The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain

“What false conclusion?”

“I would prefer not to get into that.”

“Too bad…just wondering what could make you look so uncomfortable is taking my mind off my cramps.”

He said something she didn’t get, but there was no mistaking the irritation in his manner as he scooted to sit back on the bed with his back against the headboard.

At her questioning look, he shrugged. “If you’re going to grill me, I want to be comfortable.”

She hid an unexpected smile. He sounded so surly.

“Tell me about your false conclusion.”

CHAPTER TEN

“IT WAS a conclusion that made sense at the time.”

“You’re stalling. Tell me about it.”

“I believed you had found someone else.”

“What?”

A dark burn washed across his sculpted cheekbones. “I became obsessed with the idea you had fallen for another man. Your demand for a divorce clinched it.”

“Why?” she asked in stunned amazement.

“I could conceive of no other reason you would ask for a divorce.”

“But—”

“You had started rejecting me sexually. I did not understand it.”

“It hurt.”

“But you did not tell me that. I had to draw my own conclusions.”

“And that was that I’d taken a lover.”

“I did not go that far—I could not imagine it.”

“Thank you…I think.”

“You had started zoning out during conversations…like you were thinking about someone else.”

“My medication.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you didn’t even notice.”

“I did. Believe me.”

“But you decided the reason was because my heart had become unfaithful to you, if not my body.”

“I could not be sure I ever had your heart.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have never said you loved me.”

“Love was not a requirement of our marriage bargain.”

“No, it was not.”

Inexplicably she got the impression that he had wanted it to be…for her anyway. But why would he want her love when he did not feel deeply for her? It made no sense. Any more than his newfound desire to coddle her because she was sick.

Or did that make sense?

“I think I understand.”

“I am glad.”

“Not why you believed I’d found someone else.” She disabused him of that notion immediately. “But I think I understand you feeling the need to coddle me now.”

“Because you are ill?”

“Because you are feeling guilty for thinking I was unfaithful.”

“That is not the reason I want to take care of you now.”

“But you do feel guilty.”

For once it was very easy to read his thoughts. They were written all over his pained features. “Yes. I should have realized you were ill.”

“At least you noticed my behavior was out of the ordinary.”

“Of course I noticed.”

“There really is no of course about it. I thought you didn’t particularly care one way or the other that I had started saying no in the bedroom.”

He looked at her like she’d lost what was left of her mind. “That is absurd. Naturally I cared, but I was not going to be a petulant child about it. A woman’s no is no.”

“And why I said no wasn’t important?”

“Of course it was important.”

“But you would rather think me guilty of immorality than to ask.”

“I did ask.”

Then she remembered. “And I didn’t want to talk about it, but it had been going on for months. Why wait so long?”

He shifted on the bed, his face a study in hard angles and stonelike passivity. “It stung my pride for you to reject me sexually. To talk about it would have made it worse. I would have felt like I was begging for your favors.”

“That’s absurd.”

“It is not absurd. It is truth. Why do you think I was gone so many months during your period?”

“Because it was convenient.”

“You do not think much of me, do you?”

“That’s not true.”

“I believe it is, but it is not the issue under debate, so we will leave it. I organized my travel plans to coincide with your monthly because you made it clear that even light touching during your monthly made you feel uncomfortable. I find it a real challenge to keep my hands off you and the best solution was to be gone from our bed completely. You can believe me, or not…but I organized my schedule for your sake, not my own.”

“You have no problem not touching me outside the bedroom.”

“If you truly think that, you are blind. I would touch you all the time, but it is not seemly for a king to be that way with his wife.”