read those rags.”
Her mouth tightened. “Today they called my figure ‘less than fashionable’ and insinuated I was pregnant.”
“So what?”
So what? She clamped her mouth shut before she said something she’d regret.
“You need to recognize jealousy for what it is,” he said impatiently. “They want to be you. That’s why they try and tear you down.”
She gave him a vicious look. “What would you know about it? You’re Mr. Perfect. You have an affair and it only makes you sexier to them.”
His eyes went so black she took a step backward. His fingers tightened around hers, drawing her forward in a slow, deliberate movement that wouldn’t attract attention. His tone as he pinned her to the spot with his gaze was ice-cold. “Get over this obsession, Lilly. I did not cheat.”
She swallowed back the nausea that circled her insides like a shark waiting to pounce. Eight time-lapse photographs didn’t lie.
“I want to go.”
“Well, we’re staying. This is what you signed up for.”
She hated him. At that moment she hated him as she’d never hated anyone in her life. “We should never have done this,” she murmured huskily. “Look what we’re doing to each other.”
“We should have done this a long time ago,” he disagreed roughly. “My big mistake was giving you time and space when what you really needed was for someone to shake some sense into you.”
Her throat tightened. “What does it matter? We’re past fixable.”
A hard light glittered in his eyes. “That remains to be seen.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She lifted her gaze to his. “This is a short-term solution, Riccardo. You become CEO and we’re done.”
It was as if her words bounced off his Teflon coating. His expression was inscrutable as he regarded her from beneath lowered lashes. “Matty told me I was a bad husband today.”
Her mouth dropped open. “He did?”
“I expect I have been at times.”
“At times?” Lilly was past being diplomatic. “That last year you couldn’t have cared if I was on Mars as long as I showed up for whatever social function you dictated I appear at. So I could charm the Mayor or sweet-talk a difficult client.”
He frowned. “That’s an exaggeration. We supported each other. We were a team.”
“A team?” She let out a bark of laughter that made a couple near them stare. “If by ‘team’ you mean I supported you while you ran roughshod over my career every time it was inconvenient for you, then you’d be right.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“Really? You know why I was late that night we had dinner with the owner of Jacob’s?” She waited while he paused, then shook his head. “Because I was consulting on the treatment for a little boy’s legs. A little boy who’d just lost his mother in a car accident. I was crushed, devastated by what had happened, and all you did when I told you was nod and tell me to get to the table before the appetizers got cold.”
“I did not. You did not tell me that story.”
Her mouth tightened. “Oh, yes, I did. You just couldn’t be bothered to listen. And you know what, Riccardo? I helped that little boy. I worked by his side for six months until he was walking again. I might not have been able to bring his mother back but I gave him the use of his legs back. And I’m damn proud of that.”
“And so you should be. Lilly, I’ve always thought what you do is amazing.”
“As long as it didn’t interfere with the grand plan,” she agreed bitterly. “With your obsession to win the CEO job.”
A dark flush spread across his cheekbones. “It’s my birthright to run De Campo. Why couldn’t you ever understand that?”
“I understand it matters to you to the exclusion of everything else in your life. Please forgive me if I don’t want to go along for the ride.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “It won’t last forever. Once I’m appointed CEO things will change.”
“It’ll never change. I think you left a piece of yourself on that racetrack, Riccardo. Nothing you do lives up to that, but you’ll never stop looking, needing that adrenalin.”
The color in his cheeks darkened to a deep, livid red. “Don’t try and play psychologist, Lilly. You’re not even close.”
But she knew she was. She could see it in his face. And finally she felt she was starting to understand him. “Your need for a challenge will always be there. And everyone around you suffers. Our kids would have suffered if we’d been foolish enough to have had them.”
“You know that would have changed things.”
“No, I don’t. We couldn’t even keep a dog alive, Riccardo. How would a child have worked?”
The stormclouds in his eyes turned black and dangerous. “That’s a ridiculous comparison. Brooklyn was a wild dog. There was nothing we could have done to prevent her death.”
She knew he was right. From the day they’d found Brooklyn, a German Shepherd puppy, injured on their street and taken her in, she’d never lost her lust for adventure or for chasing cars.
“You promised you’d train her,” she said roughly. “Just like you promised to be around more and you never were.”
His mouth flattened into a grim line. “You just can’t take your fair share for what happened, can you? You shut me out until I was tired of being verbally slapped in the face every time I walked through the door. And I’m the bad guy for not being around enough? You have a distorted view of the world, Lilly.”
The couple beside them suddenly seemed awfully close, their curious gazes on the two of them. Lilly waited until Riccardo had steered them away. “We can talk until we’re blue in the face but it isn’t going to change the things that were wrong with us.”
His fingers tightened around her waist. “Every marriage has its ups and downs. You work through them. You don’t run away.”
She swallowed hard. If only he knew how badly she’d tried to stick it out. To be what he needed.
His gaze burned into hers, radiating a warning that was impossible to ignore. “We are not over, Lilly.”
“We will be in six months.”
“And what a six months it’s going to be...” He lifted his chin. “Buckle up, tesoro, it’s going to be quite a ride.”
A shiver ran through her. The flicker of the gorgeous two-carat canary-yellow diamond he’d bought to replace the one she’d told him she’d lost shimmered where her hand rested on his shoulder. If he seemed angry now, it would be nothing compared
