Free Marchese's Forgotten Bride by Michelle Reid Page A

hair, oddly managing to smooth it without, Cassie was sure, that being his intention. ‘Try climbing inside my head, cara ,’ he invited grimly. ‘It is a minefield of shocks and questions.’
    He took a gulp at his drink.
    It was yet another change in his personality Cassie found she had to struggle with. She’d seen the ultra-sophisticated businessman and the smooth expert charmer. She’d seen shock completely debilitate him and felt the explosive thrust of his anger scare her almost out of her wits. He’d been weak, he’d been strong, he’d been frighteningly vulnerable and ruthlessly passionate when he’d taken her to his bed. Right now he just looked unbearably cynical and chillingly remote, as if he’d slammed his defences into place.
    And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, she decided as she hovered tensely on the threshold of the room, desperately wanting to snatch up her purse and just go, yet held glued to the spot by a bubbling growth of concern because she could see the strain of what was happening to him was really making itself felt now and he looked so dreadfully pale.
    ‘Sandro, please, don’t drink that,’ she murmured unsteadily. ‘I don’t think—’
    ‘Tell me the date you claim we were together,’ he cut in right over her.
    ‘We were together!’ Cassie instantly flared up.
    ‘All right,’ with another one of those angry slashes with his hand, ‘tell me when we were together, then!’
    Needing to take in a breath of shaky air, Cassie named the date.
    Sandro made a jerky movement that was almost a flinch. ‘For how long?’
    ‘I’ve told you this too—’
    ‘Then repeat it. How long?’ he bit out rawly.
    Pressing her lips together, she had to push herself beyond the shame barrier before she could answer, ‘Two w-weeks.’
    ‘Two weeks,’ he echoed in a thick, cursing voice. Then he really scared her by dropping like lead into the nearest chair and made that gesture with his fingers, pushing them up against his brow. ‘Are you claiming that we managed to conceive twins in only two weeks?’
    ‘N-no.’ Having to bite back the desire to object to the way he had put that, Cassie gave in to her own trembling legs and walked over to a chair to sit down. ‘It took you two weeks to get me to go to bed with you and only one n-night to conceive the twins. The next morning you said you had to fly back to Florence. You promised you would be gone for only a few days but you never came back.’
    ‘I couldn’t come back.’ Lowering his hand from his brow, he continued the story from his point of view. ‘The accident happened and I lost six seemingly vital weeks of my life.’
    ‘Will you stop this, Sandro?’ A sudden flush of hot anger launched Cassie back to her feet. ‘Your lost weeks have nothing to do with this!’
    His head shot up. ‘How the hell do you come to that crazy conclusion?’
    ‘But I told you this too,’ she cried out. ‘I called you on your mobile. You barely gave me the opportunity to speak before you hit me with, “I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Please don’t ring this number again…” ’ As he jerked to his feet Cassie shuddered because those harsh words were etched in fire on her brain. ‘It was quite a brush-off,’ she continued with a thin laugh that didn’t even touch base with humour. ‘If I had been in a better frame of mind I m-might have appreciated just how callous you could be. But at the time I was more concerned about myself and the—the twins I’d just found out I was carrying. When I tried to tell you about them you put the phone down on me!’
    ‘But I do not remember this telephone call!’ he thrust out angrily.
    Eyes like green fire leapt into contact with his eyes. ‘That conversation took place eight weeks after you left me, Sandro. Are you now saying that your memory loss scans eight weeks instead of six?’
    In the thickening silence that gathered after that piece of blazing sarcasm, Cassie wondered why