LITMIR.BIZ

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She hugged her arms around herself and looked up at him. “It was a disaster. A huge mess.”

      There was a pregnant silence. His face paled. Yes, she thought viciously. That’s why what you did hurt so much.

      She kept going, afraid that if she stopped she’d never tell him the truth. “David seemed immune to it all. Lisbeth was too young to know what was happening. Alex dealt with it by getting into trouble—running with the wrong crowd. I internalized it. I thought if I could control everything about my life beyond them, beyond what was happening at home, I’d be okay.”

      Her mouth felt wooden, her lips thick, and the desire to stop talking was so strong it was hard to make herself form the words. “My big thing was food. I hated the way I looked so I controlled everything I put in my mouth.” She swallowed hard. “To the point where I was hardly eating.”

      His eyes darkened with an emotion she couldn’t read. “But you can’t ever have been fat. Why in the world would you hate yourself so much?”

      “I was a ‘chunky, healthy, solid-boned farmgirl,’ as my mother would say,” she said with a derisive smile. “And I hated it. No one wanted to date me. No one wanted to be with me.”

      “I find that hard to believe.”

      “It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I bloomed. Came into myself. You met me not long after that.”

      He frowned. “So why is it still so bad? I’ve seen men lust after you, Lilly. You know they do. That must give you some confidence.”

      “Yes.” She turned back to look at the brilliant sunset staining the sky now, the giant ball of orange and red sinking into the horizon. She swallowed past the hard, round mass in her throat that felt as if it was choking her, as if revealing her shameful secret might bring her to her knees. “But not before I developed anorexia.”

      There was a long silence. He scraped his hand over his jaw and stared at her. “I had no idea.”

      She made a face. “It’s not something you drop into casual conversation, like the fact I had a dog named Honey when I was little.”

      “Dio, Lilly.” He stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. “That’s not what I’m talking about. This is key to who you are. Essential information I need to know about you. I would never have put you through any of this if I’d known that.”

      She lifted her chin. “I didn’t want you to know.”

      “Why?” He threw up his hands. “Because for once I might see who the real Lilly De Campo is?”

      “No, I—”

      “Lilly, we’ve been as intimate as two people can be. We’ve spent hours devouring each other. Yet you still can’t tell me these profound truths about yourself? No wonder we’re messed up.”

      She shook her head and took a step back. “Sex and intimacy are two different things.”

      “They most certainly are,” he agreed tightly. “And the minute you turned into the Ice Queen and froze me out any intimacy we had was blown to bits.”

      She winced. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was trying to protect myself. My anorexia was my deep, dark secret. It was the thing no one knew about me in my new life. The thing I never wanted anyone to know about me. Most of all you.”

      A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Why?”

      She pressed her lips together. “You’re a perfect human being, Riccardo. Everything about you is so damn perfect that everyone wants you, everyone admires you. I’ve never felt I could live up to it. Be that woman who’s worthy of you.”

      “That’s ridiculous.”

      She stamped her foot. “It’s how I feel, dammit. Everything—everything about my life with you was about keeping up appearances. Making sure we were that Golden Couple. And the balance I’d tried so hard to inject into my life in order to stay healthy went out the window. How could it not when I was constantly in the spotlight? Constantly being judged?”

      He raked his hand through his hair. “I wish you’d told me so I could have helped you.”

      Her heart throbbed in her chest. “I didn’t want to add myself to your list of issues. You had enough going on with De Campo business.”

      He shook his head. “Did I ever put any pressure on you about your weight?”

      “You never reassured me.”

      “I always told you how gorgeous you looked.”

      “Yes, but when I said things like, ‘I feel fat,’ to get some reassurance from you, you told me to go to the gym.”

      “That’s because that’s what I do when I feel like that. I work out, get the tension out, and I feel better about myself. Hell, Lilly...” He was staring at her as if she was a creature from another planet. “Has there ever been any doubt about how much I love your body?”

      Her gaze skipped away from his. “I’ve put on weight since we were together.”

      “And that scene the other night wasn’t enough to convince you I like the changes?”

      “Why wasn’t I enough, then?” She yelled the words at him, her control snapping. “If you think I’m beautiful, if I’m enough for you, then why did you have to have an affair with Chelsea Tate?”

      All the color drained out of his face. “It didn’t happen. You’re the only woman I want, Lilly. Chelsea never came close to meaning anything like that to me.”

      “Then tell me the truth,” she raged, pointing a finger at him. “This is my life, Riccardo. Not a tabloid page. When I left you I was in the fetal position for three days. Three days. And if Alex hadn’t come along to dig me out I might still be there. So do not tell me any more lies. I can’t take it.”

      He stared at her with the glazed look of a man who didn’t know where to go. What to do. She watched him take a deep breath and steady himself and felt her heart sink into the depths of hell.

      “You need to give me a chance to explain...”

      She bit back the bile that rose in her throat. “Believe me—you have my full attention.”

      He raked a hand through his hair and set his jaw. “Chelsea and I were once close—you know that. But once I met you that all ended and you were the only woman in my life. The only one, Lilly.” He frowned when she gave no reaction. “When things got so bad between us I was completely at a loss as to what to do. It was impossible to believe a marriage could go from one-fifty to zero in a matter of months—but somehow ours did, and I couldn’t figure out why or what to do about it. You refused to be with me, my pride was stinging, and I think we were both questioning our marriage.”

      She forgot to breathe. Forgot she had to.

      “I was hurt at what had become of us. Angry at what you were doing to me.” His mouth flattened into a grim line and his eyes half closed, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “So I called Chelsea and invited her to dinner.”

      Lilly felt as if a train was headed for her, but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything to avoid it.

      “I wanted to prove I didn’t need you—I didn’t love you,” he continued hoarsely. “And maybe I wanted to hurt you too. Make you hurt as much as I was hurting.”

      Lilly pressed her hands to her ears, but he stalked forward and dragged them away.

      “I drove her home, I went up to her apartment with every intention of taking her to bed. And then I kissed her and everything felt wrong.”

      Lilly felt the ground sway beneath her and, cursing, Riccardo scooped her up in his arms. He carried her over to the bench and sat down with her cradled against him. A tortured expression filled his eyes as he stared down at her. “You haunted me.

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