The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain

“That I’m sure I’m not pregnant,” she interrupted, just wanting the conversation over so she could take a hot shower. “I know my own body and my period is coming. All the signs are there.” Including the pain of the endometriosis. Though, thankfully, so far only the twinges she had had the other night.

“As I said, your period is no guarantee.”

“I told you I would have the tests. I don’t understand why we have to argue about it. Can’t we drop this conversation now? I want to change and go to bed.”

“Yes, you agreed to have the tests, but you also told me that you wanted to have my baby very much. I do not know what to believe. I do not understand.”

And he could not let it drop until he did.

Tears that should have been impossible considering how much she had cried already, burned the back of her eyes. “I did want to have your baby.”

She still did, which made her stupid as well as a complete failure in the love stakes.

“Did…past tense.”

“What do you expect? No woman wants to learn she is pregnant by a man who is bored with her and their marriage.”

At least she shouldn’t, but the thought that he would not let her go if she was pregnant taunted her, making her wish for the impossible and angry at herself for doing so. Bored or not, he would never allow the mother of his child to walk away.

“I do not know what to expect from you at all any longer, Therese. I do not understand you,” he said again, his undertone one of angry bewilderment. “I thought I knew you well, but discovered I was very wrong in that assumption.”

“What difference does it make? You’re bored with what you do know. You said so.” She spun away and rushed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her, unwilling to let him see how much those words hurt.

She stripped and stepped into the oversize shower stall. Not because she wanted another shower after the long one she’d taken in the hotel, but because it was the one place she could safely vent her emotions. She turned on the taps and icy cold jets of water hit her from five directions.

Her mind was in such a state of turmoil, that the frigid temperatures barely registered before the water started to warm to her preset selection on the control panel by the door. Pleasantly hot water was cascading down her body when she felt another presence in the cubicle.

She turned around, her mind telling her instincts they had to be wrong, but they were not. Claudio was there just as she had known he would be.

He stood magnificently naked, the water running in rivulets down his bronze chest. “I decided not to wait on my shower.”

“Get out,” she gasped.

“But why should I? We’ve done this together many times before.”

“But everything is different now.”

“You are still my wife.” And there was a message there she did not quite get.

“Only temporarily,” she said to punish herself as much as him.

“So you have said.”

“And you agreed. You said you wanted it…the divorce,” she said, unable to hide her pain at that truth.

“Perhaps I spoke hastily. I am not bored with every aspect of our relationship, cara. Not yet.”

Was that supposed to make her feel better? It didn’t and neither did the look of desire hardening his features.

“You want sex?” she asked in total shock, having just worked that out.

“Why so surprised? It is something we are very good at together.”

“But you said…” He’d said that her value as a partner had gone down when she started turning him down, not that he didn’t want her anymore.

“I said?”

“Things that hurt me.”

“And your demand for a divorce did not hurt me?” he asked.

Had it? Probably. But then why would he want sex now? Nothing made sense anymore. “I don’t understand,” she said, echoing his sentiments earlier.

His dark eyes narrowed. “Welcome to the club.”

“You can’t want me.”

“Now that is where you are wrong, Therese. Very much wrong.” He leaned down and kissed her with blatant seductive intent, his lips molding hers, his big hands sliding around her waist to pull her closer to his naked maleness.

She was so stunned by this turn of events that she did nothing, neither fighting him nor acquiescing.

He lifted his head, the slumberous passion in his eyes much hotter than the water pelting their bodies. “What is the matter? You were quick enough to respond only a night ago.”

How could he ask something so stupid? “That was before…”

“Before you told me we had to divorce?”

“Yes. I don’t think—”