“I don’t have a plan.”
“You must. Or you wouldn’t be here with him now.” He took a step toward her, captured her chin, lifted her face to his. With the pad of his thumb he stroked the warm softness of her cheek gently, almost reverently. “You’re going to get hurt, carissima.”
Her heart ached. “I won’t.”
“You will.” He looked pained, the expression in his dark eyes one of anger. Suffering. “And you’ve no idea what hurt is.”
She couldn’t look away from his dark eyes, from the sorrow he’d known, from the things he’d experienced but wouldn’t share.
She didn’t know Emilio, she thought. But she also didn’t know Maximos. In many ways, Maximos was just as much a stranger as Emilio. Maximos had always been so private, so careful in what he said, and did.
The few details she knew about his personal life were details learned three years ago when she’d first acquired the Italia Motors account. Curious about Maximos the Great, she’d gone online one night and typed Maximos’s name into various search engines to see what information she could get, but the articles and references were surprisingly limited.
As she already knew, Maximos was cofounder and President and CEO of Italia Motors. He’d been educated in Rome but still called Sicily home. And that was it.
No mention of family, one way or another. No gossip. Nothing even about Emilio other than the fact that the founding partners of Italia Motors had decided to end their partnership and go their separate ways.
“And you know what hurt is?” she asked, unable to look away from his brooding gaze.
“Yes.”
The muscles in his face were so hard and tight that he reminded her of sleek polished marble unearthed from an ancient civilization.
How easy it had been to love him.
How impossible to lose him.
Looking back, she didn’t have to lose him. If she’d kept silent, kept her needs buried, hidden, secret, he would have never known she wanted—needed—more. He would have never known she ached for all that she’d never had. Love. Family. Children.
But she couldn’t stay quiet, couldn’t continue to deny what she craved most. And in the end she’d done the unthinkable and asked for more.
Cass Gardner, taunted at work for being Invincible Gardner, had finally admitted to someone else she needed more. And admitting that she had needs, unmet needs, had been the most difficult thing she’d ever done, the most difficult thing she could imagine doing.
Maximos was proud, but he had nothing on her in that department. She was fiercely proud, too, proud of her independence, proud of her strength, proud that she had never needed anything from anyone.
But Maximos had changed that. Maximos taught her what it was to feel…what it was to dream…
Only it had been just a dream because Maximos couldn’t, wouldn’t, give more. Maximos had liked sex, convenient sex, and she’d watched him go even as her heart shattered.
Just remembering made her eyes sting and Cass pulled free, retreating several steps, undone by the memory of needing and losing and learning to stop feeling, stop wanting, stop dreaming.
“Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?” Maximos’s voice followed her, his voice deep and bitter. “I know why you’re here. Sobato knows I’m working on a new design and he’s tried to get a set of plans twice now. He’s brought you here to distract me, to keep me occupied so he can sneak into my office—”
“No.”
“He was caught attempting to enter my office an hour ago, Cass.”
“I know nothing about that.”
“You were sharing a room with him. You had to know he’d left your room, gone downstairs—”
“He said he needed a drink.”
Maximos’s expression openly mocked her. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“But it’s the truth.”
“The truth,” he echoed softly, head tilting as he studied her. “Tell me the truth, then. Are you really engaged? Is there going to be an April wedding?”
Everything was happening too fast. Things had gotten wildly out of control. Cass reached behind her for the edge of the bed and sat down.
“Well?” he prompted.
She promised Emilio she’d play the part for the weekend, it was just the weekend, but right now Sunday was still so far away, two and a half days away, two endless days away…
But she’d promised, promised. Cass put a hand to her stomach, nauseous, hating the charade, wanting to come clean. She’d always been honest with Maximos. Or at least as honest as he’d allowed her to be… “Of course there’s a wedding,” she whispered, unable to look him in the eye.
“His family isn’t from Padua.”
Her shoulders lifted, fell.
“Why are you marrying in Padua?”
She swallowed. “He thought it was romantic—”
“That’s not why.”
She looked up at him. His features were granite hard, his dark eyes fierce and fixed on her face. “Then I don’t know why, Maximos. Okay?”
He was walking around her, a strange stalking that left her deeply uneasy. “It’s not okay. You say you’re marrying him. That means you must love him. So why don’t you know him better?” He stopped in front of her, towering over her. “And why did you agree to marry in Padua? He’s not from there. He doesn’t have a home there and I’m quite sure you’ve never been there.”
“It sounded romantic—”
“That’s not it.” Maximos suddenly crouched before her, his arms on either side of her, hands against her hips locking her in place. “You’re lying, Cass. And I don’t know if you’re lying to yourself, or lying to me, but I won’t let you do it. This isn’t you, isn’t like you—”
She tried to pull back but there was no escape. “You don’t know me!”
“Not know you?” He laughed, his dark features twisting with disbelief. “I know everything about you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CASS was dangerously close to tears but she wouldn’t give in to them, wouldn’t give in to him. He’d made their lives a living hell by playing her…using her…letting her hope, dream…
“Wrong!” she choked, hands knotted, fingers fisted. “You know what you wanted to know. You believed what you wanted to believe. But one thing is truth, the other is fantasy, and I’ll tell you the truth. I’m not the girl I was.” She threw her head back, her face flushed, her skin so hot she thought it would peel off. “And I’m not playing nice anymore.”
“Obviously not. If he can convince you to play along with his little charade—”
“It’s not a charade.”
“Well, bella, I’d be willing to bet you one hundred thousand dollars there’s no wedding, and that if I called the churches in Padua, there’s nothing on the books, and if I pressed you harder, you’d tell me there’s no ring, no engagement, nothing of substance here.” He stared into her face, his body close, too close, heat and power emanating from him in waves. “Care to make that bet?”
For a moment she couldn’t answer, the air bottled in her lungs and all she could do was remember the way he’d taken her against the wall, taken advantage of