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Her blue eyes glowed. “I could probably teach you a few things right back.”
He raised his brows. “Such as stealing from family? Lying to them?” As soon as the words were out, he wanted them back. The hurt on her face was mirrored in his own chest, but he had to keep the memory of her duplicity firmly in his mind. Her actions had shown her to be just the kind of woman he least wanted in his life.
She lowered her eyes quickly, to hide the raw emotions he’d unearthed. When she looked at him again, her eyes were dead. Cold. “I’m ready to go back to your place.”
He’d never heard a woman say it with greater dread.
Cassandra’s heart was pounding by the time they’d left the restaurant and bade farewell to her father and stepmother. She was filled with so much pain, so much sadness, and the last person she could stand seeing her like this was the ma
n right beside her. She’d been elated when she’d arrived at the restaurant. One of her lecturers had called to congratulate her; she’d been named on the Dean’s List, again, and would be graduating with a particularly acclaimed academic award.
But Benedict’s derisive cruelty had sucked the pleasure out of the news completely. He hated her. He really, really despised her. How could she have let herself love him? How could she have let herself believe him? Ironically, he had been the first person she’d wanted to tell the news to, when she’d heard.
She gnawed at her lower lip in an attempt to keep a tight rein on her cascading emotions. The tension between them strummed to breaking point on the wordless walk back to his penthouse. As they reached the front door to the prestigious address, he held the door open for her, and quite by accident, she brushed against him as she walked through.
Her eye skittered to his, and locked to them. She lost herself in those black pools rimmed thickly by curling black lashes. Her breath snagged in her throat as all knowledge of their situation deserted her, leaving only unfurling lust in the pit of her stomach. He was closed off to her. He blinked and put his hand in the small of her back, breaking the moment and guiding her towards the bank of elevators at the same time.
What did she expect? That he’d apologise? Benedict Savarin had probably never apologised for anything in his life. If his attitude was anything to go by, he didn’t even think he had anything to apologise for. He had acted in a way he seemed perfectly able to justify.
The doors of the lift opened and he stood back – far back, she saw with a grimace – to allow her entry. She stepped past him and stared straight ahead. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, but she couldn’t let him know how badly he affected her, still. After everything he’d done, she was the biggest fool on earth to still want him with a need that almost made her pass out.
He unlocked the door to his apartment and Cassandra breezed past him, stalking towards her bedroom door at a rate of knots. “Cassandra,” he called authoritatively as he chain locked the door.
She paused, turned slowly, to see him dragging a hand through his thick black hair, his posture radiating tension. “I don’t want to fight with you. We can’t keep tearing one another to shreds like it’s a sport.”
He couldn’t have shocked her any more if he’d started speaking Swahili. She crossed her arms defensively, and found she couldn’t quite meet his clear, direct gaze. “I don’t know how to be with you.” She shrugged. Then, with a voice not quite steady, “I hate you for what you did to me. But I can’t turn my feelings off. I wish I could, but it just takes time.”
His eyes narrowed, and he was looking past her, at the crystal statue on the book shelf. “We were a mistake.” Was it her imagination that he sounded like he was convincing himself, rather than her? “Indulging my desire for you is... something I will always regret.”
She felt her breath strain in her lungs. “And lying to me?” She whispered. “Will you regret that, too?”
He stepped the few paces it took to close the distance between them, and brought his palm up to cup her cheek. As if her body had a will of its own, she tilted her head towards his hand, letting him caress her completely, his thumb stroking the velvety soft skin. “I will regret much of my behaviour towards you for the rest of my life.”
CHAPTER NINE
As a girl, Cassandra had suffered from terrible sea sickness. Fortunately, living an hour out of London, water sports were not hugely prevalent. But on the odd family vacation where boating was deemed to be an essential part of the fun, she’d been as green as a gherkin. Somewhere in the intervening years, that, along with many other things about her, had changed.
Now, she loved the water. Living in Sydney had made her think she could never again live away from the sea. To wake up and run along these long stretches of beach, with white sand and aquamarine waves, frothing and tumbling towards the coast, was one of the most romantic and satisfying things she’d ever experienced. Well, almost.
She swam just about every day in summer. And though their budget was always tight, Cherie, Timothy, Ryan and Cassandra had pooled their meagre resources to hire a small boat the previous year, for New Years. It had been magical. Of course, Cass couldn’t have known what the year ahead would hold for her.
She sat, cross legged on the stern of the boat, enjoying the gentle rocking sensation that made the buildings in the distance look a little bit jelly-like. The afternoon sun was already beginning its descent and casting a pale, orange glow over the harbour. She loved this city. This was her real home town, where she’d come alive.
Cass couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it.
Beneath her, the boat began to shudder a little and she looked around, frowning in confusion when she couldn’t make anyone out. While she’d been daydreaming and staring to shore, the boat’s motor had been started and it was being expertly steered out of its moorings towards the harbour.
She brought her hand up to hold her pony tail as it whipped in the breeze. How she would get through this night, she didn’t know. The electricity between her and Benedict was unbearable. Last night, he’d made it obvious that his overriding feeling towards her was regret. In three nights, Peter and Alyssia would be gone, and she would be too. They’d never see one another again.
The future without Benedict filled Cass with an emptiness she’d never experienced. Not when her mother had died, nor when she’d run away from home, penniless and with the reputation as a thief. How had she let him come to mean so much to her in three short months?
It wouldn’t be the first time Cassandra had turned her back on those she loved, she thought with a determined grit. It would be hard. Almost impossible. But the sooner she accepted their relationship had all been a deception, the better. Surely her feelings would finally catch up to the situation? After all, how could she love someone she didn’t know?
She shook her head sadly, and out of the periphery of her vision, saw Benedict at the wheel. Her eyes scanned the deck, but her father and Alyssia must be settling into one of the rooms below.
Benedict was casually dressed, in a white tee shirt that showed off his deep, dark tan. At the neckline, a few dark hairs escaped, hairs that she knew trailed in a line down his chest, to his belly button, and deeper still. She gulped and averted her eyes, trying to block him from her mind. She had more important things to worry about, anyway, like getting through yet another evening with her stepmother.
The matter of the missing diamonds had been neatly side stepped, but Cassandra knew it couldn’t be long before someone brought it up. And what would she say? Assuming the guilt for that theft was a split second decision that she’d never imagined would follow her for so long. And yet, it had. She would always be tarred with that brush. Revealing the true perpetrator was absolutely not an option.
