The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain

Her own anger said she should not care, but her heart was too bloody from recent wounds to withstand much more and she was smart enough to realize it. Besides, it was entirely possible she would not be able to hide her physical agony from the endometriosis when her monthly came.

At least if she told him about it now, she would not have to deal with revelations during a time she was least up to doing so. Every month got worse and until she had the surgery, it would continue to do so. While he might not like hearing the truth, it couldn’t be worse than his belief that she was selfishly letting him down.

She moved to sit beside him, anger and the need for honesty between them still at war inside of her. “Claudio.”

He looked at her, his dark eyes winter-cold. “What?”

Remember, diplomacy and tact, she told herself. “I don’t want to add to the burden of worry you are dealing with King Vincente, but—”

“Then do not.”

“What?” she asked, not having expected to be cut off like that. After all, despite the way he’d been acting earlier, he’d been trained in diplomacy since infancy, too.

“You are about to tell me why you want a divorce, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Do not.”

“But I need to.”

“I do not wish to hear it.”

“But—”

“You can have your divorce, Therese, but not until my father’s health is stable enough to withstand news that his treasured daughter-in-law has feet of clay. Until that point, we will continue the facade of our marriage. Capice?”

“No, not really. I don’t understand at all, actually,” she admitted, reeling for the third time that night at a totally unexpected reaction from him. It was as if he had become a completely different man to the one she had thought she married. “I thought you said our marriage would end over your dead body.”

“I have changed my mind.”

“I can see that, but why?”

“You are not the only one who has grown bored with the setup, but I would have done nothing about it which I am sure you think makes me a fool for duty.”

And she had thought she had grown inured to more pain. What a joke. She felt like her heart was being ripped right out of her chest. “I never said I was bored.”

“But I am.” He flicked his hand in a throwaway gesture that implied their marriage meant that little to him. “The truth is, I am only too happy to give you a divorce, but as I said…it will have to wait on my father’s health. You can live with that limitation, I imagine?”

“You want a divorce?” she asked, that portion of his words the only ones that registered with any real impact.

This was worse than any scenario she could have predicted. She’d thought it was very possible he might accept her solution with an equanimity that would hurt, but she had never envisioned he would actually welcome it. That he had grown bored being married to her.

“You are beautiful, Therese, but a man needs something more than a pretty face and impeccable table manners to ease the prospect of an entire lifetime together. Once you started turning me down in the bedroom, your stock in my life dropped dangerously low. As I said, I would have stuck it out because once I make a promise, I keep it. But I will not fight for a marriage I do not actually want.”

“You don’t want to be married to me?” she asked faintly, needing him to verify his words.

“Why so surprised? You feel the same way.”

“I…do?” she asked stupidly, her brain having ceased to function on an analytical level.

“And you did not even have the strength of character to stick it out,” he said, treating her words like a confirmation rather than a question. “Funny, I always thought there was more to you than that, but I will not pretend grief I do not feel.”

“But earlier…”

“I allowed my pride to dictate my words. Certainly I was not reacting to what I really wanted.”

Feeling sick to her stomach from some very real grief, Therese lurched up from her seat. “Then, I guess there is nothing left to say.”

“Nothing that I could want to hear, no.”

She nodded jerkily, amazed on one level at how much agony the human heart could withstand without ceasing to beat and simply hemorrhaging internally from that pain on another.

Claudio watched his wife stumble down the aisle back to her original seat and wanted to hit something. Damn it, why did she have to look so distraught? She was the one who had asked for a divorce. She was the one who had found someone else.

And she’d wanted to tell him about it. As if hearing the details could somehow make her infidelity all right.