The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain

She knew it and finally accepted it. She’d started this thing and she had to finish it, no matter how much she might want to put it off. No matter how deeply she might regret her impulsive decision to come to New York. Tears choked her throat and she knew she couldn’t begin tell him about her body’s deficiency with even a semblance of emotional detachment. There was only one thing she could say.

And she wasn’t even sure how to say it.

Feeling pressured beyond endurance in her current overly emotional state and overwhelmed by the simple sensation of being held in his arms for what she was sure was the last time, she ended up just blurting it out, “We have to divorce.”

Eyes filling with inimical rage, he dropped her in an act of such utter repudiation her stomach knotted with pain to add on top of all the other hurt she was feeling. If she hadn’t grabbed him for support, she would have fallen flat on her bottom.

But he shook her touch off with disdainful rejection. “You bitch.”

She’d never seen him so angry and it scared her silly. “I…I h-have to tell you—”

“You will divorce me over my dead body,” he interrupted in a deadly voice.

Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t make anything come out. She tried, but no words would issue forth. It all hurt too much. She’d never believed she would have to say those fatal words to him. She would have done anything, given any amount of money…even years from her life not to have had to do so. And yet as horrific as his response was to her demand for divorce, she could not make herself speak the truth that labeled her a total failure as a woman.

He had hurt her too much and there was nothing left inside her of trust for his willingness to spare her emotions.

And the harshness of his reaction confused her…made it harder for her to think, to cope with what needed to be said. She simply had not expected him to respond with such fury. After all, they were in effect discussing the dissolution of what he considered a business contract. Nothing more.

For him. For her, it was the end of everything beautiful in her life.

Unless…maybe their marriage was more important to him than she had thought. Could it be true? Could his reaction mean he cared after all? Inside her, her heart leaped…could she have misread him from the beginning? All of the evidence she had compiled in her own mind pointed to the fact that she did not matter to him on a personal level, not for who she was—the person inside who craved his love so ardently.

But had she misread it all? She didn’t see how she could have. No. She shook her head. It simply wasn’t possible. Maybe she could have misread a misspoken phrase here and there, but not an entire lifestyle that continuously pointed out how small a role she played in his life. And nothing could be more convincing than her knowledge of how a Scorsolini male acted in love, because she’d seen it in his younger brothers.

Yet, he was behaving as if the end of their marriage really mattered to him. “Why are you so angry?” she asked in an almost whisper, trying not to let hope build again.

He looked at her in incredulous fury. “You have just told me you want a divorce and you ask me this?”

“Yes.” His answer meant so much, she was trembling with fear and anticipation of what it might be.

“I had certain requirements when looking for a wife, you knew this,” he gritted from between clenched teeth.

“Y-yes.” It was not sounding promising.

“One of those requirements was a wife who understood and accepted the importance of duty and sacrificing one’s personal happiness for the sake of what is best for Isole dei Re.”

“Were you sacrificing your personal happiness to marry me?” she asked painfully.

She’d always wondered if he’d wanted a different woman, even a different kind of woman. One who was more vivacious and exciting. A woman who would not necessarily make the ideal princess, but who would have matched the fiery passion that bubbled beneath the solid surface of his duty.

“Happiness never came into it one way or the other.”

Hurt lancing through her, she said, “It did for me. I was happy to marry you. I wanted you more than I could imagine wanting anyone else.”

For some reason, her words made him flinch. “But now you want a divorce. Your desire for me, this happiness you mention was short-lived. It did not last even three full years. And yet what did I withhold from you that I promised to give you?”

“Nothing.” He had withheld nothing except his love and that had never been on offer as part of their bargain.

“So, you will accept that I have not reneged on my side of our marriage bargain?”