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“Most of the companies I acquire would eventually fail. It’s only a matter of time. In Belmont’s case, they have lost sight of what the luxury traveler is looking for—their profits have nose-dived. Call it being cruel to be kind.”
“A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf...” She pointed her glass at him. “The question is, when is it all going to be enough, this obsession you have with owning the world?”
He rested his glass on his thigh. “What would you have me do? Rest on my laurels? Tell my shareholders I’ve proven myself—‘so sorry, but that’s all the profit you can expect this year...’”
She set her gaze on his. “You could try addressing the demons that drive you.”
His dark, spiky lashes swept down. “We aren’t here to talk about the past. We’re here to discuss our current situation.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she murmured, “that subject is off-limits. I forgot the rules of the game.”
His jaw tightened. “Stop baiting me, Angelina, and tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“Your proposition is outrageous. To expect me to dissolve my engagement and come back to you, simply to ensure the continuation of the Ricci line...”
He shook his head. “I told you, it’s about more than that. It’s about both of us putting the effort into this marriage we should have in the first place. About living up to the vows we made.”
“You divorced me.”
“It was a mistake.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean ‘a mistake’?”
“I mean you like to run from your problems, cara. And maybe I was running, too. But given the current circumstances, given we are still married, technicality or not, we need to rectify that mistake. I did not intend on marrying twice. I certainly don’t intend on marrying a third time.”
She came back to reality with a crashing thud. “You don’t want me,” she said flatly, “you know that. You want a nice little Italian wife your mother will love who will host your dinner parties, charm your business acquaintances and greet you at the door every night in sexy lingerie. That would be your idea of perfection.”
An amused glint entered his gaze. “I’m fairly sure I would be bored with an obedient wife after you. But you are right on the lingerie—that would be my idea of perfection.”
She said a very bad word in her head. “You don’t even know who I am anymore. I’m different. Changed. Not the woman you married, nor will I ever be again.”
“Then I look forward to finding out who that woman is.” He gave her an appraising look. “I’m prepared to make concessions to make this work. Your career is a case in point. You’ve clearly become very successful. You’ve worked hard to get where you are. As long as it doesn’t interfere with our important commitments, we’ll make it work.”
We’ll make it work? Heat rose up inside of her. He had no idea what her work meant to her. The sanity it had been throughout her rocky life.
“As for my mother,” he continued, “she had certain...preconceived notions regarding our marriage you never dispelled with your behavior. You also never made an effort with her. If you do so, I expect you’ll find her a different woman.”
Her fingers curled into a fist. “She thought I deliberately trapped you into marriage.”
“Not an unreasonable assumption when our one night together resulted in a pregnancy. I did, however, make it clear that the responsibility lay on both of us.”
“How big of you.” A red mist of fury wrapped itself around her brain. “What other concessions are you prepared to make, Lorenzo? Are you prepared to let me beneath that impenetrable layer of yours? Talk to me instead of shutting me out? Confront our issues instead of pushing me to the outer fringes of your life until I cease to exist?”
“Yes.” The low rumble in his voice vibrated through her. “I understand I was distant at times...emotionally unavailable if you like. I recognize that as a fault of mine I need to work on. But let’s just be clear, Angelina, you locked me out just as surely as I ever did you with those cast-iron defenses of yours.”
After the big chill had begun. Because eventually it had become too painful to give and never get anything back.
Hurt contracted the muscles around her heart. The wine warming her blood, loosening her inhibitions, made her reckless. “If we’re going for the brutal truth here,” she growled, “if we’re not going to pull our punches, then let’s get all the skeletons out on the table shall we? The real reason our marriage failed was Lucia. Because you would have preferred to stay in your cave, pining for your dead wife. Instead you had to marry me.”
The color leached from his olive skin. His face tightened, cheekbones standing out like blades. The cold fire that engulfed his dark eyes told her she’d gone too far this time. “It was your obsession with Lucia that you wouldn’t let go of, not mine.”
Her chin lifted, heart pounding in her chest. “Tell yourself that enough and you might even start to believe it.”
The silence in the room was deafening. Chest tight, she pushed to her feet and crossed to the floor-to-ceiling windows that framed a magnificent view of Central Park lit up at night. Hugging her arms around herself, she took a deep breath and attempted to regain her equilibrium.
“You aren’t this heartless,” she said after a long moment, turning to face him. “I don’t believe you will let the Carmichael Company fail. You like my father too much.”
His eyes were a purposeful, dark velvet cool. “Then don’t make me. I meant what I said, Angie. I want you back. I want us to give this marriage the shot it deserves. You come back to me with your heart and head fully in it and I will ensure your legacy survives.”
The confusion swirling in her head deepened, thickened. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, struggled to contain her emotions, but they spilled outside of the edges of her barely shored-up walls. “Wasn’t it enough for you?” she asked, voice trembling. “Every second, every minute of those last excruciating months together? We couldn’t even be in the same room without tearing each other’s throats out. And when we did, it didn’t feel any better...it felt worse.”
He got to his feet and prowled toward her. “We lost a baby. It was painful, Angelina, it hurt.”
A rock climbed into her throat. “And here we are hurting each other again.”
He stopped centimeters from her. Her body reacted to the heat of him, the familiarity of him, vibrating with an internal memory she couldn’t control. She pressed her fingers to her cheeks, trying to hold it in, trying to stop the insanity midflow, but he saw it, read her as he always had, eyes darkening with heat.
“The point is to get past the pain. To deal with what we should have dealt with years ago.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, fear bubbling up inside of her like magma, threatening to push her on a course she knew she’d regret. “I’m engaged, Lorenzo. I love him.”
Fire licked his gaze. “You know that’s a lie.”
“It’s not a lie. It’s the truth.”
“You are my wife.” Curving an arm around her waist, he drew her to him. She swallowed as her vibrating body swayed perilously close to the wall of heat that drew her like a moth to a flame. She flattened a palm against his chest, but her feet wouldn’t seem to take her anywhere and her eyes locked on his. “Kiss me like you don’t belong to me,” he said huskily, “and I might reconsider.”
“No.” Her sharp response sounded as panicked as she felt. “Why are you doing this? Why are you being so cruel?”
“Because I should have stopped you the first time you walked out. Because the thought of you with another man drives me insane...because you haunt me, Angelina, every time I’m with another woman. All I can see is those beautiful blue eyes of yours and those vows we recited...” He cupped her jaw in his hand, fingers closing possessively over her skin. “Because we are not over, mi amore. We never will be.”
Her heart stuttered, an ache enveloping her that seemed to go soul-deep. “You can’t do this to me,” she said hoarsely. “Throw threats at me one minute, then say these things the next and just expect me to—”
He lowered his head, breath mingling with hers. “Prove you feel nothing for me. Prove what I’m saying isn’t true and I’ll walk away.”
“No.” But even as she said it, his mouth was covering hers in a whisper-soft caress that switched on every cell in her body. She closed her eyes. Just do it, Angie. Prove it to him, then walk away.
He slid a hand up her back, flattened his big palm against her spine. Warm, possessive, his touch seeped into her senses, stroked a wounded, jagged part of her that had never healed. Warning bells went off in her head, a blaring, unmistakable cautionary signal she should stop this now. But she had to convince him it was over.
Slow, infinitely gentle nudges of his mouth demanded a response. She held herself rigid, determined to end it. Tightening his fingers around her jaw, he tilted her head back and took a deeper possession of her mouth. The alarm bells in her head grew louder as the sweet intoxication of his kiss melted her bones.
“Lorenzo—”
He slicked his tongue across her lower lip. Erotic, intimate, it sent shock waves of pleasure rocketing through her. Her mind blanked, stomach clenched, fingers curling around a handful of his T-shirt. He did it again, stroking soft, vulnerable flesh with a deliberate possession that made her quiver.
When he flicked his tongue along the seam of her lips and demanded entry, she obeyed, lost in a sea of sensation. He rewarded her with a hot, toe-curling caress that made her moan low in her throat, grab hold of him more firmly.
He brought her closer with the palm of his hand at her back. Swept it down to cup the flesh of her buttock. The kiss turned needy, desperate, her hips arching against his burgeoning arousal. Thick, hard, he was so potently virile he turned her blood to fire.
Reality slammed into her like a bucket of ice dropped over her head. She shoved a hand against his chest and pushed back. Breathless, her mouth bruised from his kisses, she stood staring at him.
How had that happened? How had she let that happen?
“I hate you,” she breathed. “I really do.”
His mouth twisted. “That makes two of us. Sometimes I really hate you, too, tesoro. It’s the rest of the time that messes us up.”
She shook her head. Backed away from him. Turning, she snatched her purse off the chair and walked out without looking back.
What had she done?
CHAPTER THREE (#u3bf6da5a-289f-5dfb-8e3e-17b4dc432018)
New York Daily Buzz
Society Shocker!
Word has it the engagement of up-and-coming designer Angelina Carmichael and district attorney candidate Byron Davidson is off after a flashy soiree to celebrate the couple’s betrothal just two weeks ago.
The buzz about town is the prominent lawyer is clearly devastated at the split, perhaps suggesting it was Angelina who called it off?
One can’t help but wonder if the reason for the break comes in the form of none other than Angelina’s ex: sexy corporate raider Lorenzo Ricci. The two were seen dining at Tempesta Di Fuoco last week, conjuring up images of the couple’s tempestuous marriage that offered this column a regular supply of juicy news over its fiery but short duration.
Given the much lusted-after Lorenzo has been curiously devoid of a woman on his arm since the split, suspicion is running rampant that Angelina could be the cause.
The question on everyone’s lips is...are the Riccis back on?
OH, FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE. Angie tossed the salacious tabloid on the coffee table in her studio, blood heating. Did those people not have better things to do with their time? Her heart sank as she imagined what Byron must be thinking. Feeling. How he was coping with the barrage of gossip that had spread through town faster than a forest fire eating up dry timber.
She hadn’t talked to him since the night after her confrontation with Lorenzo, when she’d given him back his ring. Since that kiss with her husband had made it clear she couldn’t marry her fiancé. Even if Lorenzo had miraculously changed his mind and offered to expedite their divorce, she still couldn’t have married her fiancé. Not after everything she’d done to prove she was over her husband, that she didn’t care about him anymore, had been exposed for the lie it was.
Her mouth turned down. That was why she’d felt so off the night of the engagement party. Because she’d been trying to convince herself she was in love with her ultraintelligent, grounded fiancé, that she wanted the opposite of her roller-coaster ride of a marriage, when in fact she had never truly gotten over Lorenzo—the man who had made her feel as if her emotions were out of control.
The movers, currently emptying her apartment above the studio of her possessions, stomped back in to take the final load of boxes out to the truck parked on the street. The ball of tension in her stomach grew as she witnessed what was left of her carefully constructed existence disappear before her eyes.
A conversation with her father had provided no alternatives to her husband’s proposition, only a suggestion by her father to repair the marriage she never should have left in the first place.
Potential investors were too spooked by Carmichael Company’s recent performance to touch the once lauded company, nor would her father’s pride allow him to hunt other offers of assistance. Which meant, as she’d feared, she was the only solution to this problem if her brother, James, who would someday soon run Carmichael Company and her sister, Abigail, were to have anything left of the company to inherit.
She picked up her coffee, taking a sip of the steaming brew and cradling the cup in her hands. Allowing Abigail to bear all the responsibility for her mother was also something she needed to fix. She had her life together now. She was strong. It was time to start assuming some of the responsibilities she’d been shirking so her sister could have a life, too.
Which didn’t negate the fear gripping her insides. The anger keeping her awake at night, tossing in her bed, leaving her hollow-eyed in the morning. That Lorenzo was forcing her into this reconciliation, using her family as leverage, made his intentions very clear. This was a power play for him like every other he executed on a daily basis. He wanted her back, needed his heir, so he’d made it happen.
It was not about his feelings for her. Or lack of them... About a sentimental, real desire to give what they’d had a second chance. It was about him repossessing what he felt was his. Staking his claim.
She set down her cup in its saucer. If she was going to do this, she needed to do it with her eyes wide-open, naïveté firmly banished. On her terms. She wasn’t going to allow him to take control, to overwhelm and intimidate her as he had the first time around. She wasn’t sacrificing the independence and freedom she’d carved out for herself and she wasn’t letting her husband break her heart again. Those were her rules.
Defiance drove her back to her worktable when the movers left, where her anger fueled a furious burst of productivity. By the time she finished up a couple of pieces for Alexander Faggini’s Fashion Week show, her watch read 7:00 p.m. Oops. She was supposed to be home having dinner with Lorenzo right now—their first night together again in the penthouse. Unfortunately, she was going to be at least a half hour late.
* * *
“How’s the deal going? Still mired in legalese?”
“Sì.” Lorenzo cradled his mobile between ear and shoulder while he poured himself a drink in deference to the end of the week. “There’s a few small points Bavaro and I have to work through. He’s been a bit of a wild card.”
“Bene.” Amusement danced in Franco’s voice. “I love watching Father on this one. To make Ricci the largest luxury hotel chain in the world is an accomplishment even he can’t match. It kills him to think of you surpassing his achievements.”
Lorenzo smiled. His father, retired now and serving on the boards of other companies, had an endless thirst for competition. That included the one he had with his sons. It had made the bonds between him and Franco even tighter as they had united to combat their father’s powerful personality, with Franco running the shipping operations out of Milan, while Lorenzo oversaw the rest of the company from New York.
“He needn’t worry he’ll be forgotten. He has more than his fair share of achievements.” Lorenzo lifted the whiskey to his mouth and took a sip. “So,” he said, as the fiery spirit burned a soothing path through his insides, “when were you going to tell me about the IVF? I have to hear it from the old man?”
A low oath. “I should have known he’d jump the gun. We didn’t get the results on the latest procedure until today. I was waiting until we knew for sure before laying that on you.”
“I figured it was something like that.” He paused a beat, searching for the right words. “So what was the verdict?”
“It didn’t work. Likely never will.”
A knot formed in his throat. “Mi dispiace. I know how much you and Elena wanted this.”
“It is what it is.”
The raspy edge to his brother’s voice gutted him. It always hurt to be so far away but right now it felt like the sharp blade of a knife. “How is Elena taking the news?”
“Not well. She’s claiming it’s her fault even though I’ve told her it could just as easily be me.”
He closed his eyes. He didn’t know the pain of being denied what he’d always assumed to be his, but he did know what it was like to lose a baby. How deeply it had cut when just a week after being given a clean bill of health, Angelina had inexplicably lost their child. How you didn’t know how much you wanted something until it was taken away from you.
“Be there for her,” he said quietly. Do what he hadn’t done.
Franco exhaled. “We might adopt. I don’t know...it’s a big step.”
“It is. Take your time with it.”
A pause. Franco’s tone was wary when he spoke. “Your reconciliation with Angelina... The timing is...”
“It’s not because of this. Yes, there is that, but it’s become clear to me Angelina and I have unfinished business between us.”
“She walked out on you, fratello. How much more finished do you want it to be?”
Lorenzo winced, pressed a hand to his temple. “I bear responsibility for the demise of my marriage, too. You know I have my ghosts.”
“Sì. But she changed you, Lorenzo. You shut down after she left. You don’t trust like you used to—you aren’t the same man.”
No, he wasn’t. His wife had taken a piece of him with her when she’d walked out that door on the heels of the loss of his child, his fledgling trust in life and love, his half-built bond with Angelina vaporizing on a tide of bitterness so thick he’d wondered if he would ever move past it. But with time, as his grief over Lucia had subsided, his own faults had been revealed. It would be delusional of him to lay the blame solely at his wife’s feet.
“Angie was young. She needed time to grow. I intend for our marriage to work this time.”
“Or you will take the house down around you as you try.” A wry note stained his brother’s voice.
