The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain (2 page)

“And this upset you?” Again the shocked surprise.

“A little.”

“But it should not. Soon you will be able to share happy news on that score.”

She winced as his words sprinkled salt into wounds left open and bleeding by the doctor’s phone call.

“And if I can’t?” she asked, testing waters she was not ready to tread into.

His big, warm hands landed on her shoulders and he turned her to face him with inexorable movements. “You are bothered that you have not yet conceived? You should not be. We have only been trying for a few months. The doctor said that women who have been on the pill for a prolonged time can take longer to get pregnant, but it will happen soon enough. After all, we know everything is in working order.”

Worse than salt on wounds, those words were like the lashing of a cruelly wielded whip. Prior to marrying three years ago, he had required they go through several tests including blood type and the compatibility of his sperm with the mucus on her cervix. He had also requested she have her fertility cycles tested, just to be sure.

Knowing that a big part of why he was marrying her was so that she could provide heirs for the Scorsolini throne, she had agreed without argument. Everything had come back normal. They were compatible for pregnancy and she was as fertile as any other woman her age.

The biggest surprise for her had been his desire to wait to have children for a while. She hadn’t understood it, still wasn’t sure why he had requested they wait, but now she knew that whatever chance they had of making babies together was over.

Unable to stand any level of intimacy in the face of what she knew was to come, even such a simple touch, she turned away from him.

Helpless anger filled
Claudio
as
Therese
moved from him, her womanly curves taunting a libido that ached for her night and day. He wanted to grab her back and demand to know why after three years his touch was no longer acceptable, but that would be the act of a primitive man and the crown prince of
Isole
dei Re
was in no way primitive.

Besides, physical rejection from her was not a new thing. It had been happening for months now, but each time she turned away from a physical connection, it still shocked him. After two years of receiving an incredibly passionate response on every occasion when he touched her, he could be forgiven for finding it nearly impossible to reconcile to her sudden change of heart.

Prior to the last few months, he would have sworn that
Therese
loved him. She’d never said so, but for the first two years of their marriage, she had shown in many subtle and not so subtle ways that she felt more for him than the mercenary satisfaction of a woman for a marriage well contracted. Her love had not been one of his requirements, so he had not dwelt on it too much…until it was gone.

It was not that he needed the emotion from her, but he could not help wondering where it had gone and why she no longer seemed to want him with the latent passion that had drawn him to her in the first place.

Her physical rejections had started a month or so after she went off the pill so they could try for a baby. At first, he had thought that maybe her hormones had been at fault. After all, he’d read about that sort of thing happening, but in the intervening months it had gotten worse, not better.

Then sometimes she would make love with him the way she used to and all his concerns on that score would disappear. Only to reappear when she turned him down again. He was not a man who had suffered much rejection in his life, particularly from a woman he desired physically. For it to come from his own wife was totally unacceptable.

And it had been happening more and more lately.

He’d begun to wonder if deep down, she did not want to get pregnant. “Do you not want my baby? Are you frightened of what will happen?”

She flinched as if he’d slapped her, her face going unnaturally pale. “Yes, I want your baby. More than anything. I don’t know how you could believe anything else.”

She was so fervent he could not doubt her. “Then there is nothing about this situation that should upset you.”

The look she gave him from her green eyes was not encouraging, but he forged on, certain of his own conclusions. “Soon enough you will be able to silence busybodies with the reality of a pregnancy. As for today, you will simply play the scenario differently next time and send the delegates to meet with
Maggie
.”

She spun to face the mirror and pulled her silky, long brown hair up into a twist on the back of her head with deft fingers, securing it with a clip. “And that makes it all okay, does it?”

“It should,” he said with some exasperation. “I do not understand why you are reacting so strongly to this. You have dealt with far more annoying people than these women.”

Therese
shrugged her delicate shoulders and headed toward the door. She was so beautiful, almost ethereal in her appearance despite curves that proclaimed her one hundred percent woman. And at times like this he felt as if she was as untouchable as a spirit. But she was his wife, it was his right to touch her.

He did it, taking her arm as she walked by.

She stopped and looked up at him, her beautiful green gaze filled with a vulnerability he did not understand and liked even less. It implied an unhappiness he did not want her to feel.

“What?” she demanded.

“I do not like to see you like this.”

“I know. You expect everything in your life to go smoothly, every person to fulfill their role without question. Your schedule is regimented to the nth degree and surprises are few and far between.”

“I take great pains to make it so.”

“Even to the point of marrying a woman with all the proper qualifications. You had me investigated, tested and then tested me yourself to be sure of my fit as your principessa and future queen. I am certain you never expected me to be a source of frustration for you.”

She was right, but he didn’t understand the bitter undertone in her voice. She had not seemed to mind his endeavors to make sure of her suitability at the time. “You are everything I wanted in a wife. Naturally in my position, I would make every effort to make certain our future was assured, but you were and are perfect for me,
cara
.”

She flinched at the endearment, much as she frequently flinched from his touch anymore. As if any allusion to intimacy between the two of them hurt her. But they were intimate. They were husband and wife. There was no relationship more intimate than that.

So why did he feel like they existed in completely different hemispheres at the moment?

He pulled her close, ignoring the subtle stiffening of her body. “We do not have to go down to dinner, you know.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Your father is entertaining dignitaries from Venezuela.”

“They are his fishing buddies.”

“They are official diplomats.”

“He will not care if we send word we are not coming. And there are far more interesting ways for us to spend the evening than listening to fishing stories.”

“Talking?”

“That is not what I had in mind.”

Her face set, she pulled away, her rejection as obvious as it was final. “That would be rude.”

Had
Therese
found someone else who engaged her affectionate nature? Perhaps she had even taken a lover. Rage poured through him at the thought, but in his arrogance he could think of nothing else that would explain the way she rejected him physically. Add that to the fact that at times she acted like her mind was definitely not in the here and now, and he had a compelling argument for believing she had found someone else.

So compelling he was not sure he could control the fury his reasoning evoked. He hated feeling like that. He had married her in order to avoid this kind of emotional upheaval in his life.

Which was the primary reason he had never voiced his suspicion. He knew
Therese
better than most men knew their wives. He’s made sure of it and everything he knew of her character said she would never, under any circumstances act so dishonorably as to have an affair. That was one of the reasons he had married her. She was a woman of fierce integrity, but she had also used to be a woman of intense passions.

If the one could change…could the other? Did some unknown man have claim on her secret sensuality that used to delight
Claudio
so much? He could not believe it of her, but as unlikely as it might seem, he had to know the truth.

He would call the detective agency Tomasso had used to trace and investigate
Maggie
and order an investigation of
Therese
’s present activities and past movements for the last year. Hawk, the owner of the international detective agency, was wholly discreet and the very best at what he did.

One way, or another,
Claudio
was going to get to the bottom of the mystery of his wife’s behavior. If another man was involved, he would find out and deal with the situation accordingly.

The thought brought a surge of primitive anger he had no intention of giving in to.

* * * * *

Therese
regretted rejecting
Claudio
’s invitation throughout dinner. So what if all he wanted was sex? She could have made him listen. The problem was, she didn’t want to. As long as she kept the news to herself, part of her could go on pretending her marriage had a chance. But even if they had talked…even if they’d made love and it had hurt a little, she would have one more memory stored up for a future without him. Instead she was sitting with a smile pasted on her face while conversation she had no interest in flowed around her.
Claudio
had been right. King
Vincente
and his fishing buddies from Venezuela were too busy swapping stories to even notice her and
Claudio
’s presence at the table.

Claudio
had gotten a phone call halfway through dinner and disappeared to answer it, leaving her entirely to her own devices. Not that he’d been all that communicative beforehand. He was too much the crown prince to make his displeasure with her obvious to the others at the table, but she had felt it.

Just as she had known he would not come back once he had left to take the phone call. He had often chosen work over her company. Tonight would certainly be no different. So, when it came time to take their coffee in the other room, she excused herself.

She’d been feeling twinges of pain in her pelvic area all day even though her menses were not due for a few days. Every month the pain got worse and it no longer limited itself to the days of her monthly. According to her doctor, that was typical for her condition, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

It was getting harder and harder to hide the truth from
Claudio
as well, but soon…she wouldn’t have to. She would tell him the results of the laparoscopy she’d had performed in secret on a trip to Miami. Then she would tell him what the doctor had said her condition meant for the future and he would tell her that their marriage was over.

The thought was far worse than the pain in her lower abdomen and she forced her mind to deal with the present, not the probable future.

Maybe a long, hot soak coupled with a couple of over the counter pain meds would suffice and she wouldn’t be forced to take one of the pain-killing bombs the doctor had prescribed.

They always left her feeling so loopy and she hated it. There were days she couldn’t even remember what she’d done because she’d spent so much of her time in a fog. The shock was that
Claudio
had never noticed. If she needed proof that she was nothing more to him than a convenience, that was it.

How could a man, even a man as oblivious to the normal issues of life as
Claudio
, not notice his wife had the behavior pattern of a drug addict? But he never said anything when she was zoned out on pain meds. To give him credit, she did her best to hide her condition from him…in every way. But there was a big part of her that resented the fact it was so easy.

If he cared at all, it wouldn’t be. She was sure of it.

Her heart heavy, she started a bath. No woman should have to live with the constant knowledge that she loved where there was no reciprocating emotion to be had. It hurt too much.

Once the bath was full, she dimmed the lights in the en suite and poured soothing aromatherapy oil into the steaming water. Then, while the whirlpool jets mixed the water, sending forth a soft fragrance, she took her pain meds. She shed her robe, letting the silk fall to the floor and not caring that she should have hung it up. Refusing to even think about how the responsible
Therese
would have taken care of it so someone else would not have to, the in-pain-and-tired-of-hiding-it
Therese
slid into bathtub.