Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
For a decade, Sienah Cannizzaro has been the perfect Formula One wife. Invisible at parties, flawless at galas, devoted to a husband who sees their marriage as smoothly maintained as his racing team. She’s been his pit crew of one, keeping his life running while he chases championships. She fell for him at nineteen. Now at twenty-nine, she’s done waiting.
Three-time world champion Aivan Cannizzaro has everything timed to the millisecond. Marriage to Sienah? Just another perfectly tuned component in his race to the top. Until his wife says three words that send him spinning off “I want out.” An emotional marriage-in-crisis romance featuring a hero who discovers that the real prize was never on the podium. HEA guaranteed
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Part One
Chapter One
MIGUEL CANNIZZARO HAD built an empire on reading men’s souls through their eyes, and right now his eldest son’s eyes were dead as winter stone.
“No.”
One word. Flat. Final. The same tone Aivan had used since Paulette’s funeral twenty-three years ago, when a five-year-old boy watched his mother’s casket disappear into Sicilian earth and decided feelings were for people who could afford to break.
Miguel traced the rim of his espresso cup. Selena’s blend was bitter-dark with notes of chocolate she swore came from prayers, not beans. He noticed but was not surprised that his son hadn’t touched his. The boy never accepted anything he hadn’t earned himself. Even coffee.
“You misunderstand.” Business voice. The one that had negotiated peace between warring families and million-euro property deals with equal ease. “This isn’t a request.”
From the doorway, Selena watched. His wife had a gift for stillness that made most people forget she was there. But Miguel always knew. Fifteen years of marriage had taught him to feel her presence like a change in atmospheric pressure.
Tell him about the list, her eyes urged. Tell him why.
But Miguel knew his son. Push too hard, too fast, and Aivan would walk out that door and never return. Just like he’d done at eighteen when Miguel tried to bring him into the family business.
“Olivio sends his regards from Toronto.” Miguel shifted tactics, watching for any crack in his son’s facade. “Closed another high-rise deal. Twenty million profit.”
“Good for him.”
Three words this time. Progress.
“Your brother understands loyalty to family.”
Aivan’s jaw tightened, a movement so small most would miss it, but Miguel had been reading his son’s tells since the boy learned to hide them. “Olivio’s loyalty comes with a real estate license and a talent for making money grow like weeds. Mine comes with staying out of the family business. I thought we agreed on that when I turned eighteen.”
“We agreed you could race.” Miguel set down his cup. The clink against saucer rang like a judge’s gavel. “I’ve honored that for ten years. Watched you risk your life every weekend for glory that turns to smoke. Now I’m collecting on my patience.”
“I’m not taking over the—”
“Who said anything about taking over?” Miguel’s accent was thick by the time he finished speaking. Twenty years in Monaco, a lifetime of legitimate business, and still the old language surfaced when frustrated. “Your brother has that well in hand, thank God. What I want is simpler.”
He slid a piece of cream-colored paper across the rosewood desk. Selena’s handwriting, neat as a schoolteacher’s, which she’d been, once upon a time, before she’d saved Miguel’s soul by agreeing to marry him.
“Eight names.” Miguel watched his son’s face as those cold dark eyes scanned the list. “Good families. Strong alliances. Women who understand our world.”
The temperature in the room dropped like God himself had walked in and found them all wanting.
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.” Which Miguel had survived two years ago, though he hadn’t told his sons. Only Selena knew how close they’d come to losing him. How it had crystallized his fears about leaving Aivan alone in the world, frozen in his self-imposed isolation.
Aivan’s laugh held no humor. “I’m twenty-eight, not some virgin principe who needs his father arranging playdates.”
“No, you’re worse.” The words escaped before Miguel could temper them. “You’re a man so afraid of feeling that you’d rather die alone than risk what happened to me happening to you.”
Silence. Even Selena’s breathing paused.
Then: “Don’t.”
One word, but it carried twenty-three years of weight. Don’t talk about her. Don’t compare us. Don’t pretend you understand.
Miguel understood too well. Understood the particular paralysis that came from losing someone who took all your softness with them when they left. He’d been that man for ten years after Paulette, until a twenty-three-year-old English teacher with gentle hands and steel backbone had walked into a parent conference and told him his younger son needed more attention at home.
He’d hired her to tutor Olivio. Fallen in love over discussions of Shakespeare and proper grammar. Learned that a heart could be rebuilt if you had the right architect.