“It started to get bad for me again after that first year, when our honeymoon with the media wore off and they made a game out of criticizing how I looked or what I wore.”
“Which they do with anyone who’s in the limelight like that,” he interjected.
“Yes. But for me it was harder. Anorexia isn’t something with a lot of outward signs. It’s insidious. I withdraw. I stop eating. It becomes impossible for me to look at my body objectively. Everything gets distorted.”
He frowned. “I thought it was a vanity thing. The need to look perfect.”
A rueful smile curved her mouth. “The need to not hate myself would be more accurate.”
His jaw hardened. “Was I really that impossible to talk to? Did I really demand that much perfection from you?”
“It comes with your life, Riccardo. It’s expected from those around you.”
His jaw hardened. “We could have made adjustments to our life to make things easier for you.”
She shook her head. “You’re going to be the head of a ten-billion-dollar conglomerate when you take over from your father. You couldn’t make those changes even if you wanted to.”
His dark eyes glittered. “We could have. We could have done what was necessary and let the rest go.”
“You’re a dreamer,” she bit out. “You needed a new wife. And you refused to admit it.”
His lip curled. “I did not need a new wife. I needed a wife with the guts to tell me what was wrong. I needed a wife who was there for me at one of the lowest points of my life and instead you were gone.”
She recoiled. “I had lost myself, Riccardo. I had lost the ability to keep myself in balance. If I hadn’t left I would have reverted back to my old bad habits and destroyed myself.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You couldn’t have waited until I’d gotten back? Been there for me?”
She pushed hard against his chest and this time he let her go. Finding the sandy bottom with her feet, she stood facing him. “What happened in Italy? All I knew was that you’d been summoned there on Antonio’s orders.”
He scraped his wet hair out of his face. “It doesn’t matter now. We’re talking about why you left.”
“Goddammit, Riccardo.” She took a step closer and jabbed her finger in his face. “We are talking about why I left. You never talk. You never tell me how you’re feeling. What the hell happened in Tuscany?”
His face tightened into a stony stillness. “I knew the restaurant business was the future for De Campo. Knew we needed to diversify. Antonio didn’t agree. He forbade me to proceed with the plans I had for Orvietto.” He paused. “I signed the lease anyway.”
She let out a slow breath. “He lost his mind...?”
“He threatened to strip me of my title and kick me out of the company.”
“What?” Her mouth dropped open. “He wouldn’t have done that.”
“He would have!”
She took a step back as he practically yelled the words at her.
“The only reason he didn’t was because my decision was right. I proved him wrong. Orvietto proved him wrong. But when I came back to New York that night I thought I’d lost everything. I’d given up the sport I loved for an old man who didn’t give a damn, I was about to lose my job at De Campo, and then I walked into our house—into our empty house—to find the only person who could make me feel better and a teary Magda informed me you’d gone. Gone.” His gaze, dark and tormented, swept over her. “I hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours. I just looked at her and said, ‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’”
Lilly felt a wave of nausea sweep over her. She’d been so lost in her own private hell she’d been numbed against the bizarre, disjointed tone of his voice when he’d called that night from overseas.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears stinging the back of her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
He looked away, the sun reflecting off the hard line of his jaw. “It isn’t always about you, Lilly.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I never thought it was.”
The waves lapped gently around them, the only sound in this private slice of paradise.
“How did things ever get so bad between you two?”
He looked back at her. “Between Antonio and I?”
She nodded.
“The day of my graduation from Harvard I told him I’d signed with TeamXT. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I couldn’t say no to. I’d been driving every summer, whenever I could, but this—this was my chance. I told Antonio I needed a couple of years to get it out of my system—that I’d join De Campo after that.” He shrugged. “I knew he wasn’t going to be happy, but I thought, given the opportunity, he might understand.” A bitter note filled his tone as he continued. “I should have known better. He gave me an ultimatum instead. Join De Campo or forget ever being a part of it.”
“You walked away?”
“We didn’t speak after that until he became ill and asked me to take over.”
“He expected you to come back after all that?”
He exhaled roughly. “You have to understand Antonio’s background. His father was a tyrant. He browbeat Antonio into running the business when all my father ever wanted to do was work with animals. He wanted to raise prize-winning racehorses, not prize-winning vines, but his father had built a thriving business and Antonio was expected to take over.”
“So by following your dream with racing you became everything he’d ever wanted to be?”
“Sì. I was the ultimate insult.”
“So why not choose Gabe to head the company? He has such a love for it.”
He grimaced. “Antonio is old-fashioned. He could never get past the fact that his eldest son should carry on as CEO. And, despite the animosity between us, we have always been the same. Tough sons-of-bitches who know how to get what we want.”
How true that was. She blinked, trying to absorb it all. “And what about your mother? She didn’t interject through all of this?”
“You’ve met her,” he said roughly. “My mother toes the party line. Their marriage is based on mutual ambition. Emotion doesn’t have anything to do with it. Not with her boys, either. She would have carted us off to boarding school in true aristocratic fashion if my father hadn’t insisted we learn the wine business.”
Emotions swirled inside her. Suddenly she wasn’t certain of anything anymore. Whether she’d been right to leave him. Whether she should have worked harder at her marriage. It was all riddled with intricacies she had no way of assimilating.
“So what now?” she asked huskily. “You wait while Antonio strings you along?”
He shook his head. “He’s retiring in three months. He’s promised to hand De Campo over to me then. If,” he murmured bitterly, “I continue to prove to him I deserve it.”
She flinched. “You could walk away. Go back to racing...”
His expression turned black as night. “I can’t go back.”
“You can do anything you want. You’re a winner, Riccardo. You move mountains when you need to.”
“You think I don’t want to?” The words exploded out of him. “Every morning when I was driving I woke up feeling lucky to be on this planet. I was free. I was alive. Everytime I stepped on that racetrack I challenged the very core of myself. I was the best. The adrenalin, that charge that came at the starting line from driving a vehicle more powerful than any other on the planet—it defined me.”
“So do it,” she urged. “You don’t owe Antonio anything. This is your life, not his.”
His broad shoulders stiffened. “This is about honor. Not about doing what I want. Something I’m not sure you know much about. You walked away from your family and you walked away from me. But sometimes you have to hang in there, Lilly. Sometimes you have to fulfill the promises you’ve made. Even if it interferes with the grand plan.”
His anger rippled through her, the depth and fury of it rocking her back on her heels. It was too much. Too much had passed between them. There was no going back.
“I think we should get some breakfast,” she murmured, needing to break the intensity. “Mrs. Adams must have it ready by now.”
“By all means.” He nodded savagely. “Wouldn’t want the eggs to cool while you do a little soul-searching.”
She turned her back on him and started walking. Five and a half months. She could do this.
* * *
If it was possible to spend the day in heaven and feel as if you were in hell, then Lilly had managed to capture perfectly that peculiar and miserable experience. She’d spent the day on the private beach with an introspective version of her husband, surrounded by a shimmering sexual tension that was impossible to ignore despite the fact it seemed they were a million miles apart.