Once a Ferrara Wife...

She slid across the seat slightly, trying to widen the distance. ‘The divorce will be final soon. You probably would have paid them to take me off your hands. Your stroppy, disobedient ex-wife.’

The tension in the car tightened to snapping point. ‘Until the ink is dry on those papers, you’re still a Ferrara. Act like one.’

Laurel leaned her head back against the seat.

Laurel Ferrara. A legal reminder that she’d made a bad decision. The name sounded better than the reality.

The large powerful Ferrara family was bound together by blood and centuries of history. Their name was synonymous with success, duty and tradition. Even his sister Daniela, for all her English university education and rebel ways, was settling down and marrying a Sicilian from a good family. Her future was mapped out. Secure. Within a year she’d have a baby. Then another. That was what the Ferraras did. They bred more Ferraras to continue the dynasty.

Laurel’s throat burned and she stared straight ahead of her, grateful for the sunglasses that hid her eyes.

There were so many things she didn’t allow herself to think about. So many places she didn’t allow her mind to visit.

It had been more than two years since she’d seen him and she’d disciplined herself not to look at his photograph or surf the Internet for images, knowing that the only way to survive was to try and wipe him from her brain. But that wasn’t easily done with this man.

Once seen, never forgotten. Cristiano was so insanely good-looking that wherever he went, women stared. And it had driven her mad even though he’d done nothing to attract that attention except be himself.

Her need proved stronger than her willpower and she glanced sideways.

Even dressed casually in black jeans and an open-necked polo shirt he looked spectacular and her body responded instantly to the raw male power that was so much a part of who he was. He would no more have apologised for his masculinity than would his caveman ancestors. His masculinity was his pride. And she’d dealt that pride a lethal blow.

‘Why didn’t Dani come with you to meet me?’

‘My sister believes in happy endings.’

What was that supposed to mean? That Daniela thought by allowing them to be alone together they’d fall into each other’s arms and heal a rift wider than the Grand Canyon?

Laurel thought about all Dani’s clumsy matchmaking attempts at college. ‘She always did believe in fairy tales.’ A long forgotten memory appeared through the haze of misery. A child’s room, complete with a canopy bed and pretty fairy lights. Shelves of books, all portraying life as a joyful adventure. A fantasy room. Annoyed with herself for thinking of that now, she shook her head slightly, dislodging the image from her mind. ‘Dani is an incurable romantic. I guess that’s why she’s getting married despite—’ She broke off but he finished her sentence.

‘—despite witnessing the wreckage of our marital car crash? Given your relaxed attitude to marriage vows, I’m staggered that you agreed to act as maid of honour. A decision bordering on the hypocritical, don’t you think?’

He shifted the blame onto her, absolving himself of all responsibility, and Laurel didn’t bother arguing because she didn’t want to change the outcome. If he hated her, fine. If anything, his animosity helped because it poisoned those dangerous feelings that still lurked deep inside.

As for being Dani’s maid of honour—

Laurel had thought of a million reasons to say no but none of them had come out of her mouth when talking to her friend. Mistake number four, she thought. How had she made so many? ‘I’m a loyal friend.’

‘Loyal?’ Slowly and deliberately, he removed his sunglasses and looked at her, those thickly lashed dark eyes revealing the depth of his own struggle. ‘You dare speak of loyalty? Perhaps this is a language thing because we definitely don’t have the same definition of that word.’ Unlike her, he didn’t hide his emotions. Instead he spilled them over her and the more honest he was, the more she withdrew. She was struggling to handle her own feelings. She certainly couldn’t handle his.

Drowning under the full force of his contempt, she pressed herself back against the seat, trying to calm her breathing. She could have hurled her own accusations but that would have taken them back to the past and all she wanted to do was move forwards. Her limbs were trembling and the tips of her fingers were suddenly ice-cold.

Knowing how important it was to control her stress levels, she forced herself to breathe slowly. ‘If you’re going to go for one of your volatile Sicilian Mount Etna-like explosions, at least wait until we’re behind closed doors. It’s just a wedding. We can get through this without killing each other.’