“Is it new?”
“No.” She turned, glanced up into his face, her gaze locking with his. “I’d had it for a while…just never had the chance to wear it before.”
“Because I never took you out?”
She flushed. “Because you preferred to keep me naked in bed.”
The corner of his mouth pulled but it wasn’t a smile, rather a bitter acknowledgment of truth. Their relationship had been nothing if not sexual, and Cass felt the old fierce hunger fill her now. But it made no sense. How could she still want him after all that had happened between them? How could she still want him this much?
The bathroom door abruptly opened and Emilio emerged. Cass took a guilty step backward even though she knew she’d done nothing wrong but everything was getting complicated, far more complicated than she could handle.
“I thought I heard voices,” Emilio said, one towel wrapped around his hips as he towel-dried his hair with another. “Is there a problem?”
“Possibly,” Maximos answered tonelessly. “Depends on how you look at it.”
“So what’s the situation?” Emilio draped the towel across his bare shoulder.
“Cass is moving to another room.”
Emilio shot her a suspicious look. “Why?”
“It’s out of respect for my mother. As you aren’t married yet—”
“She’s not leaving me,” Emilio interrupted. “We came together. We stay together.”
The hard mask slipped across Maximos’s features again. “Don’t worry. You’ll still see each other in the public rooms.”
“No,” Emilio stubbornly repeated. “I want her with me. She needs to be with me, too.” He turned and looked at her. “Don’t you, Cassandra?”
She opened her mouth to answer. “I—”
“She does,” Emilio finished. “Trust me.”
“I wish I could,” Maximos answered regretfully, and he sounded almost sympathetic until he crossed his arms over his chest and stared Emilio down. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”
For a moment the two men engaged in a tense standoff while Cass let the word trust echo inside her head. There was that word again, trust, and it was obvious that broken trust was the fundamental issue here.
So what exactly had happened? And when?
“So what is it going to be?” Maximos prompted, arms still crossed and he looked like the Maximos of old—unflappable, immovable, the man in charge. “Does Cass get her own room, or do you both leave now?”
Emilio’s expression was still belligerent. “You wouldn’t throw Cass out.”
Maximos nearly smiled. “Try me.”
This was a new Maximos, Cass thought, one she’d never seen before. Until this weekend she’d only known the lover, not the dictator, although she’d sensed he lurked beneath the sophisticated veneer.
But then, of course, until this afternoon she’d never challenged his authority or provoked him. She’d blindly allowed him to make the decisions, trusting that he’d do what was right for her…for them.
Fool. She’d been such a fool in love.
Pained, Cass stirred. “I’ll pack,” she said. “I don’t have much.”
“I’ll carry your bag,” Maximos said.
“Is her room far?” Emilio asked sulkily.
“Not that far,” Maximos answered as Cass quickly slipped her shoes on and gathered her remaining personal items, tucking them back inside her small suitcase. “It’s close to my room,” he added. “Remember where that is?”
Emilio’s gray eyes narrowed. “She’s my fiancée.”
“So you’ve said.” Maximos smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. He turned toward Cass as she finished zipping her suitcase closed. “Ready?” She nodded. He reached for her case. “Then let’s go.”
As they walked along the upstairs hall, crossing from one wing of the palazzo to another, Maximos studied Cass’s profile.
She’d changed, he thought, changes someone else might not notice but he did. It had only been six months since he last saw her but she looked different. She was still sexy, still provocatively beautiful with her amber-gold eyes and her thick tawny hair that fell past her shoulders, but her mouth was different. Harder. More brittle. And her eyes were like that, too.
“How is everything at work?” he asked, stopping before the room that would now be hers.
“Fine.” But her lips compressed and she didn’t sound fine.
“And at home?”
“Fine.”
“Cass—”
“Everything’s all right, Maximos,” she interrupted, her voice dropping, the pitch huskier than normal. “Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”
He pushed open the door to a softly lit room, the ceiling high, arched, the dark beams stenciled in the palest shimmering gold.
Cass stepped past Maximos to enter the luxurious bedroom. White lace-edged pillows looked plump and inviting on the bed while the coverlet was a rich apricot velvet embroidered with green and gold thread. The curtains at the three enormous windows matched the apricot coverlet and fragrant pink and apricot roses filled two silver vases, one on the nightstand and the other on the antique dresser against the wall.
The beauty of it was almost unfair, she thought, watching Maximos place her suitcase on a painted trunk at the foot of the sleigh bed.
The bedroom represented beauty and romance…love…and wasn’t it amazing how Maximos could afford to give her all kinds of material possessions, but not the one thing she craved most? “It’s a lovely room,” she said, aware that she had to say something, that the silence had gone too long.
“Good. Then you shouldn’t mind me locking you in it.”
She spun around, not at all certain if he was serious or joking. But his expression gave nothing away. His face was blank. His eyes shuttered. Suddenly she felt her lips curl up in a faintly amused smile. “As long as we weren’t locked in here together.”
His eyes creased. “And your fiancé? You wouldn’t miss him?”
Her chin lifted. “He’d find a way to rescue me.”
Maximos had the gall to laugh. “Emilio only knows how to save his own skin. I wouldn’t count on him playing hero now.”
“But he’s already a hero.” Their gazes locked, emotions hot, stakes high. “He adores me. Wants me. Unlike you.”
“I wanted you.”
“Naked. Compliant. Uncomplicated.” It was getting harder to keep her cool, mocking smile in place. “Sounds awfully superficial, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps. But I also think you’re deluding yourself if you think Sobato truly loves you. Sobato cares only about himself. I’ve known him since primary school. I’ve worked with him. Socialized with him—”
“You’re jealous.”
“Yes.” His dark eyes glittered. “I am jealous. I hate that you’re together, I hate the idea of him touching you, but I’m also afraid for you.” He was walking toward her, closing the distance between them. “Emilio is using you to get to me.”
Maximos