She flicked on the lights in the front sitting room and sat down on the sofa. Riccardo poured himself a Scotch and paced the room like a restless, lethal animal that had no idea what its next move would be.
Finally he stopped by the fireplace and rested an elbow on the mantel, his gaze sinking into her. “It happened in Barbados if that’s the timing.”
She nodded. “I forgot my pill that morning we flew down. I didn’t realize it until after we’d had sex.”
His gaze narrowed. “You didn’t see fit to tell me?”
She pressed her lips together. “The chances of anything coming from it were minuscule.”
“Well, it happened,” he growled. “You should have told me.”
She got to her feet, feeling too vulnerable while he towered over her. “What difference would it have made? It happened. Now we’re going to have to decide how we’re going to deal with it.”
He was in front of her so fast her head spun, his fingers biting into her arms. “We are having this baby.”
“Of course we are.” She stared at him, aghast. “Well, technically I am having this baby, and we are going to have to figure out how it’ll work after we separate.”
“Separate?”
She watched him digest the word as if it were a particularly tough piece of steak.
“We are not carting this baby back and forth between the two of us, Lilly.”
“What are you suggesting, then?” she demanded flippantly. “That we stay together and live happily ever after?”
His lips curved in a smile that showed his teeth. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting, tesoro. Glad you’re keeping up with me.”
A feeling akin to shock settled over her. She studied his face, searching for some sign he was joking, but other than his twisted smile there was nothing but grim determination. Her chin lifted. “There is no way in hell I’m staying in an unhappy marriage. I know what it’s like to grow up like that, and I won’t do it to a child.”
“You think it’s better to subject them to a tug of war between two adults?”
“I think it’s better to create an amicable separation where we both have this baby’s best interests at heart.”
“Buona prova, Lilly,” he drawled. “But I’m not about to let your baggage destroy the future of our child. You contest this and I’ll make it a court battle of epic porportions.”
She shrugged out of his hold. “You are crazy. This is crazy.” She looked at him desperately. “It will never work.”
“It will work because we’ll make it work.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stood looking down at her like the impenetrable force he was. “Haven’t we proved the last few weeks we can compromise?”
“About our social schedule,” she said dully. How would a child fare in a marriage based solely on sex? In a marriage so far gone there was no pulling it back?
He lifted her chin with his fingers. “We have been good together lately, Lil. And we once had a fantastic marriage. We can make this work.”
Or the bitterness between them would consume both them and their child, just as it had her.
She went for the jugular. “Don’t you remember what it was like to live as part of a business partnership? Do you want that for yourself? For your child?”
“If what we’ve been doing in bed is a business partnership, then I’m all for it,” he returned with a mocking smile. “Sign me up.”
“You are—” She spun away, frustration burning a path of fire through her.
“A man who wants the family that was promised to him,” he rasped. “You are having my child, Lilly. De Campos don’t divorce. So this is it. And I want more than one. My brothers are the most precious thing I have. I want that for our child.”
Once she would have been sure he would say she was the most precious thing he had. Wrapping her arms around herself, she stared up at him. “So you were never going to let me walk away?”
“You would have been free to walk when our deal was up. But I would never have remarried.”
Why? She wanted to scream it at him, but her throat felt as if it was closing over as the inevitability of what had happened hit her. How could she have been so stupid as to allow this to happen? To do the one thing that would bind her to the man she loved forever when she would never have his love back?
“I’m tired,” she said abruptly, sure that if she attempted one more word she was going to sob. “I need some rest.”
He let her go.
Overwhelmed and exhausted, she climbed the stairs to the bedroom, unzipped her dress and left it on the floor. She washed her face and brushed her teeth and slipped beneath the silk sheets of their bed. The dark, silent room finally allowed a refuge for her tears. They ran hot, silent, down her face.
What once would have been the news that completed her and Riccardo’s dream had only driven them further apart.
She cried for that dream. She cried for her childhood. She cried for Riccardo’s. She cried for the damage they had done to each other. And when he came after her and reached for her with strong, comforting hands she curled into him and let him hold her until her tears soaked his shirt.
“Don’t be sad, amore mio,” he murmured. “The past is the past. We are in control of our future and I promise you we can make this work.”
My love. He’d said it not in the taunting tone he’d adopted of late, but the way he’d used to say it to her. Her sobs gradually subsided into big, hiccuping breaths that shook her body. When she was silent against him he undressed her and moved over her, kissing every inch of her skin. His passionate tenderness revealed more to her than he ever could have said with words.
They had a chance. He might not have meant the words literally—maybe they had just been to comfort her—but as her head rested on his chest and the solid warmth of him put her to sleep her heart told her differently. She had seen that look on his face before.
He cared more than he was saying.
Could she hope his feelings would eventually turn into love again, for the sake of their unborn child? Or was she just fooling herself in a very dangerous game?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN LILLY WAS a little girl she’d dreamed of attending a Hollywood movie premiere on the arm of a handsome man, with paparazzi flashbulbs exploding in her face as they made their way down the red carpet. She would blink, steady herself on his arm, and continue on, a big smile on her face as she showed off her very fabulous dress.
Never once, outside of those dreams, had she allowed herself to believe she would actually live that life. Not Lilly the awkward, shy farmgirl. Not even Lilly the graduate physiotherapist with a budding career in front of her, living in one of the most exciting cities in the world where red carpets were a star-studded fixture.
Then she’d met Riccardo. And her life had become that dream. Only for her to realize how lonely and empty a life it was.
She walked into her office and shut the door, feeling as if her life had come full circle. Tonight she was to walk the red carpet for the premiere of this summer’s hottest blockbuster with her very own dark and dangerous male. The man she was falling more in love with every day she was with him.
She didn’t want the dream. She wanted what was real. She wanted him.
She sank down in her office chair and dropped her head into her hands. She had married Riccardo for the man he’d been early in their marriage. And ever since they’d returned from Barbados she’d seen glimpses of him again.
He’d been by her side through all the doctor’s appointments and tests, asking the pertinent questions her scrambled brain didn’t think to. He’d made her sit down to a proper meal every night, and sent her to bed early. And when he did he would stay for a few minutes before he started working again. He would cradle her against him and talk to her, even confide in her if his mood was right. She was realizing how complex a man her husband was—that she’d never really known him in their two years of marriage.
Or one, if you counted the year they’d stopped talking.
He’d sacrificed so much for De Campo. And she was starting to see what becoming CEO would do for his soul. It was the final piece in the puzzle that was Riccardo De Campo.
She wondered how she’d never seen it before.
Weariness swept over her and she closed her eyes just for a moment. The weight of the decision she had to make was killing her. Was she going to follow her heart, agree to stay with Riccardo and hope she was right about his feelings for her? Or was she going to run and fight him all the way to the bitter end for custody of a child who would become a pawn in their tug of war?
She’d promised herself she would stop running. Which also meant running from herself.
She blinked to keep herself awake, so exhausted she wanted to crawl onto her desk and sleep there. She had nothing to wear tonight that fit, and hadn’t had time to shop since she’d really started showing.