LITMIR.BIZ

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on her skin made her shiver, body and nerves tingling. “We probably still agree on quite a bit.”

      She shivered again as his fingertip traced the low neckline and the lace panel covering her breast. “Careful,” she murmured, voice low and husky.

      His hand fell away. “Are you dating anyone?”

      Was she dating anyone? What kind of question was that? Hadn’t he been listening to a single thing she’d said today? “I’m not dating.”

      “Why not?”

      Did he really mean to hurt her, or was he honestly so oblivious to the depth of her feelings? It took her a moment to manage a careless shrug. “I do get asked out.” Not that she ever said yes, but he didn’t have to know that. Since he clearly didn’t care.

      “And do you go out?” he persisted.

      “I haven’t been in the mood.” First there was the heartbreak, then the discovery of the pregnancy and then the miscarriage. Not exactly the right mind frame for meeting—or dating—new men.

      “You’re too young not to go out, find real happiness.”

      “Because with you it wasn’t real happiness?”

      “I was never an option.”

      She gritted her teeth, not understanding, not ever understanding why it was that he’d ruled himself out as a possibility, why he’d have her body but not her heart. “I hate it when you do that.”

      “Do what?”

      “Make decisions for me. Decide what it is I can or can’t have, what it is I need or don’t need.” The anger was building. Hot, terrible and fierce. “You might know what you need, Maximos, and you might know what you want. But you don’t know the first thing about me.” The emotion felt hot and strangled inside. “You never even tried.”

      Silence stretched, a long uncomfortable silence that made the hair on her nape rise.

      “And yet you let it continue for two years,” Maximos said finally, his voice a soft drawl.

      She gritted her teeth, stifling the pain. “Stupid, isn’t it? If I were smart, I would have bailed early on.”

      “If I were smart I would have moved on six months ago.”

      Her heart did a painful lurch. “You haven’t moved on?”

      The corner of his mouth lifted in a faint, mocking smile. “You’re surprisingly difficult to forget.”

      “Maximos.” His name came out strangled, her voice strangled, everything inside her tightening up. What did he mean by that? And why had she ever loved him? Why him? There were so many men in the world, so many men who had been interested in her, fiercely devoted, but she’d never cared about any of them, never cared one way or the other until Maximos.

      He now reached for her, his hand cupping the back of her head, his fingers curving, briefly tangling in her long hair before falling away. “So difficult, I find myself not wanting any other woman yet.”

      “Yet?”

      He ignored her comment. “And you should know that I never slept with any other woman while I was sleeping with you.”

      Sleeping. Slept.

      Her throat squeezed, constricting nearly as tight as her heart. It crossed her mind that she should stop talking now, that even though she had questions she probably wouldn’t want answers.

      But she’d come too far. Waited too long. Common sense was a thing of the past. “So I was your only sexual partner?”

      “Yes.”

      “For the entire two years?”

      She felt rather than saw him step closer, felt the sudden sizzle of energy, the electric sexual tension that always hummed between them. “Yes.”

      Yes. Her heart did a double thump, hard, uneven, fast. Too fast. He was now standing too close. “And there’s been no one since?”

      “Cass—”

      “I have to know.”

      “Why? What good will it do? If I had a one-night stand with some nameless woman, will it change anything between us?”

      “Maybe. Possibly.” She gave him her most evil eye. “No.”

      “So?”

      “But did you?”

      He made a hoarse sound, part exasperation, part amusement. “No.”

      She breathed in, breathing in the achingly familiar scent of him, feeling his warmth, his sheer physical strength. Even without him touching her she could remember the caress of his hand, the heat of his palm, the way his fingers wrapped around hers.

      With him she’d known a life no one else had ever shown her. Known emotion, passion, a scope of feeling that had been everything she’d ever wanted—and more and the desire returned full force.

      Her belly clenched. Her legs felt odd, and she kept crossing her legs, holding the emptiness in, fighting the ache as if desire could be so easily answered.

      She wanted him.

      She needed him to drag her to him, make her straddle his lap, sinking deeply into him.

      She remembered it all, remembered the way he’d bury himself in her, remembered the way she’d wrap herself around him. Remembered how slowly he’d take her, love her, remembered how he’d drag the pleasure out.

      She wanted him now. She wanted release. A reprieve.

      But it wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t. Not with things so complicated between them now. “You should go back to the restaurant,” she said, trying to be practical, do the right thing. “Sophia’s waiting—”

      “She’s not. She’s going home with her parents. Her family lives not far from here. Besides, as I told you, we’re not together, not the way you think.”

      “But Emilio said—”

      “And you believed him?”

      She licked her bottom lip carefully. “I wasn’t sure what to believe.”

      Maximos looked at her, no emotion anywhere in his dark eyes, on his face, and again the silence stretched, the tension growing. “You should have never come here.”

      Cass swallowed the knot of desire burning in her throat, matching the fire in her lower belly. She ached all over, hot with want, hot with need. “You’re probably right.”

      “Maybe you’re the one that should leave,” he added. “Maybe you should run.”

      Run, she repeated silently, thinking it was the same word Emilio had used earlier on the palazzo’s front steps. Run.

      Run to whom? There was no one to go to.

      Run where? Back to Rome where she still lived and worked? Back to the luxurious, sprawling penthouse suite Maximos had bought for her three years ago when he’d wanted her more than life itself? When he’d been determined to have her—no matter the cost?

      “Yes,” she agreed, knowing intellectually that she had to leave this place and never come back, never speak to Maximos again, never have contact with him because she’d never get over him, never recover from him, if she thought, hoped, believed she might still have a chance.

      “This isn’t what we should be doing.” His voice was quiet, but she sensed the storm beneath the calm. “We shouldn’t be alone, not like this.”

      “I know. I’m a wicked woman, and bad for your reputation.”

      He grimaced. “That’s the problem. I like wicked women. And I don’t trust myself alone with you.”

      It

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