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“Well, I’m so very sorry that in callously and knowingly pulling my life apart at the seams, you got a little splash back,” she retorted coldly.
His lips compressed. “You are so damned good at playing the victim, aren’t you?”
She pulled herself up to her full height and stared down her aquiline nose at him. “Are you trying to suggest that I’m not a victim in this scenario?”
His laugh was harsh. “You! I’m surprised you even know how to spell the word.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Come on. Let me have it. It’s been several hours since you’ve verbally eviscerated me; we must be due a rematch.”
He felt his temper flare in response to her taunt. “If you hadn’t run away from everyone who loved you, stealing irreplaceable jewels in the process, you would not have needed to spend four years telling lies and fabricating your identity. In which case, there would have been nothing for me to ruin, nothing for me to pull apart at the seams, as you so melodramatically put it.” His face was devoid of compassion. “You dug yourself into this hole, Cassandra. I’ve done nothing more than put a warning beacon on the edge of it.”
“A warning beacon?” She echoed hollowly. “To warn who, exactly?”
His eyes were like coal, black and soulless. “Any other fool who thought you were too good to be true.” He took a step closer, pressed his arm around her back and crushed her to him. Their bodies were fused together. “Aren’t you too good to be true?” He demanded, staring down at her eyes.
She lowered her gaze, hating her traitorous body for energising wantonly at his touch. She could feel her heart breaking in her chest, but she would never let him know how he wounded her. She raised her violet eyes once more, and in them, there was nothing but cool disdain. “Too good to be true, and unworthy of love.”
He dropped his arm immediately, his face registering shock at her statement, and the certain knowledge it brought that she’d over heard his conversation this morning with Alyssia. He turned away as he remembered what they’d discussed, and how Cassandra would have perceived his words.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that. It w
as a private conversation.” He intoned flatly. He turned around, an apology on his lips, but she was gone.
“Cass!” he called after her, and skirted the edge of his desk. Peter caught him as he emerged into the hallway.
“Benedict, we’re going to head back to our hotel. You’ll join us for dinner, I hope?”
Benedict stared at him, his brain too scattered by his argument with Cassandra to comprehend what Peter was saying.
“Did you see Cassandra?” He asked urgently.
“Just missed her. Flew out of the door in an awful rush. It’s good to see her taking a job so seriously. Even if it is just waitressing.” Peter’s diffident face crinkled into a smile. “Dinner?”
Benedict turned and strode down the carpeted penthouse corridor. He pulled open the heavy security door and checked the hallway beyond. She had left. Gone. To work? Probably. It was sheer madness. There’d be press in attendance, and any number of guests ready to bend the ear of one of England’s wealthiest heiresses.
A pang of something like jealousy turned in his gut as he thought of the men who would now see her as all the more desirable. Like she wasn’t enough of a catch before this hit the papers. Her looks alone garnered her more male attention than she was aware of. He’d been one of those men, staring at her, transfixed, mesmerised, across a crowded room of strangers. He had not been alone. All night, he’d seen every red blooded male between the ages of twenty and eighty watching her languid grace, her easy smile. And yet, Cassandra had always seemed oblivious. Surprised and embarrassed when men spoke to her, tried to chat her up.
Now, with the papers screaming about her inheritance and trust fund, not to mention her title, she was going to fall prey to every man in the country.
So what did it matter to him, he analysed carefully. Though cruel, his statement the other night that she was no longer his problem was something he needed to remember. He’d done the only thing he could do, since he’d discovered that she was, in fact, Lady Cassandra. He’d brought her back to her father, and now he could step back from the situation. With any luck, in a week or two, life would return to normal, and he might not ever see her again.
He ignored the burning shortness of breath that gripped him at that prospect. It was how it had to be.
“Dinner,” he said, walking back in to greet his cousin and her husband. “I’ll have to skip it tonight. I’ve some work to catch up on.” The truth was, he wasn’t in the mood for company, and he was sure they wouldn’t appreciate his gloomy thoughts across the no-doubt exquisite dinner table they intended to occupy.
* * *
Cass should have listened to Benedict. And failing that, to her own good sense. The Bathers Pavilion was throbbing with well-dressed Sydney socialites. It was a sea of couture and diamonds.
Thankfully, Cassandra’s boss Ruby didn’t appear to have read this morning’s papers. That wasn’t a surprise. Ruby was too busy to scratch herself, far less sit down with a coffee and a broadsheet. “Kate! You’re late,” She exhaled with relief when Cassandra walked in.
“I’m sorry, I got held up.” She apologised, tying an apron around her slender waist. “What can I do?”
“Circulate. Lobster mousse in a parmesan bowl. Go, go! Dazzle!” She enthused, simultaneously handing Cass a heavy tray laden with fancy looking canapés, and gently pushing her out through the large swinging doors of the kitchen.
A hush followed Cassandra wherever she went, then, there was whispering. Lowered voices, some pointing.
“Darling, isn’t it time to join us out here on the other side of the tray now?” One society wasp whispered conspiratorially.
