The images of the beginning and the end collided together in an almost blinding reminder of how quickly things could turn bad.
How hearts could be shattered.
“We can still turn around,” her sister said quietly, coming to stand by her side. “If Riccardo really wants this divorce he’ll come to you.”
No, he wouldn’t. Lilly shook her head. “I need to do this.”
Do this and you won’t ever have to live in a world you don’t belong in again.
She walked woodenly up the front path alongside Alex. A dark-haired young man in a catering uniform opened the door and ushered them inside.
“How weird to have someone invite you into your own home,” Alex whispered.
“It’s not my home anymore.”
But everything about it was. She couldn’t help but stare up at the one-of-a-kind Italian cut-glass chandelier that was the centerpiece of the entryway. She and Riccardo had chosen it together on their honeymoon in the little town of Murano, famous for its glass. They had hand-picked a crystal to have their initials carved into, which had been placed on the bottom row. Riccardo had insisted on adding two entwined hearts beside their initials.
“It symbolizes us,” he’d said. “We’re no longer two separate people—we are one.”
She lurched on her high heels, feeling whatever composure she’d had disintegrate. The urge to run far away from here as fast as she could was so overwhelming she could barely keep her feet planted on the floor.
“Lilly...” Alex murmured worriedly, her gaze on her face.
“I’m okay.” She forced herself to smile at the young man offering to show them up the staircase to the ballroom. “We know the way.”
She climbed the gleaming wooden staircase alongside Alex, her heartbeat accelerating with every step she took. By the time they’d reached the top of the stairs and turned toward the glimmering ballroom it was in her mouth.
You can do this. You’ve done this hundreds of times before.
Except Riccardo had been by her side then. A rock in a world that had never been hers. And tonight was the beginning of LAR—Life After Riccardo.
She paused at the entrance, taking in the glittering colors and jewels of the beautifully dressed crowd, set off by the muted glow of a dozen priceless antique chandeliers that dated back to the English Regency period. A jazz band played in the corner of the room, but the buzz of a hundred conversations rose above it.
Her back stiffened. She hated jazz. Was Riccardo trying to make a statement? To illustrate to her how he’d moved on?
Alex grabbed her arm and propelled her forward. “You need a drink.”
Or ten, Lilly thought grimly as dozens of curious gazes turned on them and a buzz ran through the crowd. She switched herself on to autopilot—the only way she knew how to function in a situation like this—and started walking.
She lifted her chin when she saw Jay Kaiken and kept walking. As they moved toward the bar at the back of the room the strangest thing happened. Like the parting of the Red Sea, the crowd moved aside, dividing down the center of the room. On her left she recognized friends and acquaintances who had chosen to keep in touch with her rather than Riccardo after their separation. On her right she saw Riccardo’s business associates, his brother, cousins and political contacts.
“It’s like our wedding all over again,” she breathed, remembering how she’d walked into that beautiful old Catholic cathedral on the Upper East Side to find her family and friends on one side—the neatly dressed, less-than-glamorous Iowa farm contingent alongside her girlfriends and schoolmates—and Riccardo’s much larger, understatedly elegant clan on the other—all ancient bloodlines and aristocratic heritage.
As if their marriage was to be divided from the beginning.
Maybe that should have been her first clue.
She held her head high and kept walking. A tingle went down her spine. Her skin went cold. Riccardo was in the room. Watching her. She could feel it.
Turning her head, she found him—like a homing pigeon seeking its target. He looked furious. Seething. She swallowed hard, a flock of butterflies racing through her stomach. Riccardo spoke four languages—English, Spanish, German and his native Italian. But he did not have to utter a single word from those sensuous, dangerous lips for her to understand the emotion radiating from his eyes.
Hell. She touched her face in a nervous gesture that drew his gaze. Only Riccardo had ever been able to pull off that passionate intensity while still calling himself a twentieth-century man.
“Don’t let him intimidate you,” Alex murmured. “This is your divorce party, remember? Own it.”
Easier in theory than in practice. Particularly so when Riccardo relieved a waiter of two glasses of champagne and strode toward them, with a look of intent on his face that shook her to her core. She absorbed this new Riccardo. He looked as indecently gorgeous as ever in a black tux that set off his dark good looks. But it was the hard edge to him that was different. The strongly carved lines of his face seemed to have deepened, harshened. He’d shaved off the thick, dark waves that had used to fall over his forehead in favor of a short buzz cut that made him look tougher, even more dangerously attractive if that was possible. And the ruthless expession on his face, the glitter in those dark eyes, had never been used on her quite like that before.
Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, her pulse picking up into a rapid, insistent rhythm that had her nails digging into her palms. Why, after everything they’d gone through, was he still the only man who could simply look at her and make her shake in her shoes?
Alex nudged her. “Dangerous controlled substance, remember?”
Lilly squared her shoulders and pulled in a deep breath as Riccardo stopped in front of them. He leaned down and brushed a kiss against her cheek. “Late and wearing pink. One would think you’re deliberately trying to antagonize me, Lilly.”
Her pulse sped into overdrive. “Maybe I’m celebrating my new-found freedom.”
“Ah, but you don’t have it yet,” he countered, moving his lips to the other cheek. “And you aren’t putting me in the kind of mood to grant it to you.”
Lilly was aware of all the eyes on them as he pulled back and stung her face with a reprimanding look that made her feel like a fifth-grader. “Don’t play games with me, Riccardo,” she said quietly. “I will turn around and walk out of here so fast you won’t know what hit you.”
His dark eyes glinted. His mouth tipped up at the corners. “You’ve already done that, tesoro, and now you’re back.”
Something exploded in her head. She was about to tell him exactly what she thought of his ultimatum, but he was bending down and kissing Alex.
“Buonasera. I trust you’re well?”
“Never better,” Alex muttered.
“Do you think I might have a word with my wife alone?”
Wife. He’d said the word with such supreme confidence—a statement of fact that hung on the air between them like a challenge. A tremor went down Lilly’s spine.
“Whatever you have to say you can say it in front of my sister.”
“Not this.” His gaze bored into hers. “Unless you want every gossip columnist in New York reporting on our conversation, I suggest we do it in private.”
Considering it was only in the last few months Lilly’s name had finally disappeared from those columns, she conceded that might be a good idea. “Fine.”
Riccardo turned to Alex. “Gabe is getting you a drink at the bar.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Determined to force a confrontation between all the members of the De Campo and Anderson families tonight?”
“You’re only antagonistic toward the people who evoke strong emotions in you,” Riccardo taunted. “Try not to rip him in two, will you?”
“You think that’s a good idea?” Lilly murmured, more to distract herself from the warm pressure of Riccardo’s big hand splayed against her back as he directed her from the room than out of concern for her sister, who could hold her own.
“They love baiting each other. It’ll be the highlight of their evening.”
She struggled to keep up with his long strides as he walked her up the stairs to the third floor, where the bedrooms were, nodding at the security guard stationed there. “Why are we coming up here?” she murmured, flushing at the guard’s interested gaze. “Why don’t we just talk in your study?”
He kept walking past the guest bedrooms toward the master suite. “I won’t risk being overheard. We’ll talk on the patio off our bedroom.”
“Your bedroom,” Lilly corrected. “And I don’t think—”
“Basta, Lilly.” He glared at her. “I’m your husband, not some guy trying to come on to you.”
Lilly clamped her mouth shut and followed him through the double doors of the master suite. She would not, whatever she did, look at the huge canopy bed they had shared. The scene of more erotically charged encounters than she cared to remember.