Modern Romance March 2017 Books 5 -8. Natalie Anderson

to come up with an alternative.”

      “It’s one weekend. There’s nothing pressing between now and then. Work around it.” He pointed his whiskey glass at her. “This is where we learn to compromise, Angie. You give, I give—that’s how it works.”

      Her mouth flattened. “Fine.”

      “Good. Gillian will plan it, you will contribute your guest list and the staff in the Hamptons will execute. All you need to do is show up.”

      Her expression remained frozen. He sought the patience he was not known for. “I expect you to invite your family. Whatever’s going on between you and your parents, you need to fix it. This will be a good opportunity to do so.”

      “No.” The word flew out of her mouth—swift and vehement. He lifted a brow. “I went to see them last week,” she explained. “They aren’t in the Hamptons much anymore in the summer. There’s no point in inviting them.”

      “I’m sure they’ll make the effort to come. It will look strange if they’re not there given I do business with your father.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “Speaking of parents, mine will be visiting the week after the party. They’ll stay at their apartment, but we’ll host them here for dinner. Decide on a date with Gillian that works for you.”

      Her face fell further, if that was possible. “What did you tell them? About us?”

      “That we’ve decided to make this marriage work. That we made a decision in haste at a time when we were both in pain and now we are rectifying it.”

      “So you chose to leave out the part where you’re bullying me into becoming your wife again?”

      “I prefer to think of it as a mutually beneficial arrangement. Motivation for us to make this marriage work.” He leveled his gaze on her combative face. “We made a deal, a commitment to each other, Angelina. I meant it when I said your heart and soul have to be in it, but I’m not so unfeeling that I don’t understand you need time to adjust. After that settling-in period, however, I expect an attitude adjustment, because this is not how it’s going to be.”

      * * *

      An attitude adjustment? Angie was still fuming after she and Lorenzo had shared a tense, mostly silent dinner on the terrace, where she ate little and talked less. It had been so generous of him to concede she needed time and space after what he’d done to her. Clearly she should be falling into line, looking forward to spending more time with his PA than she did her husband.

      Her mouth twisted. I meant it when I said your heart and soul have to be in it. He didn’t even have a heart...or a soul for that matter. What would he know about it?

      Lorenzo was ensconced in his home office to finish some work, so she elected to have a hot bath and go to bed. Constanza had unpacked all her things in the light, airy master bedroom, with its gorgeous vistas of the park, the housekeeper’s usual ruthless efficiency putting everything back as if she’d never left.

      It was eerie to pull a nightgown from a puddle of silk in a drawer and untangle her hair with the pearl-backed brush that sat on the dresser in the exact same place it used to be. On edge, her nerves in disarray, she headed for a rose-scented bath in the Italian-tiled en suite, immersing herself up to her ears in hot, cathartic bubbles.

      All sarcasm aside, she was relieved with her husband’s acknowledgment they needed time—that he didn’t expect her to jump into bed with him as seamlessly as her brush had landed back on the dresser. But clearly, she thought, stomach knotting, given that her things were where they were, he expected her to share that bed with him. The thought made her search desperately for something else to focus on, like why he had rose-scented bath bubbles in here.

      Either Constanza had been thoughtful, as she was wont to be, or they had belonged to one of his lovers. Because surely, the tabloids couldn’t be right? Surely her highly sexual husband, who’d thought he was divorced, had had other women?

      You haunt me, Angelina, every time I’m with another woman... Her heart sank, a numb feeling settling over her. He’d pretty much admitted he had. Lorenzo wouldn’t have spent two years pining after her as she had him. Going dateless until Byron wouldn’t take no for an answer.

      The thought of her husband with other women lanced her insides. She sank farther into the bubbles and closed her eyes. They had been so happy in the beginning. That’s what hurt the most. What might have been.

      After Lorenzo had accepted the consequences of what a broken condom had produced, he’d submitted willingly to her mother’s ostentatious society wedding—what he’d considered a politically advantageous match, she suspected. She’d been too crazy about him to care.

      They’d spent the first months of their marriage in a pheromone-induced haze, tuning out the world. In Lorenzo’s arms, her worries about why he’d married her had faded to black. He’d hungered after her with an intensity that had made her feel as if she’d been the most important thing on the planet to him, their addictive obsession with each other inescapable, unassailable. The wounded pieces of her, the parts that had been convinced she was unlovable after a childhood devoid of emotion, had begun to heal. For the first time in her life, she’d felt whole, as if she was worthy of love.

      And how could she not? Having her husband focus on her, choose to engage, had been like having the most powerful force in the universe directed at her. Suddenly all the pieces of her life had been falling into place and happiness had seemed attainable after years of wondering if it even existed.

      Until reality had interceded—one of Lorenzo’s big, flashy deals had come along, he’d immersed himself in it and their cozy cocoon had become her husband’s insanely busy life.

      She’d learned being Mrs. Lorenzo Ricci had meant wining and dining his business contacts multiple times a week, their social schedule so exhausting for a pregnant Angie she’d barely been able to keep up. She’d begun to feel as if she was drowning, but Lorenzo hadn’t seemed to care, was too busy to notice.

      It had all come to a head when they’d lost their baby. Her increasingly distant husband withdrew completely, rendering him a virtual stranger. He’d descended into the blackness, whatever hell had been consuming him, and they’d never recovered. But, apparently, she thought bitterly, it was her obsession with Lucia that had crippled their marriage—not his.

      The water cooling, a chill descending over her, she got out of the bath and got ready for bed. Slipping the silk nightie over her head, her eyes were half-closed by the time she stood in front of the beautiful, chrome, four-poster bed.

      Too many memories crowding her head, a burn in her chest so painful it was hard to breathe, she fought back the hot, fat tears that burned her eyes. I can’t do it. She could no more get into that bed as if the last two years hadn’t happened than she could convince herself that coming back to Lorenzo hadn’t been a big, huge mistake.

      She padded down the hall to the guest room. Done in soothing pale blues and yellow, it evoked none of the master bedroom’s painful echoes. Pulling back the silk coverlet, she slid between the sheets. Peace descended over her. She was out like a light in minutes.

      * * *

      She woke to a feeling of weightlessness. Disoriented, half-asleep, she blinked against the velvet black of night. Registered the strong arms that cradled her against a wall of muscle. Heat. The subtle, spicy, familiar scent seduced her into burrowing closer. Lorenzo.

      Lost in the half-awake state that preceded full consciousness, bereft of time and place, the dark, delicious aroma of her husband seeping into her senses, she flattened her palm against the hard planes of his chest. Reveled in his strength. Registered the rigid set of his body against hers.

      Her eyes flew open, consciousness slamming into her swift and hard. The taut line of Lorenzo’s jaw jolted her the rest of the way to full alertness. Cold, dark eyes that glittered like diamonds in the dim light.

      “Wh-what are you doing?” she stuttered as he carried her down the hallway and into the master bedroom.

      He