“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 Manhattan 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.
She had finished her snack and read about half a chapter of her supposedly scintillating book when her husband walked through the door. It was only just past eleven. What was he doing?
“You’re coming to bed?”
A mocking smile twisted his mouth. “That’s what it looks like, no?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “You usually work later than this.”
“Maybe having my beautiful bride back in my bed is a draw.”
Heat flared in her cheeks at the sarcasm in his voice. “As if,” she muttered under her breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He flicked her a glance. “Mumbling is rude, Lilly. If you have something to say, say it.”
She stuck her nose in her book. She didn’t have to play this game. Except it was impossible not to sneak a glance at his bronzed, muscled chest as he whipped his shirt off. In keeping with his new harsher haircut, his body seemed even harder than before. As if someone had taken a chisel and worked away the remaining minute amounts of excess flesh until all that was left was smooth, hard, defined muscle, tapering down to that six pack she loved.
Hell. She buried her face back in her book. The rasp of his zipper and the sound of his pants hitting the floor had her desperately reading the same sentence over and over. His boxers flew across the room and landed in the hamper. Her breath seized in her throat. She would not—would not—look.
She took a deep breath as he sauntered into the bathroom and shut the door. Her passing out moment last night had meant she hadn’t seen any of that. Her hectic pulse indicated she hadn’t gotten any more immune to the show in the past twelve months.
This was just so not good it was laughable. No wonder she hadn’t come near him in months. Because this happened.
She’d made it through a miraculous two pages when her husband emerged from the bathroom, the smell of his spicy aftershave filling her nostrils. A flash of skin in her peripheral vision revealed he hadn’t lost his predisposition for sleeping in the nude.
She took another of those steadying breaths as he walked around the bed to his side, but all that did was overwhelm her with the cologne some manufacturer had for sure pumped full of every pheromone in the book. The bed dipped as the owner of the pheromones whipped the sheets back and got in. She made a grab for the material, feeling far too exposed in her short silk nightie, but not before her husband swept his eyes over her in a mocking perusal. She gritted her teeth and pulled the sheets up high over her chest.
Her husband’s rich, deep laughter made her grit her teeth even harder. “I saw it all last night, Lil, and I have to say I like the changes. You look like a properly voluptuous Italian woman now. Your breasts are fabulous—and those hips...” He sat back against the headboard, a wicked smile pulling at the corner