The Marriage Surrender

‘Exactly what your horrified mind is telling you,’ he replied. ‘That this marriage is for life. I am not letting you push me out of it a second time. Unless, of course,’ he tagged on grimly, as he pulled open the door, ‘you cling so tenaciously to what is in effect a damned lost cause, I may decide it is more than time to let go of my own lost cause!’

Which so obviously meant her that Joanna just stood there staring as the door closed behind him, his words having had such a profound effect on her that she could barely draw in breath!

Lost cause? Was that what she was? Was that what this whole wretched state of affairs was really all about—a lost cause?

Her legs gave out, sinking her weakly onto the bed because she had suddenly realised that Sandro was oh, so right!

In her own case, what was gone was indisputably gone! Pining over its loss was never going to bring it back again!

She had been clinging to the principles of a long-lost cause! She truly was a frightened virgin at heart, afraid to give herself freely to the man she loved in case he took and found her wanting!

And what those two men had done to her didn’t count, not any more.

It couldn’t count, she realised suddenly, if she was going to salvage anything at all from this mess she had made of both her own and Sandro’s lives!

Because that was something else he had been right about, namely, why should he continue clinging to something that was so clearly becoming his own lost cause?

Abruptly she was on her feet again, shivering, cold—so cold it struck at the very heart of her. Cold with fear. But this fear was different from the one she was used to feeling, because it came from a fear of losing, not the old fear of giving.

Sandro was beginning to see her as a lost cause. He was going to give up on her!

That was when the panic flared—again, not the old panic but a new panic, which set her moving jerkily towards the bathroom with the certain knowledge of what she had to do if she wanted to make things right between them ringing like a warning bell inside her head. It had her quickly stripping off and showering her clammy body. Had her hurriedly tugging a long white bathrobe over still damp skin with shaking fingers

She didn’t know if she could carry it right through to its natural conclusion, but she was certainly going to try!

The rest of the apartment was quiet when she stepped out of her room, so quiet she began to fear that Sandro might well have left it altogether! That fear tagged itself on to the end of every other fear she was desperately trying to wage war with as, to the pulsing rh

ythm of her own tense heartbeat, she made herself walk down the hallway to the room she had not let herself enter in three long years.

Pressing anxious teeth into her trembling lower lip, she reached for the door handle and made herself turn it.

Her eyes honed directly in on him the moment she stepped inside. It was such a relief to find him there that she never even noticed the once-daunting quality of high ceilings and grey-painted walls washed over with eaude-nil and gold leafed features.

She didn’t see the majestic bed, or recall that the last time she had been in this room she had enacted the kind of horrified scene that had left Sandro utterly shaken.

None of that seemed to matter any more, because he was all that mattered. This man who was standing there, staring out of the window, lost in his own grim train of thought. He had showered too, she noticed, his long lean body wrapped in a short white towelling bathrobe similar to her own.

He had heard her enter, because he was turning abruptly, his dark eyes still those two pinpoints of anger lancing into her, until he grimly hooded them over with his lids, closing her out.

Was it too late? Had she already left it too late to salvage this precious marriage of theirs? Her heart flipped over, all those fears and uncertainties centering on that closed, grim face, the knowledge of what she had to do next making her fingers tremble as they reached up to the knot that was holding her bathrobe in place.

The action stiffened his body slightly. His eyes flicked upwards to clash with hers in a question that brought a flood of heat rushing to her cheeks.

But she determinedly continued with what she was intending to do. Heart hammering, lungs tight, she let her fingers loosen the robe belt and slowly parted the heavy fabric, sliding it from her slender shoulders until its weight sent it falling from her body to land in a snowy heap around her feet.

Naked.

Married for three years, wildly in love for even longer than that, yet this was the first time she had stood in front of Sandro naked.

It was such a dramatic gesture. So in keeping with the dramatic way Joanna dealt with all situations in her life, be it love, fear, pleasure or trauma.

Which category this particular gesture fell into, she wasn’t sure; she had a suspicion it was a mad tangle of all four emotions as she stood there, watching the way those long, lush lashes lowered over the dark burn in his eyes as they swept slowly over her, from satin-smooth shoulders to the high, firm thrust of her rounded breasts.

They responded by tightening, the rosebud tips stinging into prominent life under his hooded gaze. The silence in the room was stunning; neither moved, neither breathed as Sandro slid his gaze lower, over the slender ribcage that led to her narrow waist and flat stomach, where the hollow of her navel quivered slightly under stress. Then on, further on, down across the gentle swell of her hips to linger finally on the soft cluster of red-gold curls that defined the heart-shaped apex where her long, shapely thighs met with the very core of her sex.

That part of her began to throb softly, her bare toes curling in response. Did he understand what she was trying to do here? she wondered tensely. Did he see that she was trying to give back to him something she had taken away from him, right here in this very room three years ago?

His face told her nothing, nor his stone-still stance.