‘Bread?’ he reminded her sharply.
He was also the rudest man she’d ever met.
She hacked at the bread with a vicious stab. The large, country kitchen seemed to be closing around her—no wonder with his arrogant animal magnetism taking up all the space.
‘Have you eaten yet, Cassandra?’
She was surprised by the question but had no intention of sitting down to eat with him.
‘I’m not hungry.’ She was always hungry after working in the open air. ‘I’ll have something later.’
‘See that you do,’ he said, laying down his cutlery. ‘You’re far too thin.’
Apart from the fact that she had never once been called thin—she loved her food, and wasn’t prepared to sacrifice a tasty meal for the sake of wearing jeans a size smaller—he was completely out of order, making personal comments like that.
You love this job—remember?
Heaving a calming breath, she held her tongue.
The girl kept his attention, and though she wasn’t pristine, as he expected his women in Rome to be—even after cleaning herself up she had mud on her neck and more smears on her arms—at least she wasn’t a simpering fool. Neither could she be grouped with the career women with whom he sometimes had a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Cassandra was unique—and not everything on his Tuscan estate was pristine, he reminded himself. He had always thought his estate better for its quirkiness.
‘You’re enjoying the omelette?’ she guessed as he forked up the last mouthful.
‘Very much,’ he admitted.
He hadn’t realised how hungry he was until he’d sat down to eat—or how different this kitchen was from his sleek, steel and black granite, largely untouched kitchen in Rome.
And he wouldn’t change a thing, he mused as he stared around. His critical stare returned to Cassandra. ‘How did you get this job?’
‘A friend of my godmother’s recommended me—she’s another keen gardener.’
‘Who employed you?’ he asked, frowning.
‘You did— I mean your...’ Cass was stumped. Her knowledge of office hierarchy was non-existent.
‘My PA?’ he offered. ‘She’s the only one with the authority to hire my personal staff.’
‘Must have been,’ Cass agreed. She didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. One piercing stare from those compelling eyes and her mind had been wiped clean.
‘I haven’t seen your CV yet,’ he pressed, holding her pinned in his stare. ‘What are your qualifications for this job?’
She had none, other than her passion for the plants she nurtured and the earth she turned. ‘I’m self-taught,’ she admitted. Her knowledge came largely from gardening books and, of course, her favourite book, The Secret Garden.
‘And your previous job?’
She watched Marco—as she must somehow learn to think of him—push his plate away before she spoke. ‘I worked the tills in my local supermarket—when I wasn’t stacking shelves.’
‘Education?’ he prompted, the furrows on his brow deepening.
The derision directed at her by the teachers at her very expensive school had led Cass to contribute little in class, and even less when she’d sat down to take an examination. She didn’t have a clutch of brilliant exam results to crow about.
‘I have no formal qualifications,’ she admitted, upping the tempo on her dish-clearing technique in the hope of avoiding more uncomfortable questions.
She assumed that he hadn’t made the connection between the scandal of her parents’ death and her surname—not yet. And why should she tell him anything more, when he revealed nothing about himself? She could understand that having his idyll trespassed on by a stranger must be an irritation for him, but a powerful, wealthy man like Marco di Fivizzano only had to make a phone call to find out everything about her. Let him do that, if he was so interested.
Calm down, she cautioned herself.
It was all very well telling herself to calm down, but she could just imagine what a man like Marco di Fivizzano would make of her past. The media had gone to town on the story of a small child wandering about in a house full of drug paraphernalia while her parents had floated dead in the swimming pool. If he knew that, then, just like everyone else, he’d make the assumption that she was tainted, when nothing could be further from the truth. She only wished she could reach back into the past as an adult to help her parents.
She sprang to attention when he got up from the table. Having him prowl around made her feel vulnerable, but he left the kitchen without a backward glance or a word of thanks.
‘Rude man.’ Staring out of the window, she watched him cross the yard. But he was beautiful. That easy stride...that incredible body.
Her summer had changed irrevocably now Marco di Fivizzano had arrived and only one thing was certain: her fantasies had moved on from The Secret Garden.
* * *
He’d had a lousy night’s sleep.
He’d had no sleep. Why try to dress it up?
Dragging on his jeans, he scowled as he prowled the room. He should have had the house to himself but now she was in a room across the courtyard.
Lust surged in his veins at the thought that Cassandra’s window was directly opposite his. He’d surfed the internet and had found out everything about her. He’d been right to recognise the name. Cassandra was the only child of the notorious rock legend Jackson Rich and his broken doll of a wife, Alexa Monroe.
So why was she working as a gardener? What had happened to all the money? Jackson Rich had been phenomenally successful. Was it possible he’d spent it all? Cassandra didn’t seem to have a penny to scratch her backside with. He could only concluded that Rich’s hangers-on and numerous drug-pushers had spent it for him. He had no sympathy. He’d been forced to fight every step of the way, and had had no one to rely on but himself. Rich must have been swept up in ego and success, making him an easy target. He had probably been happy to put up with the hangers-on if it had meant scoring his next fix.
For now he would give Cassandra the benefit of the doubt. It didn’t follow that she had inherited her parents’ weakness. If she was a yet another gold-digger, she was destined for disappointment. He didn’t have a vacancy for a mud-daubed mistress in Rome. The women in Rome knew how to dress, how to talk, and how to behave—both in bed and out of it. He doubted Cassandra would be interested in acquiring any of those skills—with the possible exception of the last of them, he reflected dryly.
It was time to remind himself that he avoided complications like the plague. His childhood had proved that women couldn’t be trusted, and he’d had no reason to change his mind. Cassandra Rich might be quirky and appealing, but she was no more than that.
* * *
She’d overslept! Catapulting out of bed, Cass gazed around blankly, trying to get her bearings. The simple courtyard room was the same...the house was the same...the scent of blossom coming in through the open window was the same...even the birds carolling in the crisp morning air was reassuringly the same. But everything had changed,