Mistress To a Latin Lover: The Sicilian's Defiant Mistress / The Italian's Pregnant Mistress / The Italian's Mistress

“Just sex,” she repeated numbly, trying to hide the depth of her heartbreak. Sex with Maximos had been nothing short of perfection.

His jaw flexed. His dark eyes burned down at her. “You knew the agreement.”

“Things change,” she answered and he didn’t respond. She loved that about him. He would resort to silence whenever he didn’t like the direction the conversation was heading. How nice to be a man. How admirable to be able to resort to silence, the lofty heights, the superiority of a nonanswer. But this is how it had always been between them even if she’d never let herself see it…wouldn’t admit it…not until he’d walked from her life forever.

“People change,” she added tautly, knowing she was goading him, and glad to have the chance to say all the things she’d never said before.

His upper lip pulled. “Don’t they.”

“So who is the new lover?” Cass asked, tilting her head, smiling bitterly up at him, ignoring the anger in his eyes, the cold contemptuous expression on his face. His coldness couldn’t hurt her now. Cold was so much easier than fire.

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I’ve never been absurd.” She handed her wineglass to a passing waiter and crossed her empty arms over her chest to hide the fact that her hands were shaking. “I’ve never asked you for anything. I just gave, and gave, and gave.”

“You got plenty, bella.”

“In bed.”

“It’s what you wanted.”

Rage swept through her, so hot, so dry, it blistered her from head to toe. “If I’d known it’d only be sex I would have been more selfish, demanded more satisfaction. I would have demanded an orgasm every time you touched me!”

She’d shocked him.

She saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes but then he shook it off and took a step toward her. “This isn’t the way to my heart.”

“Good!” She leaned right into him, emotion rioting over her face. “I don’t want your heart. It’s small and black and hard. In fact, you might want to see a doctor because it might not even be a heart at all!”

Maximos inhaled hard, lips pinching, nostrils flaring, his beautiful features alive with anger. “I don’t have time to do this—”

“You don’t have to do anything. Just ignore me. It’s what you usually do, right?”

“Cassandra.”

“Yes, Max?” She’d intentionally shortened his name, turning it into slang and she knew how he hated the abbreviated version. He wasn’t a Max. He was Maximos. He was a ruler, a conqueror, a king.

His hand wrapped around her upper arm, fingers pinching. Her arm flooded with hot, painful sensation.

“This is my family,” he said, his deep rough voice falling lower. “This is a private party, a private family function, and I won’t have you upsetting my family the night before my sister’s wedding.”

“You’re close to your family then? I had no idea. But then, we never really got to know each other that well, did we?”

“We had two years together.”

“Really? That long?” She made a clucking sound of surprise. “Who would have thought?” she added, even as she laughed inwardly, bitterly. She knew exactly how long they’d been together, could remember the first night so clearly, as well as the next thousand and ninety five nights between then and now.

“So we did know each other.”

“Obviously not that well,” she contradicted, amazed at how steady her voice was. She’d always had a husky voice for a woman but it was even deeper, stronger than usual. Six months of crying had bruised her vocal cords, torn up her heart completely but at least she could look Maximos in the eye and not tear up. The tears were gone. He’d had something good and he hadn’t cared. He’d wanted sex. He could have had all of her.

But the sorrow was in the past. The heartbreak, the indecision behind her. She’d been on a toggle board for months, struggling to get her balance, struggling to get her footing when everything just kept changing, rolling, shifting beneath her and then she finally got the picture. She didn’t have to keep fighting for balance, didn’t have to keep standing there struggling to hang tight.

She could just get off.

She could just get the hell off and stand on level ground again.

No more madness, no more insanity. No more love. She was leaving it behind for a new start, a new life, a life where she wouldn’t lean on anyone else.

Or ask for help.

Or think she couldn’t do it for herself.

She forced a mocking smile now, even as she smashed the pain down inside of her. She wouldn’t be hurt by him anymore. She’d never again allow him that kind of power over her, never let him close.

“I knew who you were,” she continued, “and what you did, but I never met your friends, or your family. I was never included in your real world, and it was the real world I wanted, not just the bedroom.”

“And Emilio gives you the real world?”

“Oh, that and much much more.”

His jaw thickened and he made a hoarse sound of disgust. “When did you start seeing him?”

Her brow creased as she pretended to try to remember. “February? March?”

His expression grew blacker. “We were still seeing each other in February. I took you to Paris for Valentine’s Day.”

“Then March.”

“You didn’t waste any time,” he answered brutally, his fiercely beautiful features so hard they could have been carved from stone. He’d never seemed as Sicilian as he did now, his intimidating expression, his harsh beauty reminding her of the rocky Mediterranean island his family had called home for hundreds of years.

Waste any time? She silently repeated, thinking about what had really happened, recalling the stunning grief, and the discovery that she was pregnant. Maximos had left her abruptly in the middle of the night, left her, leaving her bed and walking out of her apartment, and three weeks later when her period didn’t come she’d taken a pregnancy test. And then another. And another.

It had been so shocking, all of it, and the long, difficult months dealing with the pregnancy, and then the discovery that the baby wasn’t healthy, had changed her. There had been no one to lean on, no one to go to for comfort or advice. She’d had to deal with it all on her own.

She blinked, shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “You weren’t coming back, and Emilio treated me well…” She let her voice drift off, letting Maximos fill in the missing pieces. “Anyway, I do hope you can be happy for us.”

“Happy.”

“We both do so want you to attend the wedding—”

Maximos was big, fast, and his arm reached out, his hand encircling her upper arm before she knew he’d moved.

His hand felt hard on her arm, his fingers tighter than they’d ever been, but she wasn’t afraid. She’d felt many emotions around Maximos, felt so much sometimes she didn’t know if there was anything left to her, but the one emotion she’d never felt was fear.

Love, lust, hurt, need, agony, grief, despair, hatred.

But fear? Never.