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 w
ere 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.”
The Divorce Party Page 3