Marchese's Forgotten Bride Read Free

hurt and dismay. Who the heck did he think he was that he felt he had the right to blank her as if she were nobody?
    She listened to the second wave of applause ripple through the bar area, though she didn’t bother to join in. She would rather cut off her hands than applaud this man. She hated him. Now that she was looking at him without the first incapacitating rush of shock cluttering up her emotions, she was remembering just how much she hated and despised Sandro Rossi—or, in this case, Alessandro Marchese.
    ‘Grazie molto per la vostra accoglienza calorosa…’ the man himself responded in a rich, deep, sensually delivered Italian which caused a collective gasp of delicious appreciation from the females present in the bar, while his beautiful companion touched his arm and murmured something to him that turned his frown to a grimace, then a short second later into a smile that clutched Cassie’s stomach muscles in a vicelike grip and just captivated everyone else.
    ‘My apologies,’ he murmured, ‘allow me to repeat that in English…Thank you very much for your warm welcome…’
    ‘Oh, my,’ Ella breathed beside Cassie. ‘Now, that was very, very sexy indeed. Do you think he deliberately set out to disarm us all with the piece of theatre?’
    Probably, Cassie thought cynically, fighting to keep her bitter feelings from showing on her face. In truth she was surprised the sharp-eyed Ella hadn’t noticed what had been passing between her best friend and their new boss—surprised that the whole darn room hadn’t noticed!
    Sandro was now busy charming everyone as he mapped out his plans for the company, and he did it by conveying an air of smoothly polished self-assurance aimed to allay everyone’s fears about their future at BarTec. Lowering her eyes, Cassie listened without really hearing, unwillingly tuned in to the flowing resonance of his voice but without catching more than the odd word because her mind was elsewhere, rolling back the years to a time when she’d first heard that voice.
    It hadn’t changed— he hadn’t changed. Whatever he preferred to call himself these days, he was still the man who’d used those sexy dark base tones and his easy-going charm to make her fall in love with him before casting her aside once he’d enjoyed the pleasures of her body, leaving her desolate, pregnant and alone.
    A second crash of applause woke her up with a shudder. Sandro had finished speaking and was now smiling down at the woman in the red dress. Cassie wanted to leave. It was horrible just how badly she wanted to just walk through that door and go. But Sandro was still blocking the exit along with his cluster of smartly dressed minions, who all looked as slick and as sharp as he did.
    Could she squeeze past them without him noticing? Would he care that she was leaving if she did? The sizzle of temptation fizzed through her body alongside the angry bitterness already swimming through it.
    ‘At last we get to be fed.’ Ella’s dry comment forced her to take note of the way everyone was beginning to make a move towards the stairs which led to the restaurant above, and grim common sense arrived as Cassie felt herself swept up in the general exodus.
    She knew she could not afford the luxury of just walking out of here. She needed her job at BarTec. She did not need the rash of questions bound to fly at her if she did decide to go.
    Tagging along beside Ella, she listened to her friend chattering away ten to the dozen about their gorgeously interesting new boss to those crowded around them while Cassie just felt completely shut off.
    I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Please don’t ring this number again…
    Those cold words of rejection echoed around her head. From fierce, dark, passionate lover to contemptuous stranger in the blink of an eyelash. To hell with the fact that he’d been her first lover, or that he’d left her pregnant and terrified and bewildered. Sandro had taught her the