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She opened the front door to the penthouse, using the key Benedict had given her some time ago. She remembered that day, sharing a late dinner after spending the whole day together in bed. Cassandra had been exhausted, but he’d needed to grab something else from his office. “You go home without me. I’ll join you as soon as I can.” And he’d slid the key to her. “It’s for you.” He’d said, almost sounding shy.
Cass had made a joke, about red roses still being an acceptable gift for a girlfriend, but he’d been deadly serious. “I want you to have it, Kate. Mi casa e su casa.” And she’d joked about that, too.
“You’re French, remember, not Italian.” The truth was, it had made her feel giddy to think that he wanted her around so much that he was prepared to give her a key to his home. Now, she saw the gesture for what it really was. A way to keep closer tabs on her and draw her further into his web.
She hung her handbag on the hook near the door and walked through to the lounge room. It was another perfectly beautiful day in Sydney. Clear blue sky, shining sun, and hot like a tropical paradise.
“Where the hell have you been?” Benedict’s furious question caught her unawares and she spun around to face him. Though she had no reason to feel guilty, her face was the picture of disgrace and culpability. She quickly schooled her features into an expression of haughty boredom.
“What business is that
of yours, Benedict? Have you been worried about me?” She scoffed.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have been.”
His words surprised her. His face, she noticed then, was pale, his cheekbones slashed with colour.
“I’ve looked after myself for twenty four years without your help, I don’t know why you think I’m going to come to grief now that I know the truth about you, and us.” She pointed out wearily.
Black eyes flared with disbelief. “Cassandra, how can I help but feel you’re my responsibility? You’re temporarily living under my room, and until your father leaves Australia, I feel responsible for your safety. You should have called me.”
“You could have called me,” She turned it back on him, hating the disappointment that stole through her at his explanation. He had worried because he felt a warped sense of responsibility. Not because he cared.
“It’s a funny thing that. I did call you. But it would appear you left this in your bedroom.” He held her mobile phone between his fingers. “Oh, and you’ve had a text message. Would you like me to read it to you?”
She snatched it from his hand, and glowed pink as a berry when she saw the words written there. “Thanks for helping me clean my bedroom. I’ll keep things neater for when you next visit. Can’t wait to be seeing you again. BL.x” Her silly phone flashed messages up on the screen without warning, and she knew Benedict wouldn’t have been able to miss the words that were written there.
The Romanian weight lifter had been very grateful for Cassandra’s help in restoring order to the ramshackle mess she’d spread across the apartment in the few days she’d lived there. It was very tempting to let Benedict stew on his wrongful assumption, but she couldn’t do it. It would be unkind, and beneath her.
“That isn’t what you think.” She began.
His face was like thunder. “Do I think you’ve just spent the night with another man? You bet I do. Do you think I’m such an imbecile that you’ll be able to fob me off with yet another lie? Are you going to try to tell me I’m wrong?”
She thought of Timothy and Ryan and couldn’t help but smile. Technically, she had spent the night with two other men, just not in the way he presumed. “Not wrong, exactly, but...”
“Damn you, Cassandra. Is that what our relationship meant to you?”
Her jaw dropped to the floor. “I beg your pardon, Benedict Savarin! What our relationship meant to me is irrelevant. What I meant to you is more to the point.” She narrowed her eyes. “You know what I’ve been thinking about? That morning. When I saw you in the paper and finally realised who you are. You could have come to me, and explained all of this. If you’d cared for me at all, that’s what you would have done. Instead, you called the press and bullied me into taking up residence in your home. Since I’ve been here, you’ve berated me, humiliated me and scolded me like a child, and I have put up with it, because I felt guilty for lying to you.” She was yelling now, and she didn’t give a toss. “Well, you know what? You lied to me, too. And your lie was worse. Much, much worse.”
“How do you figure?” His voice matched hers, his eyes shone with rage.
“Because you knew! You knew who I was. You lied to me. I was lying to everybody and nobody in particular. I was untruthful out of self-preservation, nothing more. You deliberately concealed your true identity from me, purely to avenge your cousin and whatever perceived wrong I perpetrated. Every time we made love, it was a lie. Every joke we shared, every kiss, every late night story. It was all fake. A big phony. You know what that makes you? A bastard of the highest order.”
“You wouldn’t have needed to lie at all if you hadn’t stolen from Alyssia and run away from a father who seems to love you very much.”
She strode across the room and slapped him, hard across his face, and the bright pink mark left on his cheek gave her pleasure to see. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned then to walk away, but he grabbed her arm.
“I’m not finished,” he ground out. “Who was he? Whose bed did you share last night?”
She raised her eyes to him dismissively, all desire to tell him the truth evaporated. “It’s none of your damned business.”
“Like hell it isn’t. You and I...”
“You and I are nothing!” She reminded him, pain ringing in her heart. “We never were.” She pushed her finger into his chest to make a point. “You lied and yes, I lied too. It was all an illusion, Benedict. Don’t you get it? Everything about us was an illusion.”
A muscle ticked in the base of his jaw. “Not all of it,” he disagreed quietly, and he bent then, scooping her into his arms and lifting her to his chest.
“What are you doing?” She asked breathlessly.
