Читать книгу The Divorce Party - Jennifer Hayward - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

RICCARDO WOKE UP Saturday morning with the need to hit something. To flatten something. Anything that got rid of the tension sitting low in his belly after he’d been jarred awake by some fool’s motorcycle racing down the street.

Eternally happy. His wife’s words echoed through his head, made worse by the paper-white state of her face when she’d returned home last night after ending things with Taylor.

He wanted to put a fist through the doctor’s face.

He rolled over to glare at her, but there was only an imprint in the pillow where her head had been. Lilly? Out of bed before him? She liked to sleep more than any human being he knew.

He flicked a glance at the clock on the bedside table, his eyes widening as he read the neon green numbers. Eight-thirty. That couldn’t be right. Sure, he was tired, because his wife was driving him crazy, but eight-thirty? A glance at his watch confirmed it was true.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he struggled to clear the foreign-feeling fuzz in his head. He’d plowed through a mountain of work last night before coming to bed. To avoid the urge to come up here and make his wife eat her words. To pleasure her until she screamed and forgot Harry Taylor even existed.

A chainsaw would do it.

He picked up his mobile and called Gabe. There was a half-dead oak on their Westchester property that was a serious safety hazard. He’d been meaning to ask the landscapers to take it down, but suddenly the thought of a physical, mind-blanking task appealed to him greatly.

“Matteo got in last night,” Gabe said. “I’ll bring him and we can have some beer afterward.”

“As long as you don’t let him anywhere near the saw.”

His youngest brother, who ran De Campo’s European operations, and their father were in town for the annual board meetings. Which was probably another reason his gut was out of order. Whatever his father said in those meetings would make or break his chances of becoming CEO. And it had better go in his favor.

“We’ll make him the look-out,” Gabe said drily. “See you in forty-five.”

Riccardo showered, put on an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and went to procure a travel cup of coffee in the kitchen. Lilly wasn’t in there, or in the library she loved.

He was wondering if she’d made another run for it when she rushed into the front entryway just as his brothers arrived, a black look on her face, a curse on her breath.

“Matteo!” she exclaimed, her frown disappearing as his youngest brother stepped forward and scooped her up into a hug. “I had no idea you were in town.”

Matteo gave her a squeeze and set her down. “If that means you two are busy making up for lost time, I’m good with that.”

A flare of color speared Lilly’s cheeks. She and Riccardo’s youngest brother were close—or had been until their separation. Matteo was the more philosophical and expressive of the three brothers. Women naturally gravitated to him. Used his shoulder to cry on far too much, in Riccardo’s opinion.