Nicolo: The Powerful Sicilian

“That’s your legal-eagle opinion? I hate to tell you this, kid, but if it is, you’re not ready for that bar exam.”

“You’re screwed,” his sister said softly, “because you’re in love with your wife.”

Nick snatched his hand from hers. “No way!”

“You’re in love with her, Nicky,” Isabella said, “and she’s in love with you, and unless one of you comes to your senses, you’re going to toss away a really good thing.”

Nick jerked his hand from hers, too. A muscle knotted in his jaw.

“You don’t get it,” he said coldly. “Alessia Antoninni—the Princess Antoninni—is one hell of an actress. Just because she saw her chance to play another scene in this farce, just because she told you she loves me—”

Anna stood up. “What she told us was that she despises you. That you’re the most pigheaded, most stubborn, most impossible idiot she’s ever met.”

Nick smiled grimly. “Sure sounds like a declaration of love to me.”

Isabella got to her feet, too. “Did you ever ask her to explain that conversation you overheard?”

“And hear another lie?” Nick hesitated. “Why? Did she explain it to you?”

“She didn’t explain anything. She didn’t tell us anything. She only said she hated you. And, Nicky, trust us. When a woman says she hates a guy the way Alessia said she hates you, what she’s really saying is that she’s crazy in love with him.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Nick said, but something inside him seemed to stretch its wings. “She doesn’t love me. And I don’t love her. Once she’s had my baby—”

“Nick,” Anna said gently, “go home. Talk to your wife. Ask her to tell you what she feels about you.”

“It’s pointless.”

Isabella smiled. So did Anna. It crossed Nick’s mind that they were right, they weren’t girls anymore.

“If it is,” Anna said, ?

??I know a really terrific almost-attorney who’ll handle the divorce, cheap.”

They blew him kisses, and then they were gone.

Nick’s PA left.

His brothers hadn’t been in at all that day. It was a Friday and all three had been out of town on business. They were back; Rafe and Dante had called a couple of hours ago, Falco had phoned minutes after that. All had left the same message. They’d be at The Bar at seven this evening, an old Friday-night habit, one they’d kept though they no longer stayed there longer than a couple of hours.

Nick considered stopping by for a beer. Anything to clear his head of the nonsense Anna had put into it.

No. Bad idea.

He’d tried that last week, figuring maybe it would keep him from thinking about Alessia. His brothers had spent the first hour talking about their wives and the second asking him how come he was so quiet lately and wasn’t there anything new in his life?

Not a hell of a lot, he’d been tempted to say, just a wife I don’t trust, a kid I didn’t plan on…

No. He was not going to drop into The Bar.

He wasn’t going to try and have a conversation with his wife, either—and he had to stop thinking of her that way. Alessia was no more his wife than she was the sweet, innocent, loving woman he’d believed her to be, he thought as he stepped from a cab outside his Central Park West condominium building.

She was exactly the cold, scheming daughter of the aristocracy he’d initially assumed her to be, and it was time to deal with reality.

Tomorrow, he’d ask a friend to recommend an attorney, meet with the guy and get his advice on how to safeguard himself and his unborn child when he divorced Alessia, which he would do as soon as the baby arrived. She could go home to Daddy or stay in the States. He’d support her; he knew his responsibilities. But his kid would be his. Entirely his. And if he had to fight for custody—

“Good evening, Mr. Orsini.”

Cheerful chitchat with the doorman. It was the last thing he was in the mood for.