Page 129 of Modern Romance June 2025 5-8

The judge stared back at him. ‘No! I am not. I am fed up with rich people who treat marriage like a tax haven, and the British Courts like a toll booth.’

‘Well, that isn’t prejudiced at all,’ Antonio said sarcastically.

The judge opened and closed his mouth. But really, Antonio was only speaking the truth.

‘Okay,’ the judge said, finally finding his voice. ‘I am refusing to grant this divorce, until it can be proved that you have both worked as hard as possible to rectify your differences.’

Antonio sat back in his chair in shock. He’d never heard of anything like it. Neither had his lawyer, as evidenced by the way Simon’s mouth hung open.

‘Your Honour, this is highly irregular,’ Simon said when he finally found his voice.

‘That it may be, but this is my decision. You will have three assessments with a court-appointed mediator in order to determine that you have genuinely given everything you can to make this marriage work, and yet still have irreconcilable differences.’

‘Assessments?’ Simon asked in confusion.

‘Yes, assessments. Interview-based assessments.Three of them,’ the judge demanded hotly.

‘Where? In England? I can’t stay here,’ Antonio bit out at the ludicrous suggestion. ‘I have business in Italy.’

‘And your wife, Mr Gallo?’ the judge demanded.

Antonio drew a blank.

The judge looked at Ivy, who winced. ‘I have work too. Here,’ she said, sealing his fate with yet another black mark against his name, apparently.

‘The assessments can happen in Italy if you want to pay for the travel and accommodation of the mediator, and can negotiate that with Mrs Gallo, or you can stay in England. Make a decision, Mr Gallo. I have already made mine. Dismissed.’

Ivy McKellen wasn’t quite sure exactly what had happened, only that it most definitely wasn’t what Antonio Gallo hadwantedto happen. And from the look on his face, that was as unique as a unicorn.

‘We donothave time for this,’ he said to the lawyer who, less than a month ago, had knocked on her door and deposited nearly half a tree’s worth of legal paperwork with sticky tabs indicating where her signature would end her marriage.

Please sign, date and return.

That was how she had been informed of Antonio’s intention to obtain a divorce.

Please sign, date and return.

She’d been taken a little by surprise at how much it had left her off-kilter. Of all the shocks she’d experienced in the last six years, really, her divorce shouldn’t have even registered. Especially as she’d known that it would come eventually. Despite what he’d said, a man like Antonio Gallo couldn’t remain in a convenient marriage for ever.

She’d wondered about the kind of person who had finally caught the notorious lone wolf of the financial world, the man who had often been referred to as the invisible hand behind the world’s most lucrative business deals, and promptly stopped herself. It was none of her business. So she’d signed the papers and naïvely believed that was the last time she would see her name anywhere near his.

But yesterday she’d received an email informing her that she had to be in court. Today.

Just a formality.

As they emerged into the hallway outside the judge’s office she wondered whether perhaps there might have been a different outcome if Antonio hadn’t managed to antagonise the judge so much. An antagonism that seemed new. She certainly didn’t remember that from before.

Ivy shifted, trying to ease the ache in her feet. She’d worn the nicest pair of shoes she owned, but they’d absolutely massacred her heels. She looked up as Antonio squinted down the hall. While she could practically see the cogs in his brain working, she searched his features for other changes the last six years had wrought. He was slimmer, yet somehow more imposing. Hard angles had replaced the traces of softness that she’d been able to see when they’d first met.

The cut of his suit displayed the breadth of his shoulders and a trim waist. The light-coloured linen fabric stood out like a beacon amongst the grey department store suits worn by nearly everyone else in the building. He’d commanded attention six years ago, even in the little, out of the way coffee shop in central London, but now the allure of him was impossible to deny. As evidenced when a woman tripped over her own feet as she did a double-take that had Ivy sending her a sympathetic smile.

‘Can we go above his head?’ Antonio asked his lawyer, having missed the interaction.

‘It would take too long,’ the lawyer replied miserably.

Of all the things she’d been worried about—seeing Antonio again, being summoned to court and, in her worst moments of fancy, being discovered and arrested for fraud—the last thing she’d expected wasthis.

Three court-appointed visits to assess their reconciliation attempts? How were they going to prove that? And where? In her flat-share in Apsley Road? The thought of Antonio’s imposing frame squeezing into the little two-bed flat with Simon the lawyer, a court-appointed assessor and Sang Hee, her Korean flatmate, pushed her worryingly close to hysteria.

---