Free Marchese's Forgotten Bride by Michelle Reid

building in her throat. Oh, God, she hated herself—she hated him! And her legs could barely hold her upright, her insides still singing like sinful traitors triumphing over what Sandro had done for them.
    On a stinging shot of shamed energy she began urgently gathering up her clothes, refusing to look at him, refusing to notice how he was still lying there, saying nothing, or how the hand was back up at his face, long fingertips pressing into his creased brow.
    Clutching the pillow to her front along with her skimpy jumble of clothes now, she turned and headed for the door. She had to get away. She just had to—
    ‘I cannot believe I did that to you.’
    The husky sound of his denial froze Cassie taut and quivering in the doorway. ‘Can’t or don’t want to believe it?’ she shook back.
    Without thinking, she spun to look at him in time to watch him roll off the bed to land beside it on his feet. Each beautifully toned inch of him was captured by the light from the single lamp burning golden by the bed, sweat-glossed sleek, powerful muscles that expanded and contracted in a lithe display of masculine potency that turned her ravished muscles to hateful, trembling mush.
    Why did he have to be the only man who could do this to her? ‘If you ask me, Sandro, your biggest problem is that you don’t seem to want to know yourself—which in my view makes a complete mockery of your so-called lost memory!’
    He flinched, one of his hands sweeping out in a sharp, slicing gesture meant to cut her bitter words to shreds. Shaken by the violence of the action, Cassie just stared as he jerked into movement, striding across the room to disappear through a door, closing it behind him with a quiet thud that left her standing there with her heart writhing around in her chest in self-disgust at what she’d let him do to her—again.
    A sob of revulsion broke free from her throat and she dropped the pillow and spun around to leave the bedroom at a wild run, making for the bright white bathroom where her foolish downfall had begun. The harsh lights hurt her burning eyes as she dragged on her flimsy briefs and fumbled feverishly with the zip on her dress. She hadn’t found her stockings but she didn’t care, she told herself as she wriggled her bare toes into her shoes.
    All she wanted to do was to just get the heck out of here without having to face him. As she turned towards the door she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and a stinging flood of tears lashed her aching throat. She looked like a plump-lipped, hot-cheeked lush! Her hair was all over the place, its waterfall layers all tangled and mussed, and her eyes were so dark she looked as if she’d been indulging in some kind of drug!
    Which she had in a way, she thought helplessly as she wrenched her gaze away from her gut-crawling image. She’d indulged in the drug of irresponsible sex, and coming down from it was the worst feeling she’d ever experienced! Snatching the bathroom door open, she sped across the hallway and into the living room with the intention of retrieving her purse from where Sandro had tossed it and getting the heck out of here!
    Only to find herself jerking to a sinking, shuddering standstill when she saw Sandro there in the room.
    He was standing beside a cabinet which stood open to reveal a selection of bottles and glasses. He’d pulled his trousers and his shirt back on but half the buttons were left unfastened and his feet were bare, the smooth style of his hair roughed up. He looked pale with strain but hard and grim and he held a glass slotted in his fingers that definitely did not have water in it.
    ‘Whisky,’ he said, catching the fluttering direction her gaze had taken. ‘I decided I might be better off becoming a drunk before you lay any more shocks on me.’
    ‘There are no more shocks.’ Cassie struggled to get even those few words past the thick blockage in her throat.
    ‘You think not?’ He scraped a set of fingers through his