The Divorce Party

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.”

“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.