on the floor for Magda to give away, and had said only, “Ready to leave in fifteen?”
“Aha!” She located her silver slingbacks on the top shelf. At least her shoes fit. They were her absolute weakness and, oh, did she love the strappy soft leather of these, which molded to her feet and felt like heaven...
She sat down on the bed and pulled them on. They made her legs seem a mile long, and if there was anything she needed tonight it was that. The fact she couldn’t walk in them was of little consequence. Anything that increased her confidence level was worth it.
Her fingers clumsily refused to obey her as she struggled to thread the thin strap through the tiny loop. The fashion show was one thing. How she and Riccardo were going to fool all those people they knew and make them think they were still in love when they were in the middle of the War of the Roses was another matter entirely.
She managed to get one shoe done up, then started on the other, enduring the same frustrating process. Maybe what she needed were glasses, because the strap didn’t seem to want to—
“Dammit.”
“Need help?”
Riccardo’s rich, sexy drawl sent the strap pinging out of her hand completely. “No, thanks,” she murmured, snatching it up again and yanking it desperately through the loop. This time the pin slid right into the hole and stayed. Thank goodness. She didn’t need a naked Riccardo any closer than he was right now because—
Hell. The blood had rushed to her head, bent over like that, but now, sitting up, her gaze moved over her husband leaning against the doorway of the bathroom and it seemed to congeal right there, pounding in her ears. Not naked. He’d wrapped a towel around his waist, but that was almost worse, because far, far too much mouthwatering muscled, bronzed flesh was still on display. Everything she hadn’t let herself look at the other night.
She gulped in a desperate breath as that six-pack she’d loved to tell him turned her on stared her in the face. Her gaze moved lower, over the grooves in his abdomen only the most defined men had, skipped the next part, because really she couldn’t go there, and ended up at his gorgeous thighs and calves. Riccardo had the best legs of any man she’d ever encountered. Muscled, strong and perfectly shaped. Heavenly.
No looking at me like that unless you intend to follow through with it.
She stood abruptly, teetering on the high shoes. “We should go. We’re late already, and if we’re going to get through traffic—” He was so not listening to her. His long-lashed dark gaze was conducting a thorough inspection of her physical assets that had begun with her face, swept down over the plunging neckline of her dress, over the flare of her hips in the clinging gown to her lavender-tipped feet.
Heat rushed to her face as his gaze lingered. Riccardo had always had a thing for feet.
Her feet in particular.
He turned, walked to the dresser and pulled something out of a drawer. Her heart-rate increased as he walked back toward her, a purposeful look on his face.
“We need to go,” she repeated in a strangled voice. “We’re already late.”
He stopped in front of her, took her by the shoulders and turned her around.
“You need a necklace,” he murmured, lifting her hair aside. “What are you worried about, Lilly? That I might tear this dress off you and end this détente?”
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done it before... She shivered as he slid the necklace around her throat, the cold stones resting against her heated skin. “Riccardo...”
“Riccardo what?” Humor deepened his voice. “Tear the dress off?”
“Get the hell away from me.”
“Because you don’t trust yourself when I touch you?”
“Because this is a charade,” she hissed. “And when we aren’t in public you don’t touch me.”
He fastened the clasp of the necklace. “Do you remember how we christened this?”
She stared down at the row of diamonds encircling her throat, sparkling against her skin like a ring of fire. As if she could ever forget. They had been out for dinner, wholly unable to keep their hands off each other, and he’d slapped his credit card on the table as soon as the entrées were removed and taken her home, where he’d ravished her with such urgent, sensual demand she had never been able to wear the necklace again without going back to that moment.
The fleeting sensation of his lips on her bare shoulder made her jump under his hands.
“You look stunningly beautiful in this dress, tesoro. You could easily convince me to forget all about tonight and play hookey.”
She would have replied, except his teeth nipped gently into her skin and a wave of heat swept through her. That would be one way of avoiding the fashion show...
Not worth the consequences.
She yanked herself out of his arms and fixed him with a glare. Remember how he broke your heart. Remember this is only for six months...
He watched her with a hooded gaze. “I take it that’s a no?”
“Not ever,” she agreed icily. “Shall we go?”
He inclined his head, stepped toward the closet and stripped off the towel. She averted her eyes and left to wait for him downstairs—but not before she got a full-on shot of his firm, beautiful behind.
THE BALLROOM OF the historic hotel near Central Park glittered with light, muted laughter and a sense that time hadn’t really moved on—it was just different souls passing through it.
Lilly stood at the entrance with Riccardo and took in the ambience with that same feeling. Massive chandeliers five feet in width still dominated the room, still exuded the elegance of decades past, the band was timelessly tasteful, filling the space with rich classical music, and the black-coated wait staff could have been from any time period. It was her that was different. Once she had walked in here with naive, trusting eyes that had seen only the sparkling beauty of so much loveliness in one place. Now she saw it for what it was—a backdrop for the rich and powerful, a symbol of how beauty could destroy and disfigure.
If you let it.
Her gaze shifted to the long runway that ran the center of the room. In an hour she would be up there, modeling Antonia Abelli’s dress. If she didn’t throw up first. It was a distinct possibility.
Heads turned. The open stares began. Her fingers dug into Riccardo’s forearm as the room seemed to ignite with speculative conversation. The press had been all over them since the divorce party, coming up with a multitude of creative, vicious angles as to why they were back together. Lilly was pregnant—thus her “added pounds,” one tabloid had said. Riccardo had had his fill of his mistress and wanted to start a family, said another. Worst of all had been the dirt they’d dug up on poor Harry Taylor—a former girlfriend citing his low libido as the reason Lilly had left him.
Riccardo looked
