The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain

“Who says my ancestors were marauders?”

“They were pirates, plain and simple. They used their ill-gotten bounty to establish a country, but they were not the pillars of society their descendants became.”

“Are you saying I am a pirate beneath my layers of civility?” he asked, sounding an awful lot exactly like that.

“No…I am attempting to remind you that you are one of those rational, civilized descendants.” She looked into his eyes and what she read there made her shiver.

“I would have agreed with you…before, but in the last weeks, I have discovered a heretofore unknown streak of primitive possessiveness where you are concerned that hearkens back to my ancestors quite effectively.”

“So you do realize it’s there…”

“Yes. And you must also, which then means you should realize how foolish it would be to attempt to leave me.”

She glared at his complacent certainty. “If I decide to walk, I will walk.”

She meant it, too. Maybe she didn’t descend from Sicilian pirates, but she had the blood of Romans running in her veins as well as a good dose of American assertiveness.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“DO NOT decide to walk.” The pleading in his voice was more astonishing than the fact he’d allowed his primitive streak to show so blatantly.

“What will you do?” she asked softly, trying to read his expression, but not understanding what she saw there.

He was silent several seconds and then he sighed. “Follow you.”

She laughed because it was absurd. He was more proud than his father and if Vincente had been unable to bend enough to apologize for behavior he had known was reprehensible, Claudio would never stoop to chasing after a wayward wife. Besides, he couldn’t, even if he wanted to. “Your duties wouldn’t allow it and you would never lower yourself to tagging after me like a lost puppy.”

“Puppies are harmless. I am not. Make no mistake…I would follow you.”

“But your duty—”

“My first duty is to you, my wife…and to our marriage. I will not let you go.”

He would…if she really wanted to go. Primitive streak, or not…he was a modern man. But what he was saying here was that he would not make it easy. She didn’t know if she had the strength to fight both him and her own desire to stay. However, she wasn’t sure anymore, either, if she had the strength to stay in a marriage in which she was not loved.

It hurt, as much or more than the endometriosis. She’d learned something last night. Her pain and vulnerability that resulted from loving where the feeling was not returned had made her misinterpret his actions, thereby adding more hurt to her beleaguered heart. Without his love, wouldn’t she continue to do that very thing?

No matter how much she might want to avoid it.

She laid her hand over the one against her cheek. “You have to be reasonable about this. Please, Claudio.”

“I am not the one being unreasonable here. It is both foolish and dangerous for you to wait to have the surgery. And it is criminally shortsighted for you to believe we must divorce.”

“I am infertile. I cannot give you an heir.”

“Your doctor said that IVF had a seventy percent success rate with endometriosis patients.”

“That is still not a guarantee.”

“Neither is unhindered fertility.”

“But there’s a better chance for you to have children with a woman who does not have endometriosis.”

“I do not want another woman!”

She dropped her hand and leaned back with a jerk, stunned by his vehemence. “That’s just guilt talking.”

He shook his head, barely banked rage glittering in his dark gaze. “It is not guilt. You are my wife. I want you to remain my wife. If there is no other man, why are you so intent on ending our marriage?”

“There is no other man,” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe we are back to that.”

“Then why?”

“It’s for the good of the country, Claudio. You would see that if you were thinking with your brain and not your pride.”

“No.” He glowered. “The good of the country is best served by you staying as my wife.”

She couldn’t believe he was being so stubborn. “Not if I can’t give you children.”

“If you cannot, I have brothers and a nephew who are in line to the throne.”

“You heard your brothers last night. They don’t want their children to have the pressures of growing up to be king.”

“Tough,” he said without the slightest hint of apology. “While they may not have been born first, they were born to a king. If I were to die before having a child, Tomasso would have to take my role and his son would then inherit the throne. It is the way of our bloodline.”