LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SIX

      “THIS IS YOUR idea of convincing the board you’re the man to lead De Campo?”

      Gabe shoved a folded newspaper under Riccardo’s nose.

      He sat back in his office chair and glanced at the tabloid. It was the same one Lilly had waved in his face this morning on her way to work. Having the juiciest of all the coverage of the charity event, it sported the headline “Trouble in Paradise—Already?”, which was set over a montage of three photos of him and Lilly laid out in timeline fashion.

      The first was of him kissing her on the dance floor. He studied it critically. They looked very much in love, despite the fact they hadn’t talked in days. The second was of Lilly falling off the runway into Taylor’s arms. His mouth tightened. That he’d like to forget. The third was a shot of himself restraining the surgeon after he’d thrown that punch.

      All in all, fairly damaging.

      “What can I say?” He shrugged. “It’s a slow news day.”

      Gabe lifted a brow at him. “What the hell happened? Fisticuffs aren’t usually your style—although lately I have to say you’re doing a pretty good job of it.”

      Riccardo spread his fingers in an expressive gesture. “He threw a punch.”

      Gabe sat on the edge of his desk. “Why?”

      “He cornered Lilly and made it clear he was going to be around to pick up the pieces when I broke her heart. I took offense at that.”

      His brother let out a low whistle. “I’m surprised you didn’t slug him.”

      “That would have been giving the board far too much ammunition.”

      “And Lilly falling off the runway?”

      “The designer forgot to do up her shoe.”

      “You’re kidding?”

      He crumpled up the paper and tossed it freethrow-style into the garbage can he kept across the room for exactly that purpose. “She was a trooper. She got right back up there and did it again.”

      “That’s Lilly.” His brother grinned. “She has spirito.”

      Until the end. When she’d become a shadow of her former self. When she’d had that same look on her face she’d had before going up on that stage every night before they’d gone out. As if she’d been dreading it.

      A wave of remorse settled over him. He’d been the son-of-a-bitch who’d made her go up there. And, even though he had no idea what had set her off, it had been wrong to do it.

      Dio. He picked up his coffee and glowered into it. Lilly had used to be comfortable in the center of it all. They’d been nicknamed the Golden Couple for their ability to work a room.

      So what had changed?

      She had accused him of never being there for her. The symbolic act of Taylor rescuing her and not him had been a brutal shot to his ego. Not just because he’d been five feet away and Taylor had sprung out of his seat like Sir Galahad on a white steed. But because it had once again reinforced the fact that she’d left him. That he wasn’t the one she wanted. The fact that he had no clue who she really was.

      His hand tightened around the coffee cup, red-hot anger slicing through him. It was time he and Lilly had a long conversation about a lot of things—not the least of which was what had really happened to her during those last few months of their marriage. Why she’d frozen him out. Become a ghost of who she’d been. It had to be about more than Chelsea. And he was sure that last night held the key to at least some of it.

      Gabe glanced at his watch. “You ready?”

      Riccardo nodded.

      The cold war between him and Lilly couldn’t go on forever. Not with this battle with the board and his father ahead of him. Not when he was intent on claiming what was rightfully his. Both at home and in the boardroom.

      There was a knock on the door. He got to his feet as Paige, his PA, came in.

      “The meeting’s about to start.”

      He nodded and slipped on his jacket. It was possibly the most important meeting of his life, in which he was to lay out his plans for De Campo’s future to the board, and here he was obsessing over his wife. His mouth twisted. Lilly would find that bitterly amusing, he was sure.

      He picked up his laptop and followed Gabe out of the room.

      “Ah...Riccardo?” Paige lifted a brow at him as he walked past her.

      “Mmm?”

      “Want the blueprints?”

      The blueprints of their new restaurant in SoHo. The centerpiece of his presentation. He grimaced and took them from her. “What would I do without you?”

      * * *

      Antonio had the same salacious tabloid Riccardo had now seen twice this morning tucked in front of him when they walked into the room. Riccardo swept his gaze around the table. So did Phil Bedford and Chase Kenyon. Hell. Was his life a walking soap opera?

      “Smoothing the way, I see,” his father murmured as he took his place beside him. “Did you know Phil Bedford plays golf with Harry Taylor?”

      Riccardo deposited his laptop on the table with slightly more force than was necessary, picked up his father’s paper and waved it in the air. “Looks like most of you have seen the paper this morning?”

      Matty’s mouth dropped open. Gabe looked fascinated. All the other extremely senior heads of their corporations sat there silently and stared at him. He shifted his gaze to Phil Bedford, the portly CEO of a consumer packaged goods company pushing fifty.

      “Harry Taylor wants to date my wife. I don’t consider that a valid proposition since she is still my wife. So I acted on it.” He threw the paper down on the table like the trash it was and eyed the room. “If anyone would like to crucify me with this please do so now, so we can get on with business.”

      Phil Bedford stared down at his coffee. Chase Kenyon doodled on his notepad.

      “Fine.” Riccardo looked at Antonio. “All yours.”

      He could have sworn his father was holding back laughter as he got to his feet and opened the meeting. Antonio gave a holistic presentation on how the De Campo Group was performing worldwide, every bit the elegant global wine baron as he talked through the slides in his thick accent, then turned the meeting over to Riccardo for an update on the restaurant business.

      Riccardo opened with an overview of the division’s strong growth prospects, then ran through a presentation on the new jewel in the De Campo restaurant crown—Zambia, the SoHo restaurant set to open in six months. He saw the lights go on in the board members’ eyes as he spoke of the twelve percent overall profit increase the restaurant division would bring in, and knew he’d driven home his message of where the future was for De Campo.

      He sat down, his jaw clenched with satisfaction. He had nailed it.

      Gabe stood to give an update on the California operations. Another board member gave a presentation on how lessons learned from the packaged goods

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