The Divorce Party

by Jennifer Hayward

  “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 sl
unk 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 Manh
attan 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.