The Marriage Surrender

Seeing that grin come alive now made her wish she knew what he was talking about; she wished she’d taken the time to learn his language so maybe she could make him smile like that occasionally.

But she didn’t need a grasp of Italian to make Sandro smile, she recalled. It took her simple desire to please; that was all. Something she’d once used to have, but now was no longer allowed to have.

This beautiful country estate pleased him, she reflected as she looked back at the brochure. She had seen the pleasure in his face as he’d looked at it, seen the desire to own a place like this.

‘So, shall I purchase it or not?’

She blinked, not realising he had finished his conversation and was concentrating on her again.

‘You’re the investment expert,’ she said, passing the brochure back to him with a dismissiveness that brought the old frown back to his face.

‘You don’t like it?’

‘I think its beautiful; I told you that,’ she snapped, half hating herself for raining on his parade like this.

‘Good.’ Casually he put the brochure aside. ‘Because I have just closed a deal on it, via Guido,’ he announced, beginning to smile again. ‘So, if you are feeling up to it, cara, we will drive up there tomorrow and look over our new home.’

Predictably, Joanna froze while Sandro remained leaning where

he was, ruefully watching it happen.

‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered finally.

‘Yes, you do,’ he parried in a soft-toned taunt that sent warning quivers shooting down her spine. ‘For tomorrow will be the third day of your new life,’ he chanted, in what was becoming his most effective barb to keep her mind fully concentrated on who was in control around here. ‘It will begin with a drive out of Rome towards the Orvieto region, and end on the estate, with just you, me, and our marriage to work on.’

‘No.’ The protest was purely instinctive, as was the way she was already stiffening up, making to move right away from him—

But Sandro stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘No more running from what you don’t want to face, Joanna,’ he warned. ‘That tightly closed door in your head is now open and I mean to keep it that way.’

‘And I have no say in the matter, I suppose,’ she bit back, trying to sound shrewish and only managing to sound anxious.

‘Not while you still fight me, no,’ he confirmed. ‘You see, I know the problem now, so I intend to deal with it.’

The problem, she repeated to herself. The problem which was Joanna’s aversion to sex! But he didn’t know the real problem—didn’t know even half of it!

‘I need to go and—’ Once again she tried to move away.

‘No.’ Once more Sandro stopped her, the hand on her arm firmly drawing her in front of him and keeping her there with both hands spanning her narrow waist while he studied the strain written in her face through very grim eyes.

Not angry, but grim. There was a definite distinction, because his anger gave her something to spark on, but his grimness only made her want to break down and cry.

‘I won’t let you touch me!’ she flashed, eyes snapping everywhere they could go, so long as they did not settle on him.

He didn’t answer, he just kept her standing there in front of him in the dappling sunshine while he moved his eyes over her, from her freshly washed hair to the clothes she had pulled on in her haste to get away from him.

Now she almost wished she’d run naked through the streets of Rome rather than having wasted those extra minutes agonising over whose clothes she was going to have to wear.

‘You know,’ he remarked suddenly, ‘you have the best pair of legs I have ever set eyes on. Those jeans do the most exciting things to my libido...’

So low-voiced and sensual, so evocative of a time when he’d used to say things like that to her all the time. She hadn’t realised how precious those kind of words were to her until she no longer dared to listen to them.

‘Please, don’t,’ she choked, feeling desperate, feeling flustered, feeling other senses begin to disturb her oh, so fragile equilibrium with low, droning vibrations of awareness to him.

But he only gave a small shake of his head and drew her even closer, parting his legs and wedging her between two long, strong muscular thighs. Her breath caught; her breast-tips were ready and waiting to sting into life at this mere hint that their most favourite stimulus was so close again.

His expression was so intense, so—Italian, a raw animal sexuality seeming to ooze from every silk-smooth golden pore. ‘You smell of me,’ he detected softly. ‘I find it most alluring...’