The Sicilian Billionaire’s Neglected Wife

by Marian Tee

Three words she can’t stop saying. Ten years she can’t get back. One month to save what’s left. Ready. Set. Divorce .
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.

Genres: Contemporary, Second Chance, Romance, Marriage Of Convenience

163 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 13, 2025

About the author

Hi! I love talking about books as much as the next bibliophile - doesn't matter whose books - so feel free to chat with me here. :)

As for other stuff you may want to know, you could visit my website or author page in Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/authormariantee.

Reviews

[Callie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had a lot of promise…I actually liked the angsty set up.

I was afraid of the heroine being a doormat, but knew she would leave him and was excited for grovel and growth.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the grovel was that satisfying. It was ten years of him being distant in marriage, so I needed way more. Plus, Sienah probably would’ve taken him back even faster if people weren’t telling her God wanted her to wait.

I wish this was advertised as religious, because there was a lot of religion in the middle and end and I’m not really interested in that. I didn’t get that warning from the summary.

Overall, I liked the idea but the execution wasn’t the best for me personally.

[I’m a Paula too… Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

More religious stuff again…

My review will not influence anyone, especially the author. I used to enjoy her writing and looked forward to her books. She had several series that I really loved, but since they were about vampires and werewolves, I’m not sure she’ll ever finish those now that she has changed her life and focus.

This one, with the religious aspect removed, would still be a fun story. So I just ignore that part of it and have my brain fix any discrepancies for me. It’s an average read, and I did enjoy it, but it’s pretty formulaic.

KU read fortunately. I’ll be going to her backlog if I need to read her books…

[Pooh Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's nothing to Like in this book.... except God.
Foolish heroine stays with a&&hole for 10 years as a doormat. when she wants more he kicks her out and wants to divorce her. She goes away and leaves everything on God. Then God kicks mmc's ass and makes him realize that she was the only good thing for him. So he prays to God that she forgives him. And God makes her wait for sometime before telling her to forgive him because he prayed to God and turned into helpful guy who helped the community and attends church? not sure. Then God tells him to beg her to forgive him and God tells her to forgive him because he started believing in God.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome

I always like this bc authors books. Even though there is drama, angst, steam and romance; they are always on a lighter note. The finish with an HEA that is swoon worthy.

This book is no exception and may become a multi read for me.

[Debbie DiFiore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short short story

Hero was an ass. I.just wanted to strangle him. I could tell.he.loved his wife but hiring an ex was just cruel. He really changed and became a better man! I loved how his dad played him so he'd realize he loved his wife.

[Nessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

NEEDED MORE SUBSTANTIAL GROVELLING!! If all marriages could be fixed and mended like this story....we wouldn't have issues. The story started of strong and SUPER ANGSTY just the way I like it. The heroine's a traditional doormat who only wants her husband's love, whereas AIVAN does love his wife, only he refuses to ever admit it.

When he hurts her, his pride reigns its ugly head and he hurts her more.

AIVAN has not redeemed himself in my eyes. The story was too short to give any weighted meaning to their relationship, even the sex wasn't that good. And 10 years into marriage, and no kids? Wasn't this supposed to read like a Harlequin equivalent of Hallmark?a Hmm, how anti-climactic.

[Katie Parish · Rating 1 out of 5]

Way too religious

The whole climax of the book is marred by religion. God tells her to wait, MMC prays to God to become changed. I think this should be marketed a Christian romance or a warning in the book description that the books driving force at the end is religion.

[Stacey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this story, but I just found it too... unbelievable.
And a little hard to follow.
So H's dad used to be part of the mafia on Sicily (because of COURSE. It's Sicily) until he found God and a second wife (I think). Mom's death emotionally stunted H.
So dad's solution is to force him to marry. He's an F1 racer and dad threatens to pull sponsorship unless he marries one of the women on a list.
H is like "Fine" and picks the housekeeper's daughter, who has been in love with H since she was 16. She's 19 when they get married and I HAD to keep reminding myself of the stupid stuff I did for guys I like when I was a teenager. Because oh my gosh, girl! She like times his coffee maker to the minute for him.
They go on one date and he proposes marriage. She says yes.
And then it's 10 years later. The blurb gave more info about their marriage than the dang book did. There's one flashback where she's been drugged and think he's cheating. Who was she drugged by? Why? You will never know. Get used to disappointment.

Anyway, it's been 10 years and H is told his wife (h) disappeared to Switzerland for emergency surgery for an employee's cat (this was my fav part), but H didn't notice she was gone.
But he mentions how she's always texting him. Always at home when he gets there... so is she traveling with him? Is she always home? The blurb said she was the perfect wife and stayed in the background, but all we get is that one scene.
It's quite unclear what their married life is actually like. Apparently he just comes or goes as wanted. No idea what h does.

Anyway, he comes home on their 10th anniversary (he forgets, obvs) and she thinks he's going to confess he loves her too! Because he said something about three words? Or something like that.
He is like "I don't love you" and she leaves. Devastated. This woman is 29. Does she go back and get her stuff? Never.
Just WANDERS the streets of the town until she finds herself at the house of H's lawyer friend and possibly family employee. She stays there for days. She works at the friend's office.

H is waiting for her to come back, when she doesn't and when he doesn't hear from her, he goes to his ex-girlfriend and files for divorce.
At the meeting, the ex keeps touching H and he lets her. But then the ex implies they're together and he's cheated and h is crushed. H realizes she thinks he broke that promise of fidelity.
Now here it's a little foggy, because there's a flashback to the time she was drugged and thought he'd cheated.
Apparently, during said flashback, she leaves the room and his dad puts her on a helicopter and spirited away to their original estate or island. (I was skimming a bit)
H stops racing and spends all his time trying to woo back his wife. He shows up every day, but his MIL won't let him see her.

He starts dreaming of her marrying someone else. Dad (who H refers to by his given name for some reason) hires a handsome lawyer and sends H pictures implying h is moving on.
And then I wonder if the author has ever been to Sicily.
Because H has to leave for a bit (Monaco is where they lived) and comes back to find the whole island against him. Because his dad decides he needs to spend the nights in a Comfort Inn to be properly humble? Are there Comfort Inns IN Sicily? Where in Sicily? Because that is never clear!
And Sicily is a big island!
Anyway, we go through all of this is to finally get H to realize he DOES love his wife.

Meanwhile, h is just... there.
Girl.

[CJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Christian read

Boo to the fact there is no warning that this is a Christian romance. I wish I had known but oh well. It wasn't terrible.

[BAG of Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aiven is a 28 year old Formula One racer living in Monaco. The story opens with his father (Miguel) and step mother giving him an ultimatum to agree to an arranged marriage if he wants to continue racing. (It's not just an idol threat because Miguel is in the mafia.) His step mother has compiled a list of acceptable women, and Aiven has to choose one to marry. He choses Sienah (19), their housekeeper's daughter.

The step mother is characterized as loving, gentle, kind, etc. But then she makes this list of women she's going to force Aiven to marry, and I don't find that loving or kind at all. So I was kind of weirded out by that, right off the bat. They THINK they are being loving and doing what's right, because the real reason they're manipulating Aiven is that they want him to marry Siena and fall in love. They know she's secretly in love with Aiven and they want him to fall in love with her too, because he's been emotionally closed off since his mother died when he was a boy. For some reason, they think forcing it will make him fall in love.

Aiven takes Sienah out to dinner and proposes this marriage of convenience. He tells her he is aware of her feelings for him, (she's really not good at hiding it), and her feelings "won't be disregarded." She figures out the real reason she was put on the list was because Miguel was matchmaking, and she thinks this was a genius idea, and she agrees to the marriage.

The story skips forward 10 years. Things have not worked out like Miguel had hoped. Aiven is still emotionally unavailable. He's not mean to Sienah, but he works a lot and doesn't really pay attention to her very much.

He comes home one night to a romantic dinner set up by Sienah. She says that last week, Aiven had told her he had "three little words" to say to her. He can't even remember saying that, and he has no idea what the 3 little words were, so he tells Sienah to guess what he was going to say. She says, "I love you." He reacts like she must be crazy. He says he doesn't love her. She tells him the reason she thought he was going to tell her he loves her is because he was going to tell her "three little words" TODAY, which is their 10th anniversary, which he also forgot about. So she tells him 3 more words: "I want out."

She walks out of the house. Aiven thinks it's just a little snit and she will be back in an hour. A few days later, she's still not back. She had left without her passport, so Aiven figures if she left long term, his father must have helped her. so he calls his father's security guy, Eusebio, and asks where she is. She had walked to the house of his attorney and they are letting her stay with them. (Still in Monaco.) Aiven thinks this is all a performance for the purpose of manipulating him.

The lawyer's wife, Shayla, tells Sienah that God wants her to "wait." Siena agrees to not file divorce yet and just wait a while, although she doesn't know what she's waiting for. But then a week after she left, Aiven is getting angry about her "performance," so he contacts his ex, who is a lawyer, and hires her to file for divorce.

They have to go to a mediation, although they have a prenup so there's nothing to mediate. But anyway, Aiven shows up with his lawyer-ex, Myca, to the mediation. Myca is acting like they're back together and makes some comments about how she "helped him relax in the limo on the way over here," stuff like that. During the mediation, Aiven starts to realize he just wants Sienah to come home. He wants her to look at him adoringly like she used to. But Sienah is just done with him, and she says she'll just sign whatever papers Aiven draws up, and she leaves. This time she leaves in Miguel's helicopter.

After that, they both just kind of wither away without each other.

Aiven meets his parents for lunch, and they tell him that he could have been the best thing for Sienah but he never even tried. I guess they haven't learned their lesson not to mettle, because they say they're going to find someone else for her to marry. Haven't they done enough to that poor girl already??

Aiven has to try to win her back, so she won't marry another guy. The grovel isn't much, it's right at the end, but he is able to say "I love you."

I liked this one. It made me very emotional. It's good if you like the "fighting his feelings" trope. He always did love her, he just couldn't name his feelings. He saw emotion as a weakness, ever since his mother died.

[VoraciousReader · Rating 1 out of 5]

1. Needed editing. Glaring mistakes and plot holes.
a. When Aivan proposed to Sienah, he told her that he was aware of her feelings for him and then said, “…your feelings won’t be disregarded”. Later, he claimed that when he said that, he meant that he would be faithful to her. But, his original intention had been to “keep the marriage uncomplicated. Business arrangement, separate bedrooms, polite distance. No messy emotions, no physical entanglements.” So, he was going to be faithful to her but he was also not going to sleep with her? How would that work? At 28 years old, was he intending to go the rest of his life without $ex?
b. When Aivan found Sienah at his celebration party, he thought, “His wife, swaying on her feet, glassy-eyed and clearly drugged out of her mind.” A few pages later, he was raging at her because of her behaviour and when she said that she only had a glass of non-alcoholic champagne and he suddenly went deadly calm and said, “You were drugged” like he was just realizing it.
c. When Aivan brought his ex-girlfriend to represent him in his divorce, she had her hand on his leg when they were sitting at the conference table. When his ex implied that they had $ex in the limo on the way there, Sienah was so upset she accidentally knocked over a vase. Aivan jumped to his feet and started to go to her to make sure she was ok. Then, the book went on, "Sienah stands frozen in the doorway, her face gone ghostly, he eyes fixed on where Myca's hand still rests on my thigh." How could Myca's hand still be resting on his thigh when he jumped to his feet and started moving toward Sienah?
2. Way too religious and preachy.

[Val · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m going to be honest here. I wasn’t picking up this book expecting the most sophisticated literature. But I am genuinely concerned about the relationship dynamics portrayed here- first of all, a marriage should be EQUAL. This woman fucking waits on him like a servant for 10 goddamn years and he barely acknowledges it. He tells her he doesn’t love her and then when she wants to divorce him he calls it a "tantrum". Already that alone is enough to show that he has quite the misogynistic attitude towards his wife. Sure, he grovels afterwards, but all the shit about God took me off guard. How the everloving FUCK did that poor doormat of a heroine take him back? How does ONE (one) public confession absolve them of their problems? Also sorry how dare they make a counselling thing for married couples. They lowkey haven’t solved any of their own problems, as shown by the dynamic which has evolved into possessiveness=love. The author was trying so fucking hard to gaslight me into thinking he was a good man and it’s like no he’s being first of all creepy as fuck and also just bare minimum….anyways this book made me mad. We should stop perpetuating these dynamics because they’re genuinely harmful. It was also very difficult to follow at times?

[Sandy B · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the faith element added in. I have rarely read/seen this used unless it was the church girl or pastors daughter gone wild or the man faking being a priest/pastor undercover.
And it’s always the beloved trope of everyone in church are the worst people you could possibly find in this lost world so, you leaving and/or disparaging God is always the right way to go.
Putting your marriage in God’s hand does work in real life. People just choose to place their marriage in their own hands instead, forgetting how flawed and so easily offended they tend to be.
Someone said that he didn’t grovel enough. Perfect example, they’re more interested in the groveling, than the positive actions he made while groveling. The positive changes being made are ignored cause he has to hurt as much as I do. Or we have to even the score. An offended person doesn’t seek forgiveness, they seek to get even.
And that’s n this modern world now we have men losing faith that good women exist (because of some horror stories of married) and women have long lost faith that good men exist (mostly because of past and modern horror stories of marriage).

[B Thomas]

2.5⭐️

I didn’t have a lot of expectation going into this book. It was a modern take on a harlequin romance and very much rode the formula of melodramatic heartbreak. HOWEVER, it took some turns that were both inconsistent and completely out of left field (and not in a cohesive way).

Some Examples:
- Sienah doesn’t realize that Aivan speaks Italian? Yet his Sicilian?
- The use of Spanish words by Italian characters?
- Sienah is drugged and at no point is it brought to authorities?!?
-Aivan suddenly realized that Sienah has always had feelings for him?
- Weird spin of Christian pronouncements of faith….this did not fit character development and felt ill-fitting and forced. It also really uncomfortable dichotomy of steam in the first half and then dogmatic at the end.

[Evelyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good premise and set up for angst. Brought way down by a doormat heroine and using God as a device for forgiveness. The whole 'wait for God to guide you' was weirdly shoehorned in, then kept getting worse. The grovel was not at all satisfying, especially after 10 years of doormat heroine being the perfect wife.

Also not fantastically well written, little edit mistakes like calling breakfast 'dinner'.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sienah and Aivan

Sienah and Aivan have been married for 10 years when she believes her husband is finally ready to say tge three words she needs to ger from him: "I love you"
When she realises it was all a misunderstanding that he never meant to say such words, she is done. She is done with her lonely marriage. She is done with her emotional stunted husband. And is definitely done fighting for something that will never happen.
Highly recommended

[Ezetrenne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the Change

Love the change Marian. Great book. I love the way the Holy Spirit is working in your writing. You can have “making love” in the book since God created Love to be enjoyed in marriage, but you are right to be cautious and to pray on it. May our Lord Jesus Bless you and your family

[Diedre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous story of love and a second chance. I love how this author loves God and is not religious. She interweaves the introduction to God and then answered prayers. The hero here was epitomized so accurately as one who lost any ability to experience emotions. MT is a master of novellas: succinct yet powerful.

[Tilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I withheld 1 star because of the constant religious mentions and another one because this male lead didnot deserve a happy ending. The heroine should leave him behind without another glance and make her life away from this self-absorbed ass.

[Celia Montiglio · Rating 5 out of 5]

great story. One of my favorite books this year

One of the best novels I have read in a long time thank you, Marian.Tee For your dedication to your craft

[bht22572 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. The story was great and I loved the characters. I really enjoy her books and can't wait to read more. She is one of my favorite authors.

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why do they love each other?

[Paige Whitecotton · Rating 5 out of 5]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Don’t take people for granted. When you love show it and say it. Aivan learned that the hard way. Almost too late. Great book.

[Birty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christian romance

Clean romance with lots over God involved. Second chance 8marriage. Some sexual situations but pretty tame. Ok read. Part of a series.

[navya · Rating 2 out of 5]

not enough grovel imo

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Needed more honest groveling IMO after his years of neglect.