The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain

“Covering…it’s not the same thing. Ask any politician.”

“But you are not a politician. You are my wife.”

She pulled on a short pink-and-brown tweed jacket that matched her stylish skirt and flipped her hair out from her collar. “I am a princess…in today’s age, that makes me a politician.”

“It is because you are my wife that you are a princess. Our relationship comes first.”

“Like it did in New York?” she asked as she headed for the door.

“You took me by surprise.”

She opened the door, her expression one of cool challenge. “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, or so they say, but your eyesight has been purely myopic where I’m concerned from the very beginning, Claudio. You see what you want to see, perceive only what is convenient and totally disregard everything else. Trying to rewrite our short history for the sake of my feelings or your pride will not change that reality.”

“I thought you were happy being my wife.” At least he had until the last few months.

“I was, but that doesn’t alter the fact that you made it so easy to hide my illness from you. Why was it so easy, Claudio? Why didn’t you care enough to notice that some months it was all I could do to hold it together?”

He had no answer, his gut tightening at the question and something in the region of his heart squeezing in a painful vise. She had turned and walked away then. No more questions. No histrionics, just a dignified exit…something she excelled at.

He had made it a point to be at the palace for lunch, but she had treated him like he was a stranger. Tomasso, Maggie and Flavia had been there as well and he had received a few odd looks from each of them, but no one pried. Flavia had looked at Therese several times, her brown gaze darkened with worry…but still no questions were asked.

And Claudio wondered why it was that an obvious problem could exist and yet no one remark upon it, but he could never remember it being any different. They were a royal family and they did not air their concerns in public, but when had that stretched to meaning he should not ask his wife why the heck she was acting so loopy?

He’d made assumptions about what that had meant and could not have been more off target if he had tried. He had believed she was having an affair and it had gutted him. But never once had he simply asked why she did not want to make love as frequently, why she zoned off when they were talking sometimes and why she had started pulling away from him.

Why hadn’t he?

The easy answer was that he had not wanted to hear what he thought was the answer, but it was more complicated than that. It had to do with an unspoken rule in his family that one did not discuss unpleasantness. A rule he had been completely unaware of on a conscious level until now.

The Scorsolinis were men of action, but talking about something as esoterical as feelings was an anathema to most of them. And admitting weakness was even worse. To have admitted he was worried, that he missed her formerly generous passion in bed would have been beyond his ability.

Which meant what? That he was willing to pretend nothing had changed when things patently had changed for the sake of his pride.

While all along, his wife had been battling this horrible, painful disease and telling no one. Because no one had asked. He had not asked. Guilt consumed him. He should have known something was wrong, even without asking. She was right…he’d made it too easy for her to hide her illness, but not because he had not cared.

Would he be able to convince her of that?

He got the impression she did not think he cared at all and nothing could be further from the truth. He had thought she was growing bored with his lovemaking when in fact she had simply been protecting herself. Did she not realize that a man needed to know these things?

Looking down at the report he had to acknowledge that there apparently was a great deal she had kept from him during their three-year marriage. Things she had obviously not realized he needed to know.

He found it incomprehensible that she had a secret doctor in Miami who had diagnosed her. She’d said that she had been going to this doctor for anything of a delicate nature since the very beginning of their marriage. How many appointments had she kept in secret, how many trips had she made and worked the visit in?

And how had she managed to do it while traveling with a security detail? He did not like the feeling there was a whole side to his wife he had not known existed. He did not like much of anything about this situation.

She said the doctor was discreet and that was why she had gone to him. She’d wanted to keep gossip out of the tabloids, but that did not explain her reticence in telling Claudio the truth. He was her husband, but she treated him like an adversary to be warily regarded and gotten around. She did not trust him at all.