The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain

His second hand joined the first and he tilted her face up so she could not hope to avoid his discerning gaze. “Why?”

She licked her lips, wishing again they were not going downstairs for dinner with his father. She wished even more that the twinges of pain in her pelvis were just the regular preperiod cramps she had believed them to be when she first went off the pill so they could try for a baby. “I spent the whole morning with representatives of Isole dei Re’s foremost women’s organization discussing the need for day care services and preschools on the islands.”

He frowned as if he couldn’t understand what bothered her about that. She’d had many such meetings and they had all gone rather well. However, all he said was, “I thought Tomasso’s wife was spearheading that.”

“The helicopter flight between the islands exacerbates Maggie’s morning sickness, but she didn’t want to put the meeting off. I convinced her to let me take her place. Looking back, I should have had the delegates flown to Diamante to meet with her instead.”

His hands dropped from her face and she felt an immediate chill from the withdrawal, though she was sure he hadn’t meant it that way. “Why? You and Maggie share views on this subject. You have certainly discussed it enough to cover all the points adequately.”

“Not according to the delegates.” She grimaced. “They felt that a woman without children, moreover one who had never been forced to work for her living, could not comprehend the challenges faced by working mothers. They believe that Maggie is ideal for this endeavor and that I should keep right out of it.”

“They said this to you?” He didn’t sound offended on her behalf, merely curious. He could have no idea how much the other women’s disapproval had hurt.

She felt both exhausted and savaged, especially after the phone call from her doctor in Miami. “Yes.”

“It is a good thing that you grew up learning political diplomacy then.”

“Meaning it might have upset you if I had told them all to take a flying leap?”

Claudio gave a masculine chuckle as if he could not imagine such a thing. “As if you would.”

“Maybe I did.”

But he just shook his head. “I know you. No chance.”

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” In fact, she knew he didn’t. After all, he’d never once latched on to the fact that she’d married him because she loved him. The marriage of convenience aspect had been a plan hatched in his and her mother’s more mercenary brains.

“Did you?” he asked with a sardonic brow raised.

She wanted to say yes just to prove him wrong, but told the truth instead. “No, but I wanted to.”

“What we want and what we allow ourselves to do are rarely the same thing. And it is a testament to your suitability to your position that you live by this stricture.”

She turned away from him and started putting on her jewelry. “And you wonder why I compared being a princess to being a prisoner?”

“Are you unhappy, Therese?”

“No more than most people,” she admitted. She’d been raised from the time she was a tiny child to hide her true emotion, but she was so tired of pretending.

“You are unhappy?” Claudio demanded in a voice laced with unmistakable shock.

The man so well-known in diplomatic circles for his perspicacity was thick as a brick where she was concerned.

“Two of the delegates were less than subtle in expressing their belief it was past time I gave you an heir,” she said instead of answering.

“And this upset you?” Again the shocked surprise.

“A little.”

“But it should not. Soon you will be able to share happy news on that score.”

She winced as his words sprinkled salt into wounds left open and bleeding by the doctor’s phone call.

“And if I can’t?” she asked, testing waters she was not ready to tread into.

His big, warm hands landed on her shoulders and he turned her to face him with inexorable movements. “You are bothered that you have not yet conceived? You should not be. We have only been trying for a few months. The doctor said that women who have been on the pill for a prolonged time can take longer to get pregnant, but it will happen soon enough. After all, we know everything is in working order.”

Worse than salt on wounds, those words were like the lashing of a cruelly wielded whip. Prior to marrying three years ago, he had required they go through several tests including blood type and the compatibility of his sperm with the mucus on her cervix. He had also requested she have her fertility cycles tested, just to be sure.