The Unwanted Wife (5 page)

“Soon.”

“Right,” he shrugged again looking strangely awkward. “See you later then.” She nodded and he turned away and left without saying another word.

Rick and Lisa were doing nothing more productive than watching DVD’s when Theresa came around. Lisa, in her advanced state of pregnancy, couldn’t do much else. They were both lounging in the den, Rick looking devastating in a snug, well-worn pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt that had definitely seen better days. Lisa, in the meantime, looked miserable in a huge blue and white striped football jersey that Theresa knew had once belonged to Rick, who was a capable Sunday afternoon player, and a pair of stretchy blue leggings. She was about the size of a baby whale. Therese simply melted when she caught sight of her cranky younger cousin and once again resolved not to do anything to jeopardise her happiness and health. She dropped a kiss on Lisa’s cheek and one on the top of Rick’s head as she passed behind the sofa on which they were sitting. Rick grinned up at her.

“Nothing exciting planned for today, sweetie,” he informed cheerfully as Theresa sank down onto the other sofa. “I’m afraid we’re feeling a bit out of sorts today, a touch grumpy, if you will. So we’re staying in, in the hopes that it will improve our temper…
ouch
!” The last as Lisa swatted him in the back on his head.

“Stop talking like that, you
know
it drives me crazy! I’m not a two year old throwing a tantrum, I’m the hormonal woman
you
knocked up! So
don’t
push me…” Rick slanted a rueful gaze at his amused friend and mouthed a wisely silent “
see
?” Theresa grinned before kicking off her shoes and dragging her feet up under her. She was dressed casually too, wearing an old pair of jeans and a bright blue t-shirt with a large, stylized butterfly printed on the front of it.

“What are we watching?” Theresa asked, leaning forward to help herself to a handful of the popcorn which was in a glass bowl on the coffee table.

“Some romantic thing that has Lisa dissolving into tears every two minutes or so,” Rick shrugged dismissively, ignoring the way his wife was glaring at him over the top of her round little glasses. “
God
, the sacrifices I make to keep this woman happy,” he groaned and Lisa gasped in outrage.

“Well if
you
had your way, we’d be watching some macho jerk swear and punch his way through two of hours of relentless explosions, car chases and gunfire,” she retorted and he grinned down at her.

“Your point being?”

“
Aaargh
!” She actually said “aaargh” and Theresa for the first time in a long time felt a giggle bubbling up in her throat. Rick suddenly grinned before dropping one arm around his wife’s narrow shoulders to drag her closer. He placed his other hand protectively over her stomach and Lisa put up a token struggle before sighing contentedly and dropping her head onto his broad shoulder. Theresa watched them enviously for a few moments before trying to focus on the movie. She had thought Rick was exaggerating about her cousin’s response to the overly-soppy film but it was true, Lisa sniffled on an average of every two minutes. Theresa was just managing to get somewhat absorbed in the plot when the doorbell went. Rick excused himself and jumped up to answer it.

Lisa watched him go with a slight smile on her face. She was quiet for a while before shaking her head in exasperation.

“You know, if I didn’t love him so darned much, I would probably have killed him by now,” she admitted sourly and Theresa surprised herself by laughing out loud in response to her cousin’s disgruntled confession. She couldn’t believe that her sense of humour was still intact after the events of the last forty-eight hours. Rick made his way back into the room, looking uncharacteristically grim and all the laughter and light drained from Theresa’s face when she saw who was standing behind the tall blonde man.

“What are
you
doing here?” She finally managed to choke out after a moment of shocked silence.

“I thought I’d join you all for lunch,” he shrugged, nodding apologetically to a still gaping Lisa. “May I sit down?” He indicated toward the sofa Theresa was occupying.

“Yes, of course,” Lisa nodded graciously.

“
No
!” Both Rick and Theresa all-but yelled at the same time as Lisa. Sandro smiled humourlessly before choosing to ignore their vehement rejections and sitting down beside Theresa. She shied as far away from him as she could but Sandro chose to ignore that too. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his spread thighs with his large, masculine hands dangling down between his legs. He focused intently on Lisa.

“How have you been, Elisa?” He asked gently. He was the only one who ever called Lisa by her full name and Theresa could sense Rick bristling.

“Fine thanks,” Lisa murmured, rubbing her hands over her stomach in an instinctively maternal gesture. “A little tired but I suppose that it’s to be expected when you’re lugging another human being around.” Sandro grinned, he actually
grinned
, at that and nodded.

“Indeed.”

“Rick, for God’s sake, stop hovering and sit down,” Lisa snapped up at her still-glowering husband. “I would like to finish watching this movie sometime in this year! We’re having lunch afterwards, Alessandro, I hope you don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” he said smoothly, leaning back and making Theresa feel incredibly claustrophobic as he crowded her with his large body. “What are we watching?” Lisa told him and Sandro did an admirable job of concealing his grimace. Lisa barely contained her own grin before hitting the play button. Rick rejoined her on the sofa, sending periodic glares over at Sandro, who kept his eyes glued on the screen and looked unfairly relaxed.

Lisa dropped her head onto her husband’s broad shoulder and resumed her occasional sniffling and Rick, unable to remain furious for long with his wife draped across him dragged Lisa close again and snuggled her up against him. His fingers interlaced with the hand she had resting on her stomach and Theresa felt like she was the only sane person in the room. Sandro was sprawled out beside her, his shoulders and thighs brushed against her every time he breathed, the other couple was snuggled together like a couple of lovebirds and she, Theresa, felt like she was losing her
mind
!

She got up abruptly and left the room, heading blindly toward the kitchen, where she stood in the middle of the room taking in great gasps of air. She should have
known
that he would follow her even there because when she turned back toward the kitchen door, there he was, watching her and a looking splendid in his own version of casual wear; a pair of faded blue jeans and a black dress shirt with the top button open to reveal the strong, masculine column of his neck.

“
Why
did you come here?” She asked on a whisper.

“I thought that we should spend some time together,” he said with a gentleness that Theresa instinctively mistrusted.

“But I
told
you… I don’t want to spend time with you,” she said in a soft, bewildered voice. “I don’t want to be anywhere
near
you!”

“Theresa…” he said, still in that same gentle voice, taking a cautious step into the room and Theresa backed up until she hit the fridge.

“The one place I had… the one place I could come and be
myself
,” she shook her head, her eyes were wide and shimmering with tears. “And you had to take
that
from me too…” the tears overflowed and she desperately tried to blot them from her cheeks with the hem of her t-shirt. He made a soft almost dismayed sound in his throat before moving so quickly that she barely had time to register it. One second he was still close to the kitchen entrance and the next he was right in front of her, sandwiching her between his body and the fridge. His large hands reached up to cup her face and his thumbs brushed roughly at the tears on her cheeks.

“
Don’t
,” his voice was low and gravelly and so thick that she could barely understand that one word. She raised her much smaller hands to his and tugged futilely at his hold, trying to get him to release her.

“I want to make things less difficult for us, Theresa…” he muttered uncomfortably, his face so close to hers that his breath washed over her skin and raised goose pimples all over her body.

“Why
now
?” She challenged the ludicrous statement angrily, trying to ignore the effect his closeness was having on her very receptive body. Her soft green eyes snapped up at his through her tears. “Is it because I’m threatening to leave this marriage without giving you your precious son, is that it?” She dropped her hands down to his hard, broad chest and tried to push him away. He wouldn’t budge.

“No,” was all he said. “That’s
not
it… because I
know
you won’t leave.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” She hissed and he was silent for a while before responding.

“The discussion we had yesterday,” he eventually, reluctantly, said and she went limp against him, all the fight leaving her abruptly.

“So, if you’re so sure I won’t leave,
what’s
this sudden need you have to spend your every waking moment with me?” She asked hollowly.

“We’re
married
for God’s sake… and we’re like strangers! I know
nothing
about you!”

“Of course you know nothing about me,” her voice was hoarse with the effort it took not to scream at him. “You’re the one who decided, even before we got married, that there was nothing
worth
knowing about me.”

“Well I’ve changed my mind,” he didn’t bother to deny her wild accusation, probably because it was true, instead dropping his hands down to her narrow shoulders to give her a little shake.

“Which once again begs the question of
why
… after eighteen months of marriage, why now?” His hands fell from her shoulders before he shrugged with an air of disinterest which belied his urgency of just seconds ago.

“Why
not
now? Now’s as good a time as any…” he was back to being remote and icy and Theresa shuddered involuntarily.

“It’s much too late, Sandro,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her slender frame. “I may be trapped in this marriage but I want nothing to do with you! The very
sight
of you makes me sick to my stomach.”

“There’s a way out of this you know,” he finally murmured.

“I know,” his hooded gaze snapped back up to her face. “Have a baby, right? You want a son… and I’m the chosen incubator.” She watched his face carefully but he betrayed not one iota of emotion other than a slight tightening of his jaw. “So what happens after I have this precious baby of yours? Who gets him after the divorce? You expect me to be nothing but a surrogate mother. I’m to bear him and you’ll then take him away from me, right?”

She was aching to hear an affirmative from him, anything that would prove to her that
he
was the one who wanted the child and that she had misunderstood the conversation she had overheard between her husband and her father that morning.

“Of course I wouldn’t take him from you,” he shook his head, sending her heart plummeting. “I wouldn’t be that cruel. Naturally you’d maintain custody,” Theresa shut her eyes to shield her agony from him and she felt her scalding tears seep down her cheeks.

“How very… magnanimous of you,” she whispered. “To be so desperate for something only to give it up in the end… you’re so much more generous than I gave you credit for. How often would you want to see him?”

“I would naturally move back to Italy so I would probably see him two or three times a year. It is what you want, no? Less contact with me?” She inhaled deeply and her brow furrowed. Two or three times a year? That was all the time he would want to spend with a child who was half hers? She opened her eyes and met his gaze squarely.

“Like I said before, you’re being quite generous but it’s all moot anyway because I have no intention of having a baby with you!”

“You’re being very childish, Theresa,” he admonished quietly.

“No, I’m finally making my
own
decisions. Up to this point in my life, everything has been decided for me… this marriage would never have happened if my father hadn’t decided that you would make the perfect son-in-law. After that, the wedding date, the venue, the cake, where we would live… it was all you or my father. I couldn’t even choose my own
wedding dress
,” the last emerged in a small, broken voice which quavered with remembered disbelief and outrage. Her father had simply had the dress delivered to her room with the direction that it was to be worn on her wedding day, no discussion and no choice.

“The only reason I got Lisa as a bridesmaid was because my father deemed it appropriate for my first cousin to be in the wedding party. If she’d been just a friend, I doubt she’d have fit the bill!”

“It turns my stomach to hear someone who’s led such a privileged life whine on about how terrible her life is, you’ve been spoilt and you’ve had everything money could buy…”

“Except
love
, specifically my husband’s love and my father’s love… apparently I’m not quite worthy of that.”

“You’re feeling sorry for yourself and I’m getting sick of it.”

“
Yes
, I’m feeling sorry for myself,” she acknowledged bitterly. “And it’s very liberating. In the past all I’ve done is
accept
everything you and my father have dished out… thinking it was my lot in life, even thinking I deserved it; if two such powerful men as you thought I wasn’t worthy of love and respect, then who was I to differ? But I’m starting to realise that
I’m
not the one at fault here. I’m not the one with the personality defect… at least my motives for marrying you were honest; I stupidly believed I loved you. Yours were less than stellar, weren’t they? They certainly had
nothing
to do with love.”