“You threw your fifty-thousand-dollar engagement ring off the Brooklyn Bridge?”

Lilly shows up to her lavish divorce party with one goal in mind—to leave as quickly as possible minus a husband! Except he has other plans…and Riccardo De Campo isn’t easy to say “no” to.

Forced back into Riccardo’s glittering, gossip-fueled world, the price of perfection is still too high and Lilly’s old insecurities resurface. An unexpected consequence of their reunion raises the stakes even higher, and the media’s golden couple must finally confront the truth behind the headlines.

Lilly squared her shoulders and pulled in a deep breath as Riccardo stopped in front of them. He leaned down and brushed a kiss against her cheek.

“Late and wearing pink. One would think you’re deliberately trying to antagonize me, Lilly.”

Her pulse sped into overdrive. “Maybe I’m celebrating my new-found freedom.”

“Ah, but you don’t have it yet,” he countered, moving his lips to the other cheek. “And you aren’t putting me in the kind of mood to grant it to you.”

Lilly was aware of the eyes on them as he pulled back and stung her face with a reprimanding look that made her feel like a fifth-grader. “Don’t play games with me, Riccardo,” she said quietly. “I will turn around and walk out of here so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

His dark eyes glinted and his mouth tipped up at the corners. “You’ve already done that, tesoro, and now you’re back.”

JENNIFER HAYWARD has been a fan of romance and adventure since filching her sister’s Mills & Boon® Presents novels to escape her teenage angst.

Jennifer penned her first romance at nineteen. When it was rejected, she bristled at her mother’s suggestion that she needed more life experience. She went on to complete a journalism degree, before settling into a career in public relations. Years of working alongside powerful, charismatic CEOs and travelling the world provided perfect fodder for creating the arrogant alpha males she loves to write about.

A suitable amount of life experience under her belt, she sat down and conjured up the sexiest, most delicious Italian wine magnate she could imagine, had him make his biggest mistake and gave him a wife on the run. That story, THE DIVORCE PARTY, won her Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write contest and a book contract. Turns out Mother knew best.

A native of Canada’s gorgeous east coast, Jennifer now lives in Toronto with her Viking husband and their young Viking-in-training. She considers the meetings of her ten-year-old book club, comprising some of the most amazing women she’s ever met, as sacrosanct dates in her calendar. And some day they will have their monthly meeting at her fantasy beach house, waves lapping at their feet, wine glasses in hand.

You can find Jennifer on Facebook and Twitter.

This is Jennifer’s stunning debut, we hope you love it as much as we do!

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Divorce Party

Jennifer Hayward

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Dear Reader

This story begins on a cold winter day with a cup of coffee, a newspaper and a real-life party that sparked a tale that just had to be told.

On the front page of my newspaper that morning was the story of a lavish divorce party a Manhattan billionaire was throwing to celebrate the end of his three-year marriage. The embossed invitations, the incredibly civilized approach to the end of a union due to irreconcilable differences fascinated me. What would bring a couple to this point? Why would anyone want to end their marriage in front of family and friends?

I started to wonder—what if the billionaire didn’t really want a divorce? What if what he really wanted was his wife back and this was the only way he could get her in the same room with him? What if they were madly in love but the very act of being together destroyed them? Could this marriage ever be saved?

My billionare became sexy Italian wine magnate, Riccardo De Campo, and his feisty, on-the-run wife, Lilly.

I’ve dreamed of writing romances for as long as I can remember, but the story of Riccardo and Lilly’s tempestuous relationship was special. It got me out of bed one night to write the first chapter while I was knee-deep in another book and wouldn’t let me go until I’d written ‘the end.’

I entered Riccardo and Lilly’s story, The Divorce Party, in Harlequin’s 2012 So You Think You Can Write contest, hoping others would love it as much as I did. Never dreaming the De Campos would capture the imagination of so many people and win me the publishing contract I’ve always wanted. Every minute of that journey was magical.

I’ve had a hard time letting Riccardo and Lilly go. I hope you do, too.

Enjoy!

Jennifer

I’d love to hear from you! I can be reached at

www.jenniferhaywardromance.com.

or on Twitter: @jenhayward_

For my husband, Johan,

who gave me the chance to fly.

And Sharon Kendrick, Connie Flynn and Linda Style for being the most amazing mentors a writer could have.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS GOING to be bad.

Lilly Anderson winced and put a hand to her pounding head. If she held herself in just that position, with the pressure building in her head like the vicious storms that picked up intensity across the plains of the midwest, it might not become a full-on migraine.

Might not.

Except staying in the dim confines of Riccardo’s Rolls-Royce, driven by his long-time driver Tony, wasn’t an option tonight. She was late for her own divorce party. Excessively late for the one thing that would give her what she wanted above all else. Her freedom from her husband.

“Oh, my God.”

Her twin sister Alex made a sound low in her throat. “How can they print this stuff?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Alex, read it to me.”

“It’s Jay Kaiken’s column. You don’t want me to.”

“Read it.”

“Okay, but I warned you.” She cleared her throat. “In what’s expected to be the most scandalous, juiciest, talked-about water cooler event of the season, billionaire wine magnate Riccardo De Campo and former Iowa farmgirl-turned-sports-physiotherapist Lilly De Campo host their divorce party tonight. I once suggested they were the only passionately in love couple left in New York. But apparently even that fairytale doesn’t actually exist. Rumors of heartthrob Riccardo’s infidelity surfaced and this once solid marriage ended up in the toilet. So it’s with mixed feelings that I bid this partnership adieu tonight. I have the invite and will bring you all the salacious details.”

She crumpled up the tabloid and threw it on the floor. “He’s such an SOB.”

Lilly closed her eyes, a fresh wave of nausea rolling over her. No matter how many times she’d envisioned this moment, this freedom from Riccardo, she had never envisioned this. Nor the insanely mixed feelings she had right about now.

“Sorry, Lil. I shouldn’t have started on those.”

“You’re a PR person, Alex. You’re addicted.”

“Still, I suck. I’m really sorry.”

Lilly smoothed her fuchsia silk dress over her knees. It was elegant enough—and in Riccardo’s most hated color, which was an added bonus—but it felt as if it was clinging in all the wrong places. A glance in the mirror before they’d left had told her she was paper-white, with dark bags under her hazel eyes. Haunted. In fact the only thing that was right was her hair, blowdried to glossy, straight perfection by her savior of a stylist.

It was a problem—this not feeling together. She felt she was already at a disadvantage. Facing Riccardo without her mask, without all her defences in place, was never a good way to start.

“You look a little too good,” Alex murmured. “I think you should have put something frumpier on. And maybe messed your hair up a bit.”

Lilly took the compliment and felt a bit better. Her sister was, if nothing else, the bluntest person she’d ever met. “Now, why would I do that?”

“Because Riccardo is like a banned substance for you,” her sister said drily. “And your marriage almost destroyed you. Be ugly, Lilly, it’s the easiest way.”

Lilly smiled, then winced as her head did another inside-out throb. “He’s finally agreed to give me the divorce. You should be doing a happy dance.”

“If I thought he was giving in I might be. Has he given you the papers yet?”

“I’m hoping he’ll do that tonight.”

Alex scowled. “It’s not like him to do this. He’s up to something.”

Her heart dropped about a thousand feet. “Maybe he’s decided it’s time to replace me.”

“One can only hope.”

A stab of pain lanced through her. She should be elated Riccardo had finally seen the light. Seen that there was no way they could ever reconcile after everything that had happened. So why had his decree that they finally end this with an official public announcement hit her with the force of an eighteen-wheeler? She certainly hadn’t been pining away the past twelve months, hoping his refusal to divorce her meant he still loved her. And there was no way she’d harbored any silly notions that he was going to come climbing through her window and carry her back home, like in some Hollywood movie, with a promise to do everything differently.

That would have been stupid and naive.

She squared her shoulders. He likely did have another prospect in mind. Everything Riccardo did was a means to an end.

“If I ever want to be free to pursue a real relationship with Harry I need Riccardo’s signature on that piece of paper.”

“Oh, come on, Lil.” Her sister’s beautiful face twisted in a grimace. “Harry Taylor might be a decorated cardiothoracic surgeon, Doctors Without Borders and all that lovely stuff, but really? He’s dull as dishwater. You might as well marry him and move back to Mason Hill.”

“He’s also handsome, smart and sweet,” Lilly defended tartly, not needing to tell her sister there wasn’t a hope in hell of her moving back to the miserable existence they’d escaped at eighteen. “I’m lucky to have him.”

Alex waved a hand at her. “You can’t tell me after Riccardo he doesn’t seem like some watered-down version—like grape juice instead of Cabernet.”

“You just told me Riccardo was bad news for me.”

“So is Harry Taylor. He’ll bore you to death.”

Lilly had to steel herself not to laugh out loud, because that just would have hurt too much. “I’m through with men who make my heart pound and my palms go sweaty. It’s self-destructive for me.”

“The particular one you picked might have been... What time were we supposed to have been there, by the way?”

Lilly checked her watch. “A half-hour ago.”

Alex gave her a wicked smile. “Riccardo’s going to love that.”

She squirmed in her seat. She was always late. No matter how hard she tried. Because it was just in her nature to try and squeeze too much into the day, and also because her multi-million-dollar athletes kept waltzing in half an hour late. But Riccardo had never seemed to care what the reason was. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. And that was all.

Alex’s expression shifted. “I talked to David today.”

Lilly froze. Alex talking to their brother back in Iowa only meant one thing. “How’s Lisbeth?”

Alex frowned. “He said she had a really bad week. The doctor is saying she needs that experimental treatment within the next few months if it’s going to do any good.”

Dammit. Lilly twisted her hands together in her lap, feeling that familiar blanket of hopelessness settle over her. Her youngest sister Lisbeth had leukemia. She’d been told three months ago she was out of remission, and her doctor was advocating a ground-breaking new treatment as the one thing that might give her a fighting chance. But the treatment cost a fortune.

“I can’t ask Riccardo for the money, Alex. I know it’s crazy, but I can’t give him that kind of power over me.”

“I know.” Alex put her hand over hers and squeezed. “We’ll figure it out. There has to be a way.”

Lilly pursed her lips. “I’m going to go back to the bank tomorrow. Maybe they’ll let me do it in installments.”

There had to be a way. Lisbeth had to get that treatment.

Tonight, however, she had to focus on survival.

Her hands shook in her lap and her head throbbed like a jackhammer as they turned down a leafy, prestigious street toward the De Campo townhouse. She had taken one look at the beautiful old limestone mansion and fallen in love. Riccardo had taken one look at her face and bought it for her. “You love it,” he’d said, not even blinking at the thirty-five-million-dollar price tag. “We’ll buy it.”

They swung to a halt in front of the home she’d run out of with only a suitcase twelve months ago, when she’d finally had the guts to leave him. It was the first time she’d been back and it occurred to her she was truly crazy making that time tonight. Divorce parties might be in vogue, but did she really want to detonate her and Riccardo’s relationship in front of all the people who’d made her life miserable?

She didn’t have a choice. She scooted over as Tony came around to open the door. Riccardo had been adamant. “We need to end this standoff,” he’d said. “We need to make the state of our relationship official. Be there, Lilly, or this isn’t happening.”

She forced herself to grasp Tony’s hand. But her legs didn’t seem to recognize the need to function as she stepped out of the car on trembling limbs that wanted to cave beneath her. The long, snakelike line of limousines made her suck in a breath. The memory of Riccardo sweeping her out of this car the night of their first anniversary and carrying her upstairs made it catch in her throat. He had made love to her with an intensity that night that had promised he would love her forever.

The images of the beginning and the end collided together in an almost blinding reminder of how quickly things could turn bad.

How hearts could be shattered.

“We can still turn around,” her sister said quietly, coming to stand by her side. “If Riccardo really wants this divorce he’ll come to you.”

No, he wouldn’t. Lilly shook her head. “I need to do this.”

Do this and you won’t ever have to live in a world you don’t belong in again.

She walked woodenly up the front path alongside Alex. A dark-haired young man in a catering uniform opened the door and ushered them inside.

“How weird to have someone invite you into your own home,” Alex whispered.

“It’s not my home anymore.”

But everything about it was. She couldn’t help but stare up at the one-of-a-kind Italian cut-glass chandelier that was the centerpiece of the entryway. She and Riccardo had chosen it together on their honeymoon in the little town of Murano, famous for its glass. They had hand-picked a crystal to have their initials carved into, which had been placed on the bottom row. Riccardo had insisted on adding two entwined hearts beside their initials.

“It symbolizes us,” he’d said. “We’re no longer two separate people—we are one.”

She lurched on her high heels, feeling whatever composure she’d had disintegrate. The urge to run far away from here as fast as she could was so overwhelming she could barely keep her feet planted on the floor.

“Lilly...” Alex murmured worriedly, her gaze on her face.

“I’m okay.” She forced herself to smile at the young man offering to show them up the staircase to the ballroom. “We know the way.”

She climbed the gleaming wooden staircase alongside Alex, her heartbeat accelerating with every step she took. By the time they’d reached the top of the stairs and turned toward the glimmering ballroom it was in her mouth.

You can do this. You’ve done this hundreds of times before.

Except Riccardo had been by her side then. A rock in a world that had never been hers. And tonight was the beginning of LAR—Life After Riccardo.

She paused at the entrance, taking in the glittering colors and jewels of the beautifully dressed crowd, set off by the muted glow of a dozen priceless antique chandeliers that dated back to the English Regency period. A jazz band played in the corner of the room, but the buzz of a hundred conversations rose above it.

Her back stiffened. She hated jazz. Was Riccardo trying to make a statement? To illustrate to her how he’d moved on?

Alex grabbed her arm and propelled her forward. “You need a drink.”

Or ten, Lilly thought grimly as dozens of curious gazes turned on them and a buzz ran through the crowd. She switched herself on to autopilot—the only way she knew how to function in a situation like this—and started walking.

She lifted her chin when she saw Jay Kaiken and kept walking. As they moved toward the bar at the back of the room the strangest thing happened. Like the parting of the Red Sea, the crowd moved aside, dividing down the center of the room. On her left she recognized friends and acquaintances who had chosen to keep in touch with her rather than Riccardo after their separation. On her right she saw Riccardo’s business associates, his brother, cousins and political contacts.

“It’s like our wedding all over again,” she breathed, remembering how she’d walked into that beautiful old Catholic cathedral on the Upper East Side to find her family and friends on one side—the neatly dressed, less-than-glamorous Iowa farm contingent alongside her girlfriends and schoolmates—and Riccardo’s much larger, understatedly elegant clan on the other—all ancient bloodlines and aristocratic heritage.

As if their marriage was to be divided from the beginning.

Maybe that should have been her first clue.

She held her head high and kept walking. A tingle went down her spine. Her skin went cold. Riccardo was in the room. Watching her. She could feel it.

Turning her head, she found him—like a homing pigeon seeking its target. He looked furious. Seething. She swallowed hard, a flock of butterflies racing through her stomach. Riccardo spoke four languages—English, Spanish, German and his native Italian. But he did not have to utter a single word from those sensuous, dangerous lips for her to understand the emotion radiating from his eyes.

Hell. She touched her face in a nervous gesture that drew his gaze. Only Riccardo had ever been able to pull off that passionate intensity while still calling himself a twentieth-century man.

“Don’t let him intimidate you,” Alex murmured. “This is your divorce party, remember? Own it.”

Easier in theory than in practice. Particularly so when Riccardo relieved a waiter of two glasses of champagne and strode toward them, with a look of intent on his face that shook her to her core. She absorbed this new Riccardo. He looked as indecently gorgeous as ever in a black tux that set off his dark good looks. But it was the hard edge to him that was different. The strongly carved lines of his face seemed to have deepened, harshened. He’d shaved off the thick, dark waves that had used to fall over his forehead in favor of a short buzz cut that made him look tougher, even more dangerously attractive if that was possible. And the ruthless expession on his face, the glitter in those dark eyes, had never been used on her quite like that before.

Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, her pulse picking up into a rapid, insistent rhythm that had her nails digging into her palms. Why, after everything they’d gone through, was he still the only man who could simply look at her and make her shake in her shoes?

Alex nudged her. “Dangerous controlled substance, remember?”

Lilly squared her shoulders and pulled in a deep breath as Riccardo stopped in front of them. He leaned down and brushed a kiss against her cheek. “Late and wearing pink. One would think you’re deliberately trying to antagonize me, Lilly.”

Her pulse sped into overdrive. “Maybe I’m celebrating my new-found freedom.”

“Ah, but you don’t have it yet,” he countered, moving his lips to the other cheek. “And you aren’t putting me in the kind of mood to grant it to you.”

Lilly was aware of all the eyes on them as he pulled back and stung her face with a reprimanding look that made her feel like a fifth-grader. “Don’t play games with me, Riccardo,” she said quietly. “I will turn around and walk out of here so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

His dark eyes glinted. His mouth tipped up at the corners. “You’ve already done that, tesoro, and now you’re back.”

Something exploded in her head. She was about to tell him exactly what she thought of his ultimatum, but he was bending down and kissing Alex.

“Buonasera. I trust you’re well?”

“Never better,” Alex muttered.

“Do you think I might have a word with my wife alone?”

Wife. He’d said the word with such supreme confidence—a statement of fact that hung on the air between them like a challenge. A tremor went down Lilly’s spine.

“Whatever you have to say you can say it in front of my sister.”

“Not this.” His gaze bored into hers. “Unless you want every gossip columnist in New York reporting on our conversation, I suggest we do it in private.”

Considering it was only in the last few months Lilly’s name had finally disappeared from those columns, she conceded that might be a good idea. “Fine.”

Riccardo turned to Alex. “Gabe is getting you a drink at the bar.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Determined to force a confrontation between all the members of the De Campo and Anderson families tonight?”

“You’re only antagonistic toward the people who evoke strong emotions in you,” Riccardo taunted. “Try not to rip him in two, will you?”

“You think that’s a good idea?” Lilly murmured, more to distract herself from the warm pressure of Riccardo’s big hand splayed against her back as he directed her from the room than out of concern for her sister, who could hold her own.

“They love baiting each other. It’ll be the highlight of their evening.”

She struggled to keep up with his long strides as he walked her up the stairs to the third floor, where the bedrooms were, nodding at the security guard stationed there. “Why are we coming up here?” she murmured, flushing at the guard’s interested gaze. “Why don’t we just talk in your study?”

He kept walking past the guest bedrooms toward the master suite. “I won’t risk being overheard. We’ll talk on the patio off our bedroom.”

“Your bedroom,” Lilly corrected. “And I don’t think—”

“Basta, Lilly.” He glared at her. “I’m your husband, not some guy trying to come on to you.”

Lilly clamped her mouth shut and followed him through the double doors of the master suite. She would not, whatever she did, look at the huge canopy bed they had shared. The scene of more erotically charged encounters than she cared to remember.

Their marriage bed. The place where she and Riccardo had always been able to communicate.

He pushed open the French doors to the large patio. The rose bushes he’d had planted for her along the edge had already started to bloom, emitting the gorgeous perfume she’d always loved.

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.”

“You are such a bully,” she muttered wrathfully, too weak to defy him. “I have an early clinic tomorrow.”

“I’ll drive you there. You still have some clothes in the spare room you can wear.”

He’d kept them? She’d left in such a hurry she’d taken only what would fit in a suitcase. Left all the beautiful gowns and jewelry behind.

“Yes, I kept them,” he murmured, a bitter smile curving his lips. “Unlike you, I didn’t give up on this marriage.”

She closed her eyes. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Riccardo.”

“Maybe you can enlighten me over the next six months, then. You never did grace me with an explanation.”

Her gaze met his with blazing fury. “You never wanted to hear what I had to say.”

The belligerent tilt of his chin matched hers. “Maybe now I do.”

And maybe there was a blue-cheese moon out there tonight.

A jagged pain whizzed through her head. She winced and held a hand to her temple.

“Hell, Lilly,” he bit out, waving a hand at her. “We’re done arguing. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”

She tried to fight it, but nature was having none of it. He tucked the covers up to her chin, then everything went black.

CHAPTER THREE

SEVEN HOURS OF sleep, one migraine-hangover-filled morning, three patients and one trip to the bank later, Lilly retreated to her office like a maimed fighter who’d escaped to her corner.

Coffee, she decided, setting her briefcase down. It was time to reintroduce the other banned substance in her life. Maybe it would help lift the paralysis that had gripped her since she’d woken up in her old bed this morning, dazed and confused at what had transpired.

She had agreed to become Mrs. Lilly De Campo again. The one thing she’d said she’d never do.

Worse, she’d let her husband see how deep her feelings ran. Distracted, she raised a hand to her hair and pushed it out of her face. The power Riccardo still held over her was disconcerting.

And that was the understatement of the year. She pressed her lips together, picked up her purse and let Katy, the receptionist at the small clinic she shared with another physiotherapist in SoHo, know she’d be in the café across the street. Scanning the menu board, she thought, To hell with it, and ordered the largest, creamiest latte they had, which would certainly knock her brain back into working order, and sat down to drink it in the window facing Broadway.

It helped. But with her escape hatch rapidly closing it was a case of avoiding the unavoidable. Her only alternative to accepting Riccardo’s deal had been to secure the money at the bank. And she was pretty sure the bank manager would have laughed at her request if she hadn’t officially reinstated her position as Mrs. Lilly De Campo by having it splashed across the morning papers.

She’d been getting to her feet when he’d given her a curious look and said, “Your husband is also a client, Mrs. De Campo. We’d be happy to draw up the papers with him.”

She had given him a withering look. “No, thank you, Mr. Brooks. This is a personal matter.”

He was an opportunist, she conceded, scraping the froth off the sides of her mug. Like almost everyone else in this city. Unfortunately Harry Taylor had also seen the news, if his multiple calls to her cell phone were any indication. A stomach-churning glance at her phone revealed she now had a message from him too. The latte seemed to curdle inside her. She’d been waiting, hoping there was some other solution that would allow her to call things off with Riccardo.

And who are you trying to fool? a voice inside her ridiculed. Their reconciliation was the subject of intense public speculation this morning. There was no getting out of it. And how could she when it was Lisbeth’s only chance at survival?

She squirmed on the stool. What was she going to say to Harry? I’m so sorry, Harry. I’ve gotten back together with the man who destroyed me? Or, I’m sorry for saying I wanted you when really I want my sexy, controlling somewhat ex-husband, who kissed me within an inch of my life last night and made me want more.

Ugh. There was no good way to put it that wouldn’t end up making her look like a horrible, horrible woman.

The café door chimed. She looked up to see the other person she was trying to avoid waltzing through the door.

“You really didn’t think you could hide, did you?” Alex asked grimly, tossing an order at the barista and plopping herself down on the stool beside her.

Lilly pushed her empty mug away. “I’m not avoiding you. I had a jam-packed morning.”

Alex’s eyebrows rose. “I’m your twin, remember? I can sense inner turmoil.”

“I’m fine. Just a little groggy from the medication.”

“Good.” Her sister threw the words at her with a determined tilt of her chin. “So you can tell me what the hell’s going on. Your autocratic husband ordered me out of the house before I could see if you’d actually lost your senses.”

Lilly pulled in a breath. “It was like Riccardo said. It took a tough conversation for us to realize our feelings for each other.”

Alex sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Do not try to spin me, Lilly. I know you too well. You walked in there last night intent on a divorce. What happened?”

“We talked...we came to some realizations...”

“Like what?” Alex waved her hand in the air. “Like the last hellish year of your marriage was just an apparition? Like he didn’t almost annihilate you?”

“It takes two to tango,” Lilly murmured. “Riccardo wasn’t the only guilty party in our marriage.”

“Only the majority holder.” Her sister screwed up her face. “What about Harry? Last night you were telling me he’s the one.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I wanted the opportunity to truly pursue things with him.” She bit her lip, realizing how confused that sounded. Dammit, she needed to make this believable. For Lisbeth’s sake.

“You know I’ve never really stopped loving Riccardo,” she said quietly. And the fact that saying it didn’t seem like too much of a stretch shook her to her core. “I want to give it another shot.”

Alex’s mouth tightened. “You left him to save yourself. And I for one don’t relish being the one to pick up the pieces again when he reverts to being his domineering, controlling self.”

“He’s changed,” Lilly lied.

“Men like him don’t change. They come out of the womb like that.”

Her mouth curved. “Probably true.”

“What about his infidelity? Are you prepared to put up with that again?”

Everything around her faded, blurred into the series of carefully manufactured images she had created to keep herself in one piece. Control. Because to imagine Riccardo in bed with another woman—to imagine the man who’d promised to love her for life doing that to her—would damage her beyond repair.

“It won’t happen again.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he promised me.”

In actual fact Riccardo had denied the whole thing. He’d put it down to the vicious money-making tactics of the tabloids. But Lilly had seen the photos. And photos didn’t lie.

Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip. The effort it took not to blurt out what was actually going on was immense. “You have to trust me,” she forced out huskily. “I’m doing the right thing.”

Her sister gave her a long, hard look. “You promise if things start to get bad you’ll end it? You’ll walk away?”

“I promise. And, Alex—this means we can get Lisbeth’s treatment.”

A light went on in her sister’s cornflower-blue eyes. “Lilly Anderson, you promise me right now you are not doing this because of Lisbeth. I do not need two sisters in critical condition.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Lilly said firmly. “It’s just a very wonderful outcome of this decision.”

But she would. She would do anything it took to make Lisbeth well.

* * *

Riccardo came to pick her up at six. “You still don’t look good,” he said bluntly as she slid into his beast of a car.

She shrugged and pulled her seatbelt on. “You know what my migraines are like. It takes me a few days to get over one.”

He put the car in gear and pulled out into traffic, the low-slung powerful machine reminding her of the man himself. Smooth, dangerous.

He flicked her a glance. “I’d forgotten just how bad they get.”

She wondered if he’d done what she had. Used any method available to wipe her head clean of him—finding it impossible on so many levels.

Don’t fool yourself, Lil. Riccardo wasn’t the type to pine for anyone. Especially the woman who’d walked out on him.

Which begged the question: why hadn’t he had other women over the past year? If she was to believe the highly sexed man she’d married was capable of celibacy, the question was why had he chosen it? Riccardo loved women. He lived for the contrast. Hard versus soft. Rational versus emotional. And with his superstar racing background they were like a feast that had been put on this earth for him to enjoy in endless supply.

She had fooled herself that she could be the only one for him.

She twisted her hands together in her lap and stared sightlessly out the window. They drove in a tense silence until he passed her street.

“What about my apartment? I need to get my stuff.”

“I sent Mrs. Collins over to pick it up.”

Her jaw dropped. He’d had Magda go through her stuff? Sift through the very fiber of her personal life?

“Stop the car.”

He frowned over at her. “Lilly, it was—”

“Stop the car.”

He swore under his breath and pulled to the curb. “It was the efficient way to get it done.”

“Efficient?” she demanded, her voice shaking with anger. “You violated my privacy. My God, how did you even get in to my apartment?”

“I was the one who had the locks installed for you. You’re overreacting, Lilly.”

She clenched her hands in her lap for fear she might slap his handsome face. He’d pretended to be worried about the dismal state of the locks on her front door and had insisted on having them changed and a deadbolt added. She’d been grateful at the time, because in New York a solid set of locks was never a bad idea. But really it had just been another of his attempts to control her.

“You did that so you could spy on me,” she hissed, pressing her head back against the seat. “How could I be so stu—”

“Stop.” His eyes blazed into hers. His bronzed skin was pulled taut across his cheekbones. “You know I have security on you. You are still my wife and, like it or not, there are people out there who itch to get their hands on you. But I have never, ever spied on you.”

“You knew about Harry.”

“I saw you with Harry. You were eating at Nevaros the same night I was.”

“You didn’t introduce yourself.”

“And say what? How do you find my wife in bed? What would you rate her out of ten?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “This is not going to work.”

“You agreed to the bargain. You’re my wife for the next six months. Deal with it.”

She closed her eyes and pressed her palms against her thighs, forcing herself to take deep breaths. If she was to survive the next six months without having to go into emotional rehab she was going to have to learn to control her emotions.

She turned her gaze on him—defiant hazel on arrogant black. “Ground rule number one. You don’t ever go into my apartment again without my permission and you do not enable someone to go through my personal possessions.”

He nodded. “Bene.”

Shocked at how easily he’d acquiesced, she kept going. “I want to go to my apartment now.”

“Why?”

“Because I doubt Mrs. Collins packed my book. Or brought my two violets with her. And there’s a few things I don’t want hanging around.”

“Like the sex toys you use with Harry?” he taunted.

“Why, yes. Harry knows how to keep things interesting.”

He froze.

Her fingers curled around the door handle.

In a lightning-fast movement his hand slammed down on top of hers. “You know what a comment like that does to a guy like me, Lilly. Are you looking for me to up the ante? Because I can assure you Taylor doesn’t make you scream like I do.”

Lilly slunk back in her seat, her heart hammering in her chest.

He lifted his hand away from hers and returned it to the wheel. “Choose your fights carefully, tesoro. You know how many times you’ve won.”

Never. She never won against Riccardo because he was too strong, too smart, and he knew her too well ever to let it happen.

They didn’t speak during their brief stopover at her apartment, nor on the drive to the house.

Magda enveloped her in a warm hug when they walked through the door and told them dinner was ready when they were. Lilly went upstairs to change.

Riccardo was waiting for her in the small, private dining room when she came down. Magda had closed the doors to the terrace as the chill of the early May evening set in, and lit candles on the table in the warm dark-floored room with its elegant white wainscoting and glowing sconces. For a moment she stood standing in the entranceway, a sharp little pain tugging at her insides. She had been so desperate for her husband’s attention in the latter days of their marriage that all she had dreamed about was coming home to a meal like this with him.

She took him in as he opened a bottle of wine, his muscular forearms flexing in the candlelight as he worked the cork out of the bottle. He hadn’t bothered to change, but had taken off his suit jacket and tie and rolled his shirtsleeves up. In charcoal-gray trousers and white shirt he looked better than any man had a right to look. They molded his leanly muscular body into a work of art. She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. Women actually stopped in the street to stare at her husband. He was just that good-looking. In the beginning she hadn’t minded, because she’d known she had him and they didn’t.

In the end it had been crucifying.

Her gaze slid up to his face. He was watching her, the bottle in his hands, his dark eyes seeming to reach inside of her and read her every emotion. She shifted her weight to the other foot and stood her ground. Six-foot-four and broad-shouldered, he made the room seem stiflingly small.

He’d always been vastly intimidating. Except when he’d been naked beneath her. Those times she had been in control—her thighs straddling all that golden muscular flesh, his taut, powerful body beneath her tense, begging her for the release that had always bordered on the spiritual with them.

A glint entered his dark eyes. Her lashes swept down over hers. What in God’s name was she doing?

“Rule number two, cara,” he murmured. “No looking at me like that unless you intend to follow through with it.”

Wildfire raced to her cheeks. Dammit. She walked jerkily across to him and took the glass of wine he’d poured.

Magda came in with their salads, her round face beaming. “How nice to see the two of you sitting down to a meal together.”

“Yes, what a novelty,” Lilly agreed. “I hardly remember how to converse.”

Magda gave her a wary look, told them the casserole was in the oven and left.

“You will curb your tongue when others are around,” Riccardo said curtly when the housekeeper was safely out of earshot. “Our deal depends on us being discreet.”

“You liked it in the bedroom,” she taunted.

“Right on the money, tesoro,” he agreed, showing his teeth. “Knock yourself out.”

She shrugged. “Since we won’t be sharing a bedroom, I’ll pass.”

He took a sip of his wine, then lowered the glass with a slow, deliberate movement. “Here I am, speaking your native language, and still you don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“We need to make this authentic, Lilly. We will be sharing a bedroom.”

Her stomach dissolved into a ball of nerves. There was absolutely no way, with all the rooms in this house, that she was sharing that bedroom with him.

“Magda is completely trustworthy. There is no need to—”

“This isn’t up for debate.” He leaned back against the sideboard and crossed his arms over his chest. “Eyes are everywhere. People traipse through this house on a daily basis.”

Lilly gave him a desperate look. “But I—”

“Rule number three.” He kept going like a train, steamrollering right over her. “You will accompany me to all the social engagements I’m committed to over the next six months, and if I need to travel you’ll do that too.”

“I have patients who count on me, Riccardo. I can’t just pick up and travel at will.”

He shrugged. “Then you work around it. Our first engagement, by the way, is Saturday. It’s a charitable thing for breast cancer.”

She bit back the primal urge to scream that was surging against the back of her throat. She had a career, for God’s sake. Responsibilities. And no wardrobe for a charity event. She was at least ten pounds heavier than she’d been when she’d been with Riccardo. None of her gowns upstairs would fit, and nothing she’d been wearing in her low-key life since then would be appropriate.

“Oh,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “It’s a fashion thing. They called today to ask if you’d model a gown when they heard our news.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “On a stage?”

“That’s usually how they would do it, isn’t it?”

The thought of modeling a gown in front of all those people with her new, curvier figure sent a sharp response tumbling out of her. “No.”

He frowned. “What do you mean, no? It’s for a good cause.”

“Then you get up there and do it.”

His gaze darkened. “Are you going to fight me on everything?”

“When you ask me to get up on a stage and parade myself around in front of a bunch of people when you know I hate that stuff, yes.”

He tipped his head to one side. “You’re a beautiful woman, Lilly. I never understood why you were so insecure.”

And he never would. He had no clue how deep her insecurities ran. The demons she’d finally put to rest. And that was the way she preferred to keep it. Weakness left you vulnerable. Exposed. Open for people to pick at and slowly destroy you.

“I won’t do it.”

“You will,” he returned grimly. “Ground rule number four. You will have no further contact with Harry Taylor.”

The man she still hadn’t had the guts to call back yet. “I have to talk to him. He’s been trying to call me and he sounds—”

“Trying?” He lifted a brow. “I see your old patterns of avoidance haven’t changed.”

“Go to hell,” she muttered. “You sandbagged me with this last night. I need a chance to explain it to him.”

“One conversation, Lilly. And if I find out you’ve seen him after that—if I find out you’ve even chatted with him in the hallway—our agreement will be null and void.”

It was fine for him to cheat in the public eye but when it came to her the same rules didn’t apply!

He flicked a hand at her. “It’s not like it should be a tough call, ending things. Or have you become such a tease you can kiss a man like you did me last night and still go back for more?”

She shook her head. “You’re such a bastard sometimes.”

A savage smile curled his lips. “You like it when I’m a son-of-a-bitch, amore mio. It excites you.”

She turned her back on him before she said something she’d regret. She’d loved that about him in the beginning. That he’d called the shots and all she’d had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride. For a girl who’d been taking care of herself most of her life it had been a relief. An escape from the hand-to-mouth existence that had seen her work two jobs to put herself through college and graduate school to supplement the scholarship she’d won.

What she hadn’t been prepared for was the flashy, no-end-to-the-riches lifestyle he’d dropped her into with no preparation, no defences for a girl from Iowa who’d never really grown into the hard-edged, sink-or-swim Manhattan way of life.

It had been her downfall. Her inability to cope.

“Ground rule number five,” he continued softly. “You and I are going to be the old Riccardo and Lilly. The perfect couple. We’re going to act madly in love, there will be no other men, and when you get weak and can’t stand it anymore you’ll come to me.” He paused and flashed a superior smile. “I give you a week, max.”

She spun around to face him, her gaze clashing with his. “I’m not the same person I was, Riccardo. You won’t find me groveling at your feet for attention. And you won’t walk all over me like you did before. You treat me as an equal or I’ll leave and blow this deal to smithereens.”

He lifted his elegant shoulders, as if he found her little outburst amusing. “But you want this house. Badly... I saw it in your eyes last night.”

For a reason entirely other than what you think.

“Are you finished?” she asked quietly. “Because I suddenly seem to have lost my appetite. I’m going to go make sense of my stuff upstairs.”

His gaze narrowed on her face. “Don’t make yourself into a martyr. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.”

She lifted her chin. “Martyrs die for their cause. When this is over I’ll be free of you. Eternally happy is more like it.”

* * *

Lilly took her time unpacking her things, her arms curiously heavy as she hung her delicate pieces on hangers in the huge walk-in closet. Every item she unpacked was an effort, and her stomach was growing tighter with each piece she added with her usual military precision. Sweaters with sweaters, blouses with blouses, pants with pants. It was as if her old life was reappearing in front of her hanger by hanger, row by row.

And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She’d said she’d never come back. What the hell was she doing?

She plunged on, doggedly working until everything was in its place. Then, when she was sure Riccardo was working in his study—which he undoubtedly would be until midnight—she slipped downstairs and made herself a snack. She wasn’t remotely hungry, but skipping meals was a warning signal for her. She put some cheese and crackers on a plate, poured herself a glass of wine and took it to bed.

She had finished her snack and read about half a chapter of her supposedly scintillating book when her husband walked through the door. It was only just past eleven. What was he doing?

“You’re coming to bed?”

A mocking smile twisted his mouth. “That’s what it looks like, no?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “You usually work later than this.”

“Maybe having my beautiful bride back in my bed is a draw.”

Heat flared in her cheeks at the sarcasm in his voice. “As if,” she muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He flicked her a glance. “Mumbling is rude, Lilly. If you have something to say, say it.”

She stuck her nose in her book. She didn’t have to play this game. Except it was impossible not to sneak a glance at his bronzed, muscled chest as he whipped his shirt off. In keeping with his new harsher haircut, his body seemed even harder than before. As if someone had taken a chisel and worked away the remaining minute amounts of excess flesh until all that was left was smooth, hard, defined muscle, tapering down to that six pack she loved.

Hell. She buried her face back in her book. The rasp of his zipper and the sound of his pants hitting the floor had her desperately reading the same sentence over and over. His boxers flew across the room and landed in the hamper. Her breath seized in her throat. She would not—would not—look.

She took a deep breath as he sauntered into the bathroom and shut the door. Her passing out moment last night had meant she hadn’t seen any of that. Her hectic pulse indicated she hadn’t gotten any more immune to the show in the past twelve months.

This was just so not good it was laughable. No wonder she hadn’t come near him in months. Because this happened.

She’d made it through a miraculous two pages when her husband emerged from the bathroom, the smell of his spicy aftershave filling her nostrils. A flash of skin in her peripheral vision revealed he hadn’t lost his predisposition for sleeping in the nude.

She took another of those steadying breaths as he walked around the bed to his side, but all that did was overwhelm her with the cologne some manufacturer had for sure pumped full of every pheromone in the book. The bed dipped as the owner of the pheromones whipped the sheets back and got in. She made a grab for the material, feeling far too exposed in her short silk nightie, but not before her husband swept his eyes over her in a mocking perusal. She gritted her teeth and pulled the sheets up high over her chest.

Her husband’s rich, deep laughter made her grit her teeth even harder. “I saw it all last night, Lil, and I have to say I like the changes. You look like a properly voluptuous Italian woman now. Your breasts are fabulous—and those hips...” He sat back against the headboard, a wicked smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “Without a doubt my favorite spot on a woman’s body. That curve near the hipbone you can slide your hand over, and—”

“Stop.” She flashed him a murderous look. “I may be living with you for six months but these—these types of conversations are not happening.”

He lifted his shoulders and pursed his lips. “This is the point where you’d usually freeze me out anyway.”

She flinched. “It was always about sex. Sometimes I actually wanted to communicate.”

“That’s where men and women differ,” he drawled. “When we’re stressed we crave sex. It’s the way we communicate.”

“It was the only way you communicated. Too bad it wasn’t conducive to working out our problems.”

His face hardened. “You didn’t want to work them out. You checked out, Lilly. You wanted us to fail.”

“I wanted us to work.” She blinked back the emotion stinging her eyes. “But we were light years apart. And we always have been. We were just too stupid to realize it.”

He reached over and grabbed the book, tossing it on his bedside table. “You haven’t read a thing since I walked into this room, cara. You’re so busy trying to deny what’s between us that you can’t see a foot in front of you. That isn’t light years apart—that’s total avoidance.”

“The easier way,” she flashed. “Because we both know how it ends.”

She took satisfaction in the frustrated flash of his eyes before she turned away from him and doused the light, curling up as far away from him as she could in the big king-sized bed. It was still impossible to ignore his presence. His warmth, his still, even breathing was everywhere around her.

She curled her fingers into the sheets and focused on keeping it together, shocked by the need, the almost physical ache for him to reach out and comfort her in the way he always had. When Riccardo had made love to her she had always known where his heart was. The problem had been when the cold light of day had dawned and their problems hadn’t gone away.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Tomorrow she had to tell Harry it was over between them. It should have been a horrible thing to have to do. But with Riccardo back in her life, bearing down on her like a massive all-consuming storm, she knew her relationship with Harry was doomed.

There had only ever been one man who’d had her heart. Too bad he hadn’t been worthy of it.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.