‘No.’ Dropping the hand from his face, he found himself turning to narrow another look at the blonde.

Even her rear view sent that same instant shaft of fire burning through him, almost knocking him sideways with its power. And her hair—her hair…there was something about the colour of her hair and the way it caressed her slender white shoulders—

‘You’ve gone a worrying shade of pale, cara,’ Pandora persisted. ‘Are you sure you—?’

‘Jet lag,’ he dismissed with irritation, most of his attention still fixed on the blonde. ‘We have just arrived here straight off a fifteen-hour flight. Don’t fuss, Pandora. You know it annoys the hell out of me.’

Who was she…? And why was he getting this gut-shaking feeling that he had seen her somewhere before…?

‘And you worked instead of resting…’ His companion ignored his warning. ‘One day, Alessandro, you will—’

Beside him, Jason Farrow suddenly clapped his hands together, drowning out the rest of what Pandora was saying and making Alessandro fight the need to wince as the unwelcome sound crashed through his aching head.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention?’ the current MD of BarTec prompted, causing silence to fold around the room as everyone looked expectantly in their direction.

Grimly trying to shake off the strange sensations running through him, Alessandro took in the full impact of a hundred pairs of eyes honed exclusively on him.

He knew her. The more he thought about it the more sure he became that he’d met her somewhere before. Her pale golden hair, her luminous green eyes, her full, soft, sexy pink mouth…He tried not to frown as he tracked through his memory banks looking for clues as to how or where he knew her, with that weird, hollowing-out feeling increasing as he did…

Her gently moulded cheekbones and small, straight nose, her cute, slightly pointed chin…

He disentangled himself from Pandora’s clinging hand, shocked suddenly by how appalled he felt to have her show such intimacy with him.

‘Can I ask you all to offer a warm welcome to the new owner of BarTec, Alessandro Marchese…?’

Having been forced to turn around again, Cassie saw that Sandro—or whatever it was he called himself these days—was still frowning as if something had thoroughly ruined his day. Well, join the club, she thought as a flow of acid contempt for him thankfully cleared out her battered feelings of hurt and dismay. Who the heck did he think he was that he felt he had the right to blank her as if she were nobody?

She listened to the second wave of applause ripple through the bar area, though she didn’t bother to join in. She would rather cut off her hands than applaud this man. She hated him. Now that she was looking at him without the first incapacitating rush of shock cluttering up her emotions, she was remembering just how much she hated and despised Sandro Rossi—or, in this case, Alessandro Marchese.

‘Grazie molto per la vostra accoglienza calorosa…’ the man himself responded in a rich, deep, sensually delivered Italian which caused a collective gasp of delicious appreciation from the females present in the bar, while his beautiful companion touched his arm and murmured something to him that turned his frown to a grimace, then a short second later into a smile that clutched Cassie’s stomach muscles in a vicelike grip and just captivated everyone else.

‘My apologies,’ he murmured, ‘allow me to repeat that in English…Thank you very much for your warm welcome…’

‘Oh, my,’ Ella breathed beside Cassie. ‘Now, that was very, very sexy indeed. Do you think he deliberately set out to disarm us all with the piece of theatre?’

Probably, Cassie thought cynically, fighting to keep her bitter feelings from showing on her face. In truth she was surprised the sharp-eyed Ella hadn’t noticed what had been passing between her best friend and their new boss—surprised that the whole darn room hadn’t noticed!

Sandro was now busy charming everyone as he mapped out his plans for the company, and he did it by conveying an air of smoothly polished self-assurance aimed to allay everyone’s fears about their future at BarTec. Lowering her eyes, Cassie listened without really hearing, unwillingly tuned in to the flowing resonance of his voice but without catching more than the odd word because her mind was elsewhere, rolling back the years to a time when she’d first heard that voice.

It hadn’t changed—he hadn’t changed. Whatever he preferred to call himself these days, he was still the man who’d used those sexy dark base tones and his easy-going charm to make her fall in love with him before casting her aside once he’d enjoyed the pleasures of her body, leaving her desolate, pregnant and alone.

A second crash of applause woke her up with a shudder. Sandro had finished speaking and was now smiling down at the woman in the red dress. Cassie wanted to leave. It was horrible just how badly she wanted to just walk through that door and go. But Sandro was still blocking the exit along with his cluster of smartly dressed minions, who all looked as slick and as sharp as he did.

Could she squeeze past them without him noticing? Would he care that she was leaving if she did? The sizzle of temptation fizzed through her body alongside the angry bitterness already swimming through it.

‘At last we get to be fed.’ Ella’s dry comment forced her to take note of the way everyone was beginning to make a move towards the stairs which led to the restaurant above, and grim common sense arrived as Cassie felt herself swept up in the general exodus.

She knew she could not afford the luxury of just walking out of here. She needed her job at BarTec. She did not need the rash of questions bound to fly at her if she did decide to go.

Tagging along beside Ella, she listened to her friend chattering away ten to the dozen about their gorgeously interesting new boss to those crowded around them while Cassie just felt completely shut off.

I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Please don’t ring this number again…

Those cold words of rejection echoed around her head. From fierce, dark, passionate lover to contemptuous stranger in the blink of an eyelash. To hell with the fact that he’d been her first lover, or that he’d left her pregnant and terrified and bewildered. Sandro had taught her the hardest way possible that men like him had no conscience whatsoever when it came to pursuing a woman they desired until they’d caught her, and no honour at all when it came to dumping them after their desire had been slaked.

CASSIE and Ella found themselves placed at the same table in the farthest corner of the restaurant along with the rest of their colleagues from the accounts department. The only stranger at the table was a very good-looking, smartly presented man who introduced himself as, ‘Gio Rozario, one of Alessandro’s team.’

The meal progressed through its different courses with everyone firing eager questions at him, which he fielded with friendly ease and a return volley of questions of his own. He seemed genuinely interested in all of them. He charmed them all the way his employer had done downstairs in the bar.

Barely touching her food, Cassie watched and listened and contributed very little. She’d already noted that each table had at least one team member sitting at it, and it didn’t take many brain cells to work out that the seating had been intentionally arranged this way so the spies in their midst could gather in information and impressions about BarTec employees, which they were bound to feed back to their boss.

In other words, the Marchese mob was deep into work mode while the rest of them were off-duty and off-guard. Clever, she thought grudgingly. The wine was still flowing freely and she would be prepared to bet that by the time this evening was over few of them would walk out of here with many secrets intact.