The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain

She had a medical condition that apparently affected at least one in ten women between the ages of twenty-five and forty. He could not imagine it, had never heard of it and in some respects that made him angry. One day he would be sovereign of his country…did he not need to know about things like this?

Perhaps he and the minister of health should discuss the compilation of a report of women’s health issues. He was a twenty-first century prince…not a patriarch from an outmoded era. He was sure his father would agree.

So would Therese…or she would have before. In fact, she would have insisted on taking the project over…before. Now she was intent on leaving him. Filing for divorce and ending their marriage—all because this strange disease had left her virtually infertile.

She saw no hope for their future, but his entire being rebelled at such a solution to her predicament.

He would not let her go.

Only he had this awful suspicion that it wasn’t going to be about what he wanted. Therese could be incredibly stubborn and she had decided that their marriage was no longer viable because she could not guarantee giving him children—an heir to his throne. Even if he could convince her that he did not see things that way, that he wanted her to stay, she might insist on leaving for the good of Isole dei Re.

She took her duty to her adopted country seriously. She had spent several months hiding debilitating pain and excessive bleeding in order to protect its inhabitants and the rest of the royal family from turmoil and speculation over her health. He could not believe he had been stupid enough now to believe that she would have an affair.

Even if she fell in love, she was too intensely aware of her duty to ever do anything to compromise her position. Which knowledge did not make him feel better, though it should have.

Not when she had refused to discuss anything further that morning. She had insisted she had no time if she was going to visit his father before her other duties began for the day. And she had laughed sarcastically when he had suggested that perhaps she should stay in bed and rest.

She’d curled her lip at him with a most un-Therese-like expression. “I’ve been dealing with this for months now and I’m not in the habit of abandoning my responsibilities because of it.”

“But you are ill.” And he had not known it, damn it.

“I was ill last month, too, but I did not take to my bed.”

“Perhaps you should have.”

“This from the man who read me the riot act for canceling my appointments to fly to New York to see him?”

His reaction to that event was going to haunt him for a long time, he just knew it. “I did not realize what was at stake at the time.”

“Nothing was at stake.”

“You can say that when you asked for a divorce?”

“I can say that when I know it to be true. The timing of my telling you was unfortunate. I should have waited to tell you about my condition until you got back.”

“No, you should have told me about your condition as you call it as soon as it began happening.” And definitely before she had asked for a divorce, but he wasn’t about to say that.

Blaming his vicious reaction to what he thought was news of an affair on her would not help the situation at all. He had to pay for his sins with humility…though it would not be easy to do. It was not a natural state of mind for him.

“You weren’t around to tell,” she said with unexpected anger, her green eyes snapping at him with derision. “Not during that time of month. You were always careful to plan your out of town business trips for when I wasn’t available sexually.”

She made it sound like she’d been nothing more than a sexual convenience. “It was not like that.”

“It was and is exactly like that. You’ve been doing it since practically the beginning of our marriage.”

“But it is not because I saw you as only a sexual convenience.” He’d begun scheduling his trips that way when he realized it embarrassed Therese for him to make sexual overtures during her menses. He always wanted her, so the best solution was to get out of temptation’s path.

“You could have fooled me.”

“Apparently, I did.”

She shrugged. “I have to go.”

But he could not leave it there. “I was not always gone during your periods. You could have told me, but you chose to hide it from me instead.”

“You didn’t make it very hard, did you?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been swearing a lot lately,” she said with what he thought was total irrelevance.

“And you have been lying to me for months.”