“I don’t want a divorce.” She sobbed, grabbing the lapels of his shirt with both hands. “I can’t explain about Simon,” she said honestly, “I promise, it isn’t what you think.”
Niko’s laugh was harsh. “Do you take me for a complete idiot, Bianca?” He expelled an angry breath. “Fine. I’ll humor you. Tell me why you were checking into a hotel with another man.”
The truth burned at the tip of her tongue. Bianca had never told anyone, except Simon, what she had done, and he’d held it over her ever since. What if Niko didn’t understand?
“I promise, I didn’t cheat on you,” she repeated weakly.
Slowly, Niko unpeeled her fingers from his shirt, and ostentatiously padded down the creases her grip had made. When he stared at her in the face, his expression was one of disdain, and worse, disgust.
“Get a lawyer, Bianca. We’re getting divorced.”
She jumped as she heard the front door slam behind him.
Bianca stood in the middle of their ground floor lounge room, completely immobile, for at least half an hour. She simply stood and concentrated on breathing, because certainly, without effort, she might actually have fallen to the floor in a swoon.
She was shaking from head to toe, and yet, as if possessed in some way, or possibly in denial, she returned to the Christmas tree and methodically unhooked each decoration, placing them back in their separate cases. It was a soothing job, and she did it without paying any real attention. The whole time she worked, her mind ticked over their conversation.
She had two choices. She could stay, and force him to listen to her. But that would involve telling him the truth. That she’d selfishly given up a pregnancy, many years earlier, because the circumstances were totally wrong for her. She had never forgiven herself for that decision, and she couldn’t expect him to either. And even if he could forgive the termination, how would he handle the knowledge that the father had been blackmailing her for three years, and she’d never confided in her own husband? No, Niko was too proud. He would deem her secrecy over the bribery as almost more offensive to his male pride than an actual affair.
Her second option was to walk away from him. Knowing there could be no future, even if she confided the truth in him, she realized it wasn’t a second option at all, but rather the only option.
Like making a really great stock, she threw all her thoughts together, into one big confused pot of boiling emotion. She simmered and simmered as slowly she removed the evidence of the happy Christmas they’d just shared. And she tried to ignore the memories but with every decoration she removed, they haunted her. It had been a beautiful Christmas. The stockings brimming with silly gifts, the Panettone they’d feasted on until they were queasy, the matching pajamas she’d bought that Niko had surprised her by wearing. But as her mind simmered and stewed, only the bare bones of comprehension remained. Bianca had never believed she deserved Niko. When she chose to end her pregnancy, all those years ago, she’d cast a fateful die. One that meant good things shouldn’t happen to her. She’d been living on borrowed time, and finally, destiny had come to collect, by ripping Niko and their marriage away from her.
She stacked the Christmas decorations in the attic, then slipped her wedding band off her ring finger and placed it on Niko’s bedside table. It was such a beautiful piece of jewelry, but she had no regrets in leaving it. It was just a thing. It was nothing compared to the man who had set her soul on fire.
After three years with the man she thought to be the love of her life, it took Bianca less than an hour to pack a suitcase and walk out of their marriage. Only she didn’t have a clue how she’d ever learn to live without him.
CHAPTER TWO
Ten months later
Niko absentmindedly ran his finger over his wife’s signature on the last page of their divorce documents. Her signature was just like her. Confident, bold, and with beautiful lines. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He was the one who’d asked for the divorce, after all. When he’d returned to their townhouse the morning after their argument, he’d found her gone, and it was almost as if she’d disappeared off the face of the earth. Oh, he knew where she worked, of course, but he was damned if he was going to make a fool of himself over her again. Her cell number had changed, and he had no clue where she lived. Or who with.
He had known this moment was coming. His lawyer had informed him that Bianca had hired a top tier firm to represent her. Niko had taken the news as a devastating blow. Not because it showed she intended to go through with the break-up of their marriage, but because he presumed it meant she intended to make a significant claim on his estate. He had more than enough money to go around, after all.
Only she hadn’t.
When the papers had arrived that day, he’d seen that the asset lists were to be kept exactly as they were on the formation of their union. She’d asked for nothing, except the gifts he’d given her during their marriage. Niko couldn’t have described how that made him feel. Relieved that she was so reasonable about the whole affair? Or was it a sign that she simply wanted matters resolved as swiftly as possible, and was willing to forego any interest in a billion pound fortune?
He lifted the pen with a groan and pressed it into the paper, then threw it across the table, disgusted by his weakness. There was no way he could be with someone who had gone behind his back and slept with another man, if not men. So why the hell couldn’t he finish it once and for all? One possibility occurred to him, but it wasn’t especially flattering.
Revenge.
He had to make her pay.
The phone ringing on his desk didn’t help his mood. He’d asked his Executive Assistant to hold his calls, so why was he being interrupted? Lifting the phone roughly, he saw it was his fifth line that was buzzing. His private line.
“Casacelli,” he barked into the receiver, in no frame of mind even to speak to his brothers. Silence greeted him and he tightened his grip, until his knuckles were white. “Hello?” He repeated tersely, already preparing to replace the phone into the cradle.
“Niko.” He’d know that breathy voice, still tinged with an Australian accent, anywhere.
He glowered down at the divorce documents, wondering if he’d somehow conjured his soon-to-be-ex-wife out of thin air.
“Yes, who’s this?” He ground out through gritted teeth, not willing to let Bianca know how much she still played on his mind.
A pause, and he could see her perfectly. The way her pale face would be pinched with nerves, her blonde hair shaped like a perfect bell around her shoulders. Her nose, a sweet little ski jump peppered with a few small freckles would be creased as she tried to formulate the right words. And despite the fact he hated her passionately, he felt a stirring of arousal as his body remembered what hers felt like, from the inside out.
“It’s me. Bianca.”
“My unfaithful spouse,” he said caustically. “To what do I owe the displeasure?”
Another pause, this one so long it stretched and pulled at him and made him want to shake the phone.
“Forget about it,” she said finally, and he could hear from the way her voice cracked that she was sad, or nervous, or something. He steeled himself not to care. “It was a stupid idea.”
“Not your first, and probably not your last.”
Her sob surprised him, though. She was not given to emotionalism, and for the briefest of moments, he felt a sharp stab of compunction in his gut for being such a bastard. But only for a moment. The picture of her with Simon was forever burned into his brain, and at the first sign of feeling an emotional softening towards her, he conjured it like mental armor.
“Forget I called.”
She was going to hang up. Panic tore threw him, coming out of nowhere, and surprising him with its intensity.
“Wait,” he commanded imperiously, knowing full well that she would. People always obeyed when he commanded. He was Niko Casacelli and his authority was absolute.
“What is it?” Her voice was bleak
. He wondered if she was holding the phone as tightly as he was. If her fingers were tingling, like his, with a physical desire to touch and feel, after so long an absence.
“You did call, Bianca, and I’m not going to easily forget it. I was in the middle of something important. As you’ve seen fit to interrupt my work, using the private number you long ago gave up a right to use, you will tell me why.”
Her breath was shallow, fast. “I … I can’t believe I’m asking you this.” She was quiet for a moment. “I need a favor.”
Niko’s laugh was without humor. “From me?”
“Yes,” she muttered, and he knew she’d be blushing.
“And why do you think I’d be at all inclined to grant you a favor, Bianca?”
She sucked in a deep breath. “Because you loved me once, and despite the way you’re behaving now, you are a good man.”
He narrowed his eyes, unprepared for that semi-compliment. “Fine. What is it that you require?”
“I need you to be my husband again.” Niko almost dropped the phone at her quietly voiced statement. “Just for two weeks.”
Now it was his turn to ruminate. A thousand questions came to mind, and none of them seemed adequate. Finally, he said, gruffly, “Why?”
Bianca bit down on her lower lip, wondering for the hundredth time if she had absolutely lost her senses to be going through with this. Surely she could have just owned up to her family about their split? But then, she pictured her father, in the hospital bed after his heart attack, and she knew she had to protect them from the shock and disappointment of their beloved daughter’s impending divorce.
“My family is coming to visit. Over Christmas.”
“And why does that news affect me?”
“I haven’t exactly got around to telling them about us yet, Niko.” She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, as she always did when she thought of their divorce. It was the only option, of course. She’d hoped against hope he would see sense and try to work through it, but Niko Casacelli was too proud for that. Despite the inevitability of it, Bianca couldn’t think of their marriage and the marriage breakdown without a physical pain in her chest.
His disembodied voice was doing funny things to her body; and it was both a pleasure and a pain. His honeyed timbre, which she had always found so sexy, made her bones weak with remembered need, but the sheer impossibility of fulfillment was almost cruel.
A flat out refusal was on the tip of his tongue when he thought of his predicament. He had just admitted to himself that he loved the idea of gaining revenge against this woman; and here was the perfect opportunity. Posing as her husband would give him ample ways to hurt her pride in the same way his had been ripped apart. But to plot against her inexplicably reviled him, despite her unfaithfulness, and so he hesitated.
“So because you are too terrified of your parents, you have decided to create an elaborate deception?”
It was a pretty accurate summation of what she was doing. “It’s not that I’m terrified of them…”
“You ache for them to be proud of you, Bianca. For as long as I’ve known you, your family has been a double-edged sword. You might be incredibly close to them, but you’re still afraid of letting them down. My guess is that you think our divorce will make you less of a success in their eyes. Frankly, that’s a little pathetic from a grown woman.”
Weakly, she eased herself down into the leather armchair of her study. “You are the last person who should be lecturing me on family relationships.”
The oblique reference to his difficult relationship with his mother hit its target, as she had known it would. Niko and his brothers had tried for a long time to love their mother out of a sense of duty, but Nicoletta had made it impossible.
“For as long as you expect my help, you will put up with my lectures, or whatever the hell I want to say to you,” he rebuffed coldly.
Bianca dipped her head into her hands, rubbing at her tired eyes. She tried, and failed, to ignore the feeling she was jumping into bed with the devil. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” he lied through his teeth. “Come over tonight and I’ll let you know.”
Bianca felt her pulse race at the promise of seeing him later that day. “I’m working,” she said, her voice husky.
“I’ll wait up.”
She nodded and was about to say goodbye, when she realized he’d already disconnected the call. It was classic Niko. Unapologetically arrogant.
God, how the heck was she ever going to pull this off if one phone conversation dissolved her into an overwrought mess?
***
She hadn’t been back to their marital home since that night in December when she’d walked away from their life together. That night she’d painstakingly wrapped up their Christmas ornaments and stored them neatly in the attic, as though they might need them again for years to come. She might as well have thrown them in the trash, for all the use the decorations would get now.
With fingers that weren’t quite steady, she lifted her hand and pressed the doorbell. It was just after midnight, but this was the earliest she’d been able to make it to the townhouse. Her restaurant was booked solid for months; the two sittings she accommodated meant she worked even crazier hours now than when she had been married. And it suited her just fine to be so busy she didn’t have a second to think, or feel.
She smoothed a hand down her jean-clad thigh, trying to hide how nervous she was. But the knowledge that she was about to see her husband for the first time in ten months was making breathing almost impossible. Bianca had not dressed up. Her feminine desire to look her best had lost out to pride, which dictated that she not let him know she still cared what he thought of her.
Jeans and a black skivvy were her work staples, and he could just deal with the fact that his wife was more of a homebody than a glamazon. With a frown, she leaned forward and peered through the tinted glass windows. No use; she couldn’t see a thing. She pressed the button again, shivering a little in the cold October night air.
Niko wrenched the door open impatiently, his face guarded, his expression neutral. Bored, if anything, she would have said with an indignant stab of pain in the region of her heart. And though she’d promised herself she’d keep her own feelings hidden, she couldn’t control the way her eyes hungrily roamed his body, savoring the sight of him after so long without.
He was dressed all in black; well-worn jeans and a jet black sweater that showed off his bulging muscles and the olive skin at the vee of his neck. His hair was a little longer than he’d worn it when they were married; the dark curls ran just to the collar of his shirt.
She dug her nails into her palms, so hard that she could have drawn blood, and forced her expression to mirror his. Calm, implacable, disinterested.
“Niko, I’m freezing out here. Do you mind?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Of course. Mi casa e su casa.”
The irony was not lost on her. His house had been her house, once upon a time. She stepped into the hallway, casting her eyes around. It was as it had been during their marriage, with the exception of the wedding photo that had hung above the hall table. A Mondrian was now its place, large and bright. Happy and ordered, the painting was everything they were not.
“Drink?” He asked, moving through the house towards the kitchen at the rear of the property. She followed behind, glumly remembering how she’d always admired his economy of movement, and his economy of words. Now, it felt like he was wasting as few syllables on her as possible.
“Yes. Something strong.”
He flashed her a derisive smile. “You hate this, don’t you?”
“Hate what?” She queried, watching as he tipped scotch into two cut-crystal tumblers. Her fingers crept up to her KitcheAid stand mixer and slowly she ran a hand down its silver mixing bowl. The kitchen had always been her domain. It was odd being back now.
“Asking me for help.”
“Yes.” She took the glass fro
m him and tilted it to her lips. She pulled a face as the liquid burned its way down her esophagus, into her empty stomach.
“Then why are you?”
“Asking you for help?”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, obviously impatient. “Yes.”
She placed the scotch glass onto the bench, staring at the orange liquid while her brain tried to find words. “It’s easier than telling them the truth.”
He didn’t react visibly. “I’m pretty sure your family thinks I’m a hard-headed, arrogant, demanding husband. Why do you think they’d blame you?”
“They love you,” she contradicted forcefully. “You know that. My father hugely admires you. My mother thinks you’re gorgeous. Even Sarah is a little bit in love with you.”
“Your sister doesn’t love anyone or anything except the whales.”
Bianca grimaced at his correct characterization. Sarah had spent the better part of a decade on the oceans for Greenpeace, only a very tenuous link to her environmental law degree.
Bianca picked her scotch up and took another sip; this time the liquid burned a little less and she was able to savor the tastes of the aged liquor.
It was truth time.
“My dad had a heart attack.” Her pale blue eyes lifted to his face, and still he was unmoved.
“When?” He asked finally, throwing his own scotch down and immediately topping the glass up.
“About ten months ago.” She colored, knowing that the date would have significance to him.
“When you cheated on me.”
“When we broke up,” she corrected automatically. “Yes. I was going to tell them, but when I finally got around to calling mum, she was at the hospital.”
He was watching, silently waiting for her to continue.
“Dad wasn’t out of the woods for months. And once he was more or less fully recovered, I felt like too much time had passed. Now, mum wants to have a happy family holiday. She’s gone off on some tangent about the unpredictability of life, and heaven forbid anyone who stands in her way.” Despite her strain, a small smile touched her lips. Sylvia Scott-Lee was a force to be reckoned with.
The Medici Mistress: Nothing and no one would stop him from having her. Page 13