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Ugh. She shoved her sentimentality down with a determined effort and spun to face him.
“So?” she prompted, hostility edging her words. “What is it you have to say?”
His gaze darkened. “You’re not too big for me to put you over my knee, tesoro. Push me a little harder and I will.”
Lilly’s cheeks burned at that very seductive image. To her horror, her mind took her there—took her to a vision of Riccardo holding her over his muscular thighs, her naked behind squirming as he brought his hand down in a stinging reprimand.
Dear God.
A satisfied expression crossed his face. “Unnerving, isn’t it, that we only have to speak to each other in a certain way and that happens?”
“Damn you, Riccardo.” She planted her feet wide and faced him head-on. “For over a year I’ve been trying to get you to give me a divorce and you’ve flatly denied it. Then you call me out of the blue with this crazy idea of making it official with a party, and now you’re playing cat and mouse with me. What the hell are you playing at?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the railing. “Maybe if you’d agreed to see me I wouldn’t have resorted to this.”
“Nothing good ever comes of us being together. You know that.”
His eyes glimmered as they swept over her. “That’s a big fat lie and you know it.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Sex is not a good basis for a marriage.”
“We had more than sex, Lilly.” His deep voice softened, taking on those velvet undertones that could make her melt in a nanosecond. “We had way, way more than that.”
“It wasn’t enough! Do you know how happy I’ve been this past year?”
He paled beneath his deep tan. “We were happy once.”
She hugged her arms tighter around herself and fought the ache in her chest that threatened to consume her. “We’re better off apart and you know it.”
“I will never agree to that.”
She lifted her chin. “I want a divorce. And if you won’t give it to me I’ll have my lawyer fight you until you do.”
His mouth flattened. “I will drag it out for years.”
“Why?” She pushed her hair out of her face and gave him a desperate look. “We’re done. We’ve hurt each other enough for a lifetime. We need to move on with our lives.”
He jammed his hands into his pockets. The fierce, fighting expression in his eyes was one she knew all too well. But he said nothing. Silence sceamed between them until she thought she’d jump out of her skin.
“All right.”
She stared at him. “All right what?”
“I will give you the divorce. On one condition.”
She knew she should leave now—get the hell out of here as fast as she could. But she couldn’t force her feet to move.
“I need you to remain my wife for six more months.”
Her jaw dropped open. “Wh-what?”
“My father feels I need to present a more grounded image to the board before they make their decision on a CEO.” He lifted his shoulders and twisted his lips in a cynical smile. “They apparently still haven’t bought my reformed image.”
Lilly came crashing back to earth with the force of a meteorite bent on destruction. Any illusions she’d harbored—and she realized now she had harbored a few—about Riccardo not wanting to divorce her because he still loved her vanished at the point of impact. Something hot and bright burned the back of her eyes.
“That’s ridiculous,” she managed huskily. “You left racing three years ago.”
He shrugged. “It is what it is. I can’t change their perception.”
Lilly almost choked on the irony of it. Everything Riccardo had ever done when they were together had been to dispel the image of himself as a reckless young racecar driver who hadn’t been committed to the family business.
She shook her head. “Our marriage fell apart because of your obsession with your job. Your single-minded fixation on becoming CEO.”
“One of any number of issues our marriage had,” he corrected grimly. “Be that as it may, my father wants us back togther. He thinks the media coverage will go a long way toward stabilizing my image with the board, and he’s made it a condition in my having his support.”
His father wanted her back in his life? She’d always believed Antonio De Campo had thought her far beneath his son, with her poor upbringing, but he had been too polite to say it.
“My father thinks you’re a good influence on me.” He gave a wry half-smile that softened those newly hardened features of his. “He’s quite likely right about that.”
“This is crazy.” Lillly shook her head and paced to the opposite end of the patio. “We aren’t even capable of pretending we’re a happily married couple.”
“You have a short memory, Lilly.”
His soft reprimand drew her gaze to his face.
“Six months. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I want a divorce,” she repeated, raising her voice as this insane conversation kept plowing forward. “What makes you think I would ever consider helping you?”
He tilted his head to one side. “What are you afraid of? That we have way more unfinished business than you care to admit?”
She squared her shoulders. “We are over, Riccardo. And this is not a good idea.”
“It’s a great idea. Six months buys you your freedom.”
“What other conditions has your father imposed?” she asked helplessly. “Are you to stop driving fast cars and dating international supermodels?”
He scowled. “Not one of those rumors are true. There’s been no one since you.”
She stiffened. “We all know there’s truth to the tabloids.”
“Not one, Lilly.”
“Riccardo,” she said desperately. “No.”
He stalked over, invading her space. “What is it, tesoro? Got plans with Harry Taylor?”
How did he know about Harry? They’d been so low-key as to be socially non-existent. “Yes,” she snapped. “I’d like to move on, and maybe you should do the same.”
He lifted his hand and took her chin in his fingers. “You forget we made a vow, amore mio. ‘For richer and poorer, in sickness and in health...’”
“That was before you broke it.”
A dangerous glimmer entered his eyes. “I never slept with Chelsea Tate. We’ve had this conversation.”
“We are never going to agree on that,” she bit out, throwing his words back at him. “Nor could we ever fake any real affection for each other. It would be laughable.”
“Oh, but I think we could,” he murmured, lowering his head to hers. “Even the thought of me spanking you turns you on.”
She pulled out of his grip. “Riccardo—”
He slid a hand into her hair and brought her back. “You went there, Lilly. And so did I.”
“No, I—”
He smothered her reply with a kiss Lilly felt down to her toes, deep and sensuous. He didn’t bother with the preliminaries. He simply took—kissing her exactly the way he knew she liked it, using every weapon at his disposal. Lilly curled her fingers into his shirt, intending to push him away, but she didn’t quite seem to be able to do it.
He pulled her closer, anchored her against him. “Ric—” she murmured as he changed angles and came back to her.
“Shut up, Lilly,” he commanded, sliding his fingers up her bare arms and closing his mouth over hers.
This time his kiss was softer, more persuasive than controlling, pleasurable rather than punishing. And something fell apart inside her. It had been too long since he’d kissed her like this, too long since she’d been in his arms, and God help her...of all the things they had not been good at, it hadn’t been this.
“Dammit.” She grabbed a handful of shirt to steady herself. “This is not fair.”
He slid a hand down over the curve of her hip and brought her body into full contact with his. The feel of his hard body against her made her shiver, remembering everything.
“Nothing was ever fair between us. It was like a wild rollercoaster ride we couldn’t get enough of.”
He shifted her between the hard muscles of his thighs and brought his mouth down on hers again with a look of pure intent. His rigid, pulsing arousal pressed against her, making Lilly ache all over.
No, an inner voice warned. But all that came out was a groan.
He dragged her even closer, a satisfied growl escaping his throat. “Open your mouth, Lil.”
Caught up in the pure, hot sexual power he had over her, she obeyed. She didn’t think about the one hundred and fifty people downstairs, or even what a huge mistake this was. She just wanted this kiss, this magic, the hot intimacy of his tongue tangling with hers.
Oh. She melted into him as her knees threatened to give way. It was like someone offering an alcoholic a double shot after months of abstinence. Pure hedonism. And she wrapped herself in it.
A flash of light exploded around them. She stumbled backward, disoriented, blinking into the bright light that kept coming and coming.
Riccardo cursed and pulled her away from the railing. “Dio. How did they get here?”
“A photographer?” Lilly asked dazedly.
He nodded.
She touched her fingers to her mouth, still burning from his kiss. Riccardo had security everywhere. It didn’t make sense that a photographer would be able to get up here. “You planned that,” she said flatly. “You set that up for your father’s benefit.”
“I set this party up for my father’s benefit,” he agreed darkly. “For the board’s benefit. Not that photo.”
She pressed her palms to her temples. She didn’t want to be back here. She couldn’t go on walking around like a half-alive person, going through the motions but never really feeling anything. She needed this divorce.
His face tightened. “What? Afraid the good doctor won’t understand a six-month hiatus?”
She shook her head. “The answer is no. No, no and no.”
He straighened his shirt and raked a hand through his hair. “We’ll make the announcement at ten.”
She turned her back on him and started for the door.
“I’ll give you the house.”
She stopped in her tracks.
“You’ve never wanted anything from me, but I know you love this house. I’ll sign it over to you at the end of the six months.”
Lilly opened her mouth to tell him where he could put his offer, but the words died in her mouth. The house would pay for Lisbeth’s treatment. Fifty times over.
“Tempting, isn’t it? Your dream house...without me in it?”
She counted to five before she turned around. As if any amount of money would be enough to convince her that revisitng their ruin of a marriage was worth it.
But she was desperate. And she didn’t have the luxury of time.
She lifted her gaze to his. “I will think about it.”
“Ten o’clock, Lilly.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Think of yourself as Cinderella, only your deadline isn’t midnight—it’s ten. And I’m the devil you know.”
CHAPTER TWO
LILLY SPENT THE intervening hours coming up with a million different reasons why she would be crazy to agree to Riccardo’s proposal. He was once again using her in his single-minded pursuit of the De Campo CEO job. He didn’t really want her—he wanted Lilly De Campo the figurehead, his perfect society wife who could smile and say intelligent things to the very intelligent people they met. And, dammit, her life was finally back on track! She had built up her practice, she had started to do the things she loved again, and she had a life.
Whether or not she was just going through the motions was irrelevant. She had been moving on.
Until that kiss tonight.
She touched her fingers to her mouth and tightness seized her chest. How could she kiss Riccardo like that when the same from Harry inspired only lukewarm affection?
“Which do you prefer, Lilly? Snakeskin or alligator?”
She gave the trendy young shoe designer who had cornered her and Alex a blank look. “Sorry?”
“I was asking if you prefer snakeskin or alligator... If I’d known you were doing this tonight I would have begged you to wear my shoes.”
If she’d known she was doing this tonight she would be halfway across the Atlantic!
“Snakeskin, definitely,” she murmured.
The other woman nodded and continued her relentless discussion of fashion.
She would be crazy to go back to Riccardo. But what choice did she have? The idea that the bank would lend her the money—more than she’d make in ten years of work—was laughable. Even in installments. Her parents were barely getting by on the farm, and although Alex had a great job with one of the city’s top PR firms they would never, collectively, be able to scrape up that kind of money.
She had the power to help Lisbeth. Her stomach seemed to go into freefall at the thought of what that might entail. The question was, could she?
Alex gave her an I need to talk to you look and politely whisked her away from the designer. “People keep stealing you away,” she hissed, dragging Lilly toward the windows. “What did he say to you?”
Lilly stared at her sister’s flashing blue gaze—the only thing that differentiated them as twins. Her eyes were a mirror image of their sister Lisbeth’s. And suddenly her guilt for never having been there for her younger sister made her next move crystal-clear.
She forced herself to smile. Riccardo had made it clear no one was to know about their deal. Not even family. There was too much of a chance for someone to say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person. The press would blow it wide open.
“We had a really good talk, Alex. I—”
The music stopped. She spun around to find Riccardo standing at the front of the room, his gaze trained on her. She swallowed hard as he nodded for her to join him.
Judgement time.
She steeled herself and raised a trembling hand to push her hair out of her face. “I’ll explain afterward,” she whispered to her sister. Then she walked to Riccardo’s side.
Her presence there said everything.
A satisfied gleam lit her husband’s eyes. He raised a hand to quiet the room. The elegantly dressed crowd fell silent as every eye moved to them and hushed anticipation blanketed the air. The first marriage in the history of the De Campo family to disintegrate. A golden couple at that.
She was distracted by a waitress, who presented a bottle for Riccardo’s inspection. “The 1972 Chianti.”
A 1972 Chianti? The same wine as on their wedding? Her gaze flew to her husband’s, which was impaling hers with a burning darkness that seared her soul. He was really doing this to her?
What kind of a game was he playing?
The waitress passed each of them a glass of the ruby-red wine. Its deep, rich color was hypnotizing, reminding Lilly of the emotional blood the two of them had spilled. Her hands shook so much around the crystal she was terrified the wine was going to end up down the front of her dress.
Riccardo turned to face their guests, with a controlled, purposeful ease to his movements. “Lilly and I would like to thank you all for coming. You are our closest family, friends and acquaintances and we wanted you to be the first to share in our news.”
He paused. The room grew so silent you could have heard a pin drop. Lilly’s fingers tightened around the glass, her heart pounding in tandem with her head.
“Sometimes it takes a momentous occasion to bring true feelings to the surface.” Riccardo returned his gaze to her face. “For Lilly and I, it took contemplating divorce to realize how much in love we still are.”
A gasp rang out. Alex gaped at her from the front row, where she stood with Gabe.
Riccardo cast his gaze over the crowd. “Lilly and I are reconciling.”
A shocked buzz filled the room—the sound of a hundred conversations starting at once. Flashbulbs exploded in her face. Hearing the words spoken out loud made her knees go weak. But she kept her gaze trained on her husband’s and forced what might have passed for a smile to her lips.
Now her acting role began.
Riccardo tilted his glass toward her. “To new beginnings.”
Lilly lifted the glass to her mouth and drank. Her lashes fluttered down over her cheeks as the heady, intoxicating flavor of the Chianti transported her back to the day when her life had seemed poised at the beginning of a rainbow that stretched forever.
The day she had married Riccardo.
And at that moment she knew her mistake for what it was. She had never been, and never would be, in control of her feelings for her husband. Six months wasn’t just going to be self-destructive. There was going to be collateral damage.
* * *
Riccardo poured himself a two-finger measure of Scotch and sank down in the chair by the window, his gaze on his wife, who lay sleeping in their bed. She had swayed on her feet after the toast, her hands moving to her head in a warning sign that one of those migraines that had always terrified him was about to take her out. He was fairly sure she would have hit the deck had he not slid a subtle arm around her waist and hustled her from the room.
He had left Gabe in charge of winding up the evening and, although Alex had flatly refused to leave her sister, had overridden her and sent her home with his brother. There was still some of Lilly’s migraine medication in their medicine cabinet and the key to these attacks, he knew, was to get it into her as soon as possible and put her to bed. Which he’d done—right after she’d been violently ill in their bathroom.
He took a sip of the smoky single malt blend and moved his gaze over her face. It was ghostly white and pinched even in sleep, and for a moment guilt rose up in him. He had dangled the one thing she loved more than anything else in front of her when he knew she wanted nothing to do with him. But then again, he thought, his lips twisting, she hadn’t given him any warning when she’d walked out on him. When she’d called it quits on their marriage and left without even having the guts to face him.
A fury long dormant raged to life inside him, pulsing like an untamed beast. Who did that? Who took a perfectly good marriage with a few of the usual speed bumps and just quit? Who thought so little of what she had that it was easier to turn into an ice queen and refuse him than to talk it out?
The woman who’d turned into a stranger before his very eyes. The woman who’d taken a lover—a world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon so highly decorated for his work that he made Riccardo look like the most heartless of corporate raiders. That was who.
His fingers tightened around the glass, drawing his gaze to the fiery amber liquid. No, he wouldn’t feel any regret. His wife might have looked at him with those accusing, pain-soaked cat’s eyes of hers and begged him to let her go home. But he was through giving her time and space to come to her senses. She was back in his bed, where she belonged, and she was staying there.
Not for six months.
For good.
He lifted the glass to his lips and let the Scotch burn a path down his throat. It had been that conversation he’d overheard that had set him off. Not his father’s bullish suggestion that he repair his marriage in order to present the kind of image the De Campo board was looking for in a CEO.
The trash-talking locker room chatter he’d heard on his way out of the gym after a squash game with Gabe had amused him at first. There were things guys said in a locker room that were never repeated outside of them. He had smiled, remembering the crude conversations he and his fellow drivers had had after their races, when all the tension was gone, and then started packing up his stuff. But the conversation had turned to injuries and rehabilitation and he’d heard Lilly’s name.
He’d pulled the zipper shut on his bag and had frozen in place as the three men he’d figured must be professional athletes from their height and brawn, went on.
“She’s the best there is,” one of them had said. “Fixed my bum leg in a month.”
“Seriously hot,” added one of the others. “I bet you’d like to have more than her hands on you.”
He’d been halfway across the room before Gabe had intercepted him and shoved him bodily out the door.
“Not worth it,” his brother had muttered. “She’s your estranged wife, remember?”
But it had been too much. Troppo. It was time Lilly remembered who she was. Who she belonged to.
He skimmed his gaze over her still form. If anything, she had grown more beautiful since that day he’d bumped into her in that SoHo bar. She’d reminded him of a young colt, tripping over those long legs of hers, over him, as he’d stopped to put his wallet back in his pocket. She’d apologized, biting her lip in that trademark gesture of hers, and everything about her—her beautiful shoulder-length glossy brown hair, her big hazel eyes and her air of extreme innocence—had knocked him sideways. He wasn’t used to women without artifice. And it had made him want to possess her like no other.
He hadn’t let her leave the bar until he’d had her reluctantly given number. Then he’d pursued her, called her every day for a week, until she’d agreed to go out with him.
Finding out she was a virgin had been the end for him. He’d put a ring on her finger the week after.
She shifted restlessly onto her back and rubbed her hand against her face. Her vulnerability hit him like a punch to the chest. Lilly was different from any other woman he’d met. She hadn’t been attracted to his power or money. In fact it had made her distinctly uncomfortable, given her poor upbringing. But he’d pushed his agenda through anyway, like the big, forceful bull of a man he was. Because that was what a De Campo did. Took what he wanted. Success at all costs.
* * *
Lilly fought her way out of the drug-induced fog that held her under, reaching desperately for the glass of water she kept on the nightstand. But her hand grasped only air, and this didn’t feel like her bed. It felt bigger, softer, familiar and yet...
It was her old bed.
She bolted upright.
“Here—drink,” a husky, fatigue-deepened male voice urged, pressing a glass to her lips.
A strong arm slid around her waist. She blinked and opened her eyes and stared straight into the worried dark-as-night gaze of her husband.
Oh, God. She was in bed with Riccardo.
She pushed the glass away and pulled, panicked, at the sheets.
“Lilly.” He placed firm hands on her shoulders and held her down. “Drink for God’s sake. Those pills are always rough on you.”
She shook her head and reached for the side of the bed, but a series of wheezing coughs racked her body. She reached desperately for the glass and drank greedily. Her thirst quenched, she pushed the glass away. “What time is it?”
“One a.m.”
A dull, deep throb at the front of her head made her sit back against the pillows. “I want to go home.”
“You are home,” he said quietly. “Stay in the bed, Lilly. You’re in no shape to be going anywhere.”
It was then that she realized he was still fully dressed. Hazy memories filled her head. Him holding her hair out of her face while she vomited. Him carrying her to bed. Her cheeks heated with mortification. She needed to get out of here.
“My home is my apartment.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, wincing as the movement made her head throb. Her legs were bare. And she was drowning in one of Riccardo’s white T-shirts. “Did you undress me?” she demanded, flicking him an accusing look.
An amused glitter flashed in his eyes. “That’s the way it’s usually done, tesoro, but I stopped at the underwear. I prefer to dispense of that when you’re fully conscious.”
Her face felt as if it was on fire. She scanned the floor desperately for her things. “Give me my goddamned clothes, Riccardo.”
His expression hardened. “Are you forgetting our deal? You live here now. You’re mine for six months.”
“Tu sei pazzo,” she spat at him. “I might have agreed to your crazy plan, but in no way, shape or form will your hands ever be on me again.”
“Tu sei pazzo?” he murmured appreciatively. “I do believe your Italian’s coming along. And, yes, I am crazy when it comes to you.” He gently pushed against her shoulders and sent her back into the soft pillows. “Tomorrow we go over the ground rules. Tonight you rest.”