. “Shouldn’t be difficult.”
“Not with the connections you have.”
“If I had the mafia connections you say I do, you wouldn’t still be around.” Maximos turned his head, fixed his dark gaze on Cass. “And I would have known about you,” he added softly, his tone velvet with danger.
Cass’s heart stopped, flipped, as Maximos’s hard gaze rested on her.
She felt him consider her, felt the uncomfortable weight of his close scrutiny, and his expression, like the rest of him, was closed. Detached. Unreadable.
She’d never really known him, had she? She’d never really had him, either. And the shock of seeing him again, especially like this, was almost too great, her body awash in heat and ice, her stomach heavy, nauseous.
She’d planned this, she’d come here to confront him and yet she wondered now what she’d thought she’d really achieve.
How could there ever be peace between them? How could there ever be any resolution?
She’d loved him and he hadn’t cared. The memory was like a knife cutting inside her, slipping between her heart and breast bone. How could she be so easy to forget? So easy to lose?
How could she have meant so little to him…?
Remnants of the old pain rushed through her, and she sucked in her breath, lifted her shoulders so that the straps of her silk bra cut into her skin. Cass stared straight forward, stared at the hard lines and angles that shaped Maximos’s fierce face.
A man without tenderness. A man without softness of any kind.
Yet wasn’t he—their relationship—so perfectly her? So perfectly Cass? She’d never taken the easy road, never wanted that which was simple or familiar. No shortcuts for her. Just hard work. Incredible challenges. And impossibly high standards.
“Let me show you two to the door,” Maximos said now, his expression hard, blank, as he gestured toward the entry.
“Sorry to disappoint you, friend,” Emilio answered, wrapping his arm around Cass and kissing her temple. “But we’re going nowhere. Cass and I’ve traveled a long way and intend to stay.”
For a moment Maximos didn’t speak, his features blank, only his dark eyes betraying his anger. “This is my sister’s wedding.”
“Romantic, isn’t it?” Emilio answered.
But Maximos wasn’t paying Emilio attention. He only had eyes for Cass and his expression was hard, dangerous, so dangerous that Cass inhaled sharply and reminded herself to be brave.
