Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi
My ex-husband is getting married.
and.... I’m the one hired to plan the wedding.
My name is Arabella Paloma Garcia.
Five years ago, I was arranged to marry an Italian heir with an angel’s face and the personality of something between a blizzard and a natural disaster: Rafael Vittorio Ricciardi.
We spent one year of marriage arguing hard enough to make a lawyer retire early.
Then his ex came back, and I left with a divorce bracelet on my finger… and a pair of babies in my belly.
Now I live in San Francisco.
I own a wedding planning company, I’m a single mom to two demon twins, and I’m very, very proud of the fact that the name Ricciardi doesn’t appear anywhere in my life.
Until one email lands in my inbox: Ricciardi–Marino Wedding.
Groom: Rafael Vittorio Ricciardi.
Bride: Alessandra Marino… the woman who once became the reason I got kicked out of his life.
I should’ve said no.
But Alessandra is infuriating, and I want to prove I’m over Rafael. So I take the job.
But he walks in with a cold stare that sends my stomach straight to the floor.
No recognition.
A helicopter crash two years ago wiped six years of his life.
Including me.
Including our marriage.
Perfect. I’ll plan my ex-husband’s wedding, send him down the aisle, and go back to my life.
The plan goes smoothly.
Right up until the wedding day.
The bride disappears.
The guests are waiting.
The media is already rolling.
And Rafael closes the bridal suite door… drops a bomb that earns him my fist in his face:
“You’re the one who going to walk down the aisle with me.”
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Chapter: panic response, no lipstick“Exactly.” Tara turned to me immediately. “Which is why you cannot treat the way he looked at the kids earlier like ordinary curiosity.”I lifted the glass of warm water to my lips. It was almost cold now, but I drank anyway because my hands needed something to do that didn’t involve strangling my best friend.“He watched two little kids walk into a private villa while one of them smelled like vomit,” I said. “Of course he looked.”“Not like that.”“Oh, sorry. I forgot Tara Montoya has a minor degree in the male gaze now.”“I have a lot of experience.”“With three Alexanders.”“Two Alexanders. One Alexandre.”“A mistake is still a mistake, even with a French accent.”Arsen lifted his glass slightly. “I agree with Arabella on this one.”Tara shot him a sharp look, then turned back to me. “He watched Al for too long.”“Al was crying.”“He watched Gabby too.”“Gabby was wearing a glitter crown and interrogating him about an iPad. She’s hard not to watch.”“You know what I mean.”I did.T
Last Updated: 2026-07-14
Chapter: somewhere between fine and forgottenNight made my house look like a place where normal people lived again.That was a lie, obviously.A house with two four-year-olds was never truly normal. It just stopped screaming long enough for the adults to start believing they were still in control.It was almost eleven when I stepped onto the back terrace carrying a thick blanket and a glass of warm water. Kendra had gone to bed half an hour earlier after making sure Gabby’s night-light was pink, not blue, because according to Gabby, blue was “too sad for princess.” Al was asleep with the whale shark covering half his face and one leg sticking out from under the blanket, as if a few hours ago he hadn’t nearly exposed a family secret in front of his biological father while smelling like vomit and pastry.The ocean stretched out in front of the house, black except for white lines of surf that appeared for a second and disappeared again. The San Francisco night air was still cold, even with the glass wall sheltering the left side of
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
Chapter: later. later. laterRafael’s driver was named Marco. He wore a black suit, driving gloves that were wildly unnecessary in Los Angeles, and only spoke long enough to confirm the restaurant address. After that, he stayed quiet, which immediately made him the best human being employed by the Ricciardi family.The car started down the hill.I took off my sunglasses, then put them back on because without them the world was too bright.My phone buzzed.Tara: We’re at Gino’s. Private room in the back.A second message came in.Tara: Al is fine. Ate half a garlic knot. Wants pizza.Then a third.Arsen: We have seventeen questions and one nervous breakdown scheduled.I typed back.Me: Cancel both. Not in public.Arsen: Fascism.Me: Correct.Tara: He said their faces looked familiar, didn’t he?I stared at the screen.Damn them.I didn’t answer.Another message appeared.Tara: Ara.I locked my phone and dropped it into my bag.The pizza restaurant sat on a small street near West Hollywood, the kind of place that l
Last Updated: 2026-07-12
Chapter: i left before the numbers made senseI raised one eyebrow. “Is that the polite way of saying they’re annoying?”“I haven’t known them long enough to decide.”I said nothing.Rafael looked toward the driveway where they had disappeared. The bougainvillea shifted softly in the breeze, as if it hadn’t just swallowed two four-year-olds who had nearly dismantled my entire life in front of their biological father.“Alvaro didn’t look well,” he said.“He ate three pain au chocolat before getting on a small plane.”The corner of his mouth moved slightly. Not quite a smile. Rafael was still too arrogant to give away a full expression for free.“Will he be okay?” he asked.The question sounded ordinary. Polite, even.I still didn’t like the way he kept looking toward the gate.“He once licked a shopping-cart handle at Target and survived,” I said. “His immune system was built through negligence.”Rafael finally looked back at me. “You let your child lick a shopping cart?”“I said he did it. Not that I hosted an event and sold tick
Last Updated: 2026-07-11
Chapter: some part of you still looked twiceRafael blinked. “No,” he said. “Not with me.”“Hmm.” Gabby folded her little arms across her chest. “Then I call you Rafa Lemon.”There was a pause.I waited for Rafael to take offense, or go cold. Or give her the look that used to make junior analysts in Milan consider a career in tomato farming.Instead, he slipped his sunglasses into his shirt pocket and crouched down until he was closer to Gabby’s eye level.Something shifted in my chest, like a chair being dragged across an empty room.Gentleness had never come easily to him. Not even before. Even when he touched me at his softest, there had always been control in it. Always something held back.But now he was standing in front of my daughter—his daughter, damn it, don’t think about that—and there was no coldness in his face. Only focus. Calm. It was strange watching a man who didn’t remember ever being a father stand inches from his own kid and somehow still not frighten her.“Rafa Lemon,” he repeated.Gabby nodded. “Better.”“Y
Last Updated: 2026-07-10
Chapter: the life you lost was standing in front of you“Are they part of your team?” he asked.I opened my mouth.Nothing came out, because God was clearly lounging on a balcony in heaven eating popcorn.Tara and Arsen stared at Rafael. It was the look of two people who had once watched that man stand at their best friend’s wedding in an Italian suit, with a cold face and an aura that said I will destroy your life through legally binding paperwork. A look carrying far too much history for an eleven a.m. site visit.Tara’s sunglasses froze halfway to her face.Arsen’s mouth fell open. This was a man whose father had once screamed at him for buying a Maybach with his own credit card, and he had still managed to say, “At least it was black.” But now he was gaping at Rafael like he had just seen a ghost.Fuck.I moved fast.So fast my heels nearly betrayed feminism.“Tara,” I said sweetly—far too sweetly—as I walked over and immediately grabbed both her shoulders. “Your hair is a mess.”“What—”“Shut up,” I whispered, pretending to fix the ha
Last Updated: 2026-07-10
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