'If you do anything to hurt my mother—'
'The decision whether or not to hurt your mother lies in your hands,' he pointed out, his tone silky smooth. 'Agree to stay as my wife for as long as it takes Chiara to regain her memory and the loan is secure. When we finally divorce I shall make sure the business is yours.'
She swallowed hard, her gaze filled with contempt as she considered the position he was putting her in. He was leaving her with absolutely no choice and he knew it. 'You are utterly ruthless-—'
'When I want something, then I go after it until I get it. If that's ruthless then yes, I'm ruthless.' He gave a dismissive shrug that showed how little the accusation troubled him and she turned away in disgust, knowing that he'd applied exactly that philosophy in his pursuit of her.
He'd wanted her and he'd been prepared to go to any lengths in order to have her.
'Why are you doing this?' Her voice was little more than a whisper. 'Our marriage was a disaster. We both know that. Why would you want me back?'
They'd had no contact for over a year.
Surely he couldn 't be asking this of her.
His brief glance revealed the depth of his contempt for her. 'I don't want you back. But Chiara needs a stable environment. Until her memory recovers, she needs to be protected from shocks. And our marriage was not a disaster.' His eyes glittered dangerously in his handsome face. 'But you were too stubborn to allow it to work, too fiercely independent to accept that marriage is a partnership. And I won't have Chiara punished for your failings in that direction. I don't want her to know that our relationship is over.'
For a moment Stasia just stared at him blankly, astonished by his accusation. He was telling her that marriage was a partnership? That she was stubborn? When all the compromises had been hers—
She shook her head, uncomprehending. 'I can't believe you'd do this to me. To yourself.'
Because this had to be hurting him too.
She could read his distaste for the task in every angle of his sharp, masculine features, in the way he kept his powerful body at a safe distance from hers. As if to come too close might contaminate him.
Stasia gazed at him helplessly. No wonder he was such a successful businessman. Like the most dangerous predator, he looked for the weakness in his prey and then used that weakness to achieve his own ends. How could she have fallen in love with a man like him?
How could she have been so blinded to the person he was? How could she have ever thought that this man might be capable of so gentle an emotion as love? 'It isn't a practical solution, Rico. I need to work—-I have commissions—'
'You can work from the villa.' His black eyes slammed into hers. 'But no travelling. Anything that would take you out of Sicily will have to wait until Chiara's condition allows us to finally reveal the truth.'
She wanted to argue, but how could she when her mother's happiness depended on her compliance? He was leaving her absolutely no choice and he knew it. This wasn't about their relationship, it was about his need to control.
'AH right.' She could barely frame the words. 'I'll do it. But don't expect me to like you for this.'
'How times change.' His gaze didn't shift from hers and the sarcasm in his hard tone bit into her flesh. 'I can remember a time when you used to call me on my mobile every hour to beg me to come home and make love to you.'
It was a cruel reminder of just how open she'd been with him. How honest. She'd never been afraid to tell him how she felt, even though he'd never revealed anything of his own feelings in return.
With the benefit of hindsight she realized that it was because he hadn't shared her feelings. How could he express what he didn't feel?
She lifted her chin, trying to hang on to the last of her pride. 'I never begged.'
'Oh, you begged, Stasia, in that sexy, husky voice of yours—' his own voice was soft and tormenting '—and when I arrived you'd be naked in the bed. Waiting. Waiting for me.
Wanting me.'
Stasia closed her eyes, just hating the picture he was painting. A picture of a clingy, dependent woman, something she'd always promised herself she'd never become. And that was part of the reason their marriage had failed, of course. She'd never been comfortable with the woman she became when she was with this man.
'I certainly remember the waiting,' she said coldly, making a supreme effort to hold herself together. 'I remember endless days and weeks spent waiting for you to come home from yet another business trip. Sitting there, bored and alone.'
'So boring that you took a lover?'
'That is not what happened.'
'Then how else do you explain a naked man in our bedroom? Our bedroom’
A tense silence followed his outburst of raw emotion and her heart almost stopped.