“Lil—it’s fine. I’ll go.” Her sister’s voice softened. “You guys need time together.”
She chewed on her lip. Alex probably thought she and Riccardo were having hot reunion sex every night... She so desperately wanted to tell her that, no, they weren’t, that they were hardly talking to each other and she was hopelessly confused, but she couldn’t. Not if she was to keep her and Riccardo’s deal.
“You’ll call me if you need me? I’ll come right back.”
“I will. I promise.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Okay.”
“By the way—one of the girls here just showed me some of the stuff the tabloids are saying about you. Please tell me you’re not reading it?”
“I’m not reading it.” Only a bit. One or two particularly horrid pieces...
“Yes, you are. I can tell. You have to stop it, Lil. It’s awful, destructive stuff and not a bit true. I’ve never seen you looking so good.”
Lilly sighed. “I’m fine, Alex. I promise.” Only her sister knew how deep her body issues went and she called her on it when she needed to.
“You sure?”
“I gave my whole wardrobe to charity,” she said drily. “Riccardo almost had a fit.”
“The whole thing?” her sister squeaked.
“All of it.”
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear you say that.”
“I know... Al?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really think people never change?”
She sighed. “Are you talking about Riccardo?”
“Yes.”
And why, exactly, was she?
Her sister cleared her throat. “When we were looking at those tabloids this morning, one of the girls here looked at that photo of you and Riccardo kissing—which is dreamy, by the way, and I don’t do dreamy, as you know—and she got this stupid, expression on her face and said, ‘I just want that. To be that much in love.’”
Lilly felt the stitches she’d triple-sewed around her heart rip, leaving it jagged and raw. She wanted to be that much in love again. But that wasn’t her and Riccardo anymore, and telling herself that was possible was foolish.
“So,” her sister continued, “while I think he might be the most arrogant son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever met, I know what you have is special, Lil, and that man is crazy about you in his own demented way. Which leads me to believe he’s going to do whatever it takes to keep you.”
Lilly stood there, wishing she’d never asked the question in the first place.
“Do me a favor?” Alex’s voice lost its sarcasm and took on a serious note.
“Name it.”
“Whatever you do, don’t get pregnant.”
Lilly stared at the phone, horrified. Then remembered her sister didn’t know. Didn’t know this was all a charade. “Of course I won’t. That would complicate everything.”
“Exactly.”
Exactly. She glanced at her watch. “I’m done for the day, and Riccardo’s out with the boys. You up to swimsuit-shopping? You’re the only one I know who’ll give me an honest opinion.”
They made arrangements to meet and Lilly hung up, more worried with every passing moment that a “conversation” in Barbados with her sexier than hell husband was a disaster waiting to happen.
One thing she knew for sure. She could never, never tell him about why she’d entered into this deal. About Lisbeth. Because she didn’t trust him not to use that against her. And Lisbeth was all that mattered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LILLY STOOD ON the patio of Charles Greene’s very beautiful, very exclusive Barbados estate overlooking Heron Bay. The sparkling, water-soaked playground of the world’s rich and famous, the bay was dotted with luxury hotels and villas that sat on heavenly golden sand beaches and the most stunning clear turquoise water Lilly had ever seen.
If you were the world’s most famous golfer you took over Heron Bay’s five-thousand-dollar-a-night marquee hotel for a sunset marriage featuring heads of state, rock stars and movie icons. If you were Charles Greene, British billionaire and heir to a heavy machinery fortune, you bought this gorgeous six-bedroom villa on the ocean and kept it for yourself.
Charles and Riccardo had done business together on a few occasions, and had formed a close personal relationship in addition to their working one. With Charles away on business in the UK, the villa was theirs. A private oasis in paradise.
At any other time in her life Lilly would have been ecstatic to be here. But not tonight. Not when she was about to learn the truth about her marriage.
She kept her feet planted firmly on the concrete. Tonight was not about running. It was about facing her demons.
She drank in the sheet of shimmering perfect blue sea in front of her, its color morphing from light to dark turquoise, then to a marine blue the further out the eye traveled. Were relationships like that? she wondered. Were there gradations and depths she and Riccardo had yet to explore? Or would this be the end for them?
“I’m leaving now.”
Mrs. Adams, the housekeeper who had greeted them and shown them to their rooms, appeared on the patio with a bottle of wine and a cooler in her hands. “Mr. De Campo thought you might enjoy a glass of wine while he showers.”
Lilly forced a smile to her lips. “Thank you. He’s off the phone, then?”
She nodded. “He said to tell you he’d be down in a few minutes.” She set the cooler down on the table and took some glasses out of a cupboard. “Did you say you’d been here before?”
“Yes. A year ago.”
Riccardo had come here on business and brought her with him. It had been right after news of his affair had surfaced and she’d spent the whole week trying to convince herself she shouldn’t doubt him. Trying to save her marriage.
Until she’d seen the photos.
“It’s a beautiful island,” she murmured, realizing the woman was waiting for her response. “We stayed further up the coast.”
Her brief response had the desired effect. The housekeeper nodded and stuck her hands on her hips. “I’ll be back tomorrow to cook breakfast. Would you like me to pour you a glass of wine?”
“No, thank you. I can pour it.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow, then.”
“Goodnight.”
Lilly kept the plastic smile on her face until the housekeeper had disappeared into the house. Her body vibrated with a tension that hadn’t left her since they’d climbed aboard the De Campo jet and flown the five hours south to the island—a flight the entire duration of which Riccardo had worked. She pulled in a breath to steady herself, but the shallow pulls of air she managed to take in didn’t help much.
She turned back to the sea and laced her hands together. “Stay in the moment. Allow yourself to feel and move through the pain...” Her therapist’s words were a grounding force when all she wanted to do was run. It had been her coping mechanism since she was a teenager and her parents had been having their no-holds-barred fights to run when she was in pain. To refuse to feel it.
Making herself stand here was like being asked to walk over red-hot coals.
“You haven’t had any wine.”
Riccardo’s low, smooth observation contrasted sharply with the imminent hysteria she felt building within her. This had always been the pattern with them. Him handling everything with reason—with well-thought-out premeditation. Lilly shooting from the hip—driven by emotion.
She turned around, a sharp condemnation on her lips. But he was so breathtakingly handsome in jeans and a navy polo shirt, his square-jawed, dark good looks only intensified by the casual attire, that the words fled her head.
He was beautiful beyond the meaning of the word. Charisma oozed out of him like oxygen for the female race. And she knew then that this had been a big, huge mistake.
Just as it had been to think she could claim ownership over a man every woman wanted.
She turned back to look at the ocean. “You can pour me some now.”
The knot in her stomach grew to an almost incapacitating level as she heard him walk across the patio and pour the wine. The sound of bubbling liquid hitting glass was deafeningly loud on the night air.
He came to stand beside her, the smoky, spicy scent of him wrapping itself around her.
“What’s wrong?”
She swiveled to face him. “You’ve been talking on that phone non-stop since we left. I thought we had a no work rule.”
His mouth tightened. “It’s off now. I just had a few last things to go through with Gabe. By the way,” he added, raising a brow, “he asked Alex out for dinner and she turned him down flat. Said she was going back to Mason Hill for the weekend.” His gaze narrowed on her face. “You two never go home. Is everything okay with your family?”