Люси Монро – The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain (страница 6)

In a marriage like theirs, it was a death knell and nothing less.

Claudio went back to what he was doing with cold precision. “It will have to wait. I have a dinner meeting.”

“Can you cancel it?”

“You mean like you obviously canceled all of your obligations so you could fly up here and have a conversation that surely could have waited the three days it would take me to get home?”

“Yes.” She didn’t care how he made it sound. That was exactly what she wanted.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Would it really be so terrible?”

“Obviously you do not consider it so, but I do not appreciate my wife letting down her obligations and therefore me.”

“And are our duties the only thing that matter in our life together?”

“Duty must come first. At one time, I believe you understood this.”

“Is that why you married me?”

“You already know it was one of the primary reasons I decided you would suit me well as a wife. Your parents could not have raised you more suitably for the life of a princess if they had been royalty themselves.”

That reminder was as unwelcome as it was painful. For she better than anyone knew how carefully her parents had raised her. Her father with the hopes she would pursue a political career and her mother with the desire to live her life’s ambitions through her daughter. Neither had ever cared what dreams beat in Therese’s heart.

“My appreciation for duty was my main attraction to you…and of course the fact that I was physically compatible with you,” she said, long denied hurt coming out as bitterness.

“Would you have expected me to marry a woman who did not understand or fit the role of princess and future queen?”

“Your brothers weren’t so worried about suitability when they chose their wives,” she reminded him.

“As I said last night, I am not my brothers.”

“No, you are the crown prince, which means duty must come first, last and always with you.”

“You knew this when we married. It is not something I expect to be raised as an issue of contention now.”

“You don’t expect anything to be raised as an issue of contention.”

“How perceptive of you to realize that.” He pulled on his black dinner jacket. “As scintillating as this conversation is, I must go or I will be late.”

“Just like that? I fly all the way from Isole dei Re and you walk out on an important conversation because your damn schedule demands it?” How was she going to tell this cold-faced stranger anything, much less the intimate details of her latest doctor’s visit?

“Do not swear at me,” he said, contriving to sound shocked.

She said a truly foul word. “You mean like that?”

“I do not know what your problem is, but I suggest you get over it. I will be back quite late. If you still feel the need to discuss whatever it is you think is so important, we can talk then.”

“And if I don’t feel like waiting?”

“You have no choice.”

“When have I ever?”

“You made a choice to marry me. No one forced you to speak your vows. If they are chafing now, please remember, you have no one but yourself to blame for your circumstances and I will not tolerate you dismissing your promises or your duty as my wife as easily as you did your duties as a princess this morning.”

“They’re pretty much the same thing, aren’t they?” she asked in a voice filled with angry pain.

“No.” His gaze seared her. “You have personal obligations to me that have nothing to do with your responsibility to the crown.”

He meant sex, she was sure…but he was wrong. That aspect of their marriage was as wrapped up in her role as princess as everything else. Because it was supposed to result in an heir to the throne and it wasn’t going to.

“Maybe I’m feeling unsure about all of my obligations right now.”

Fury filled Claudio’s gaze, but his voice was controlled and even when he spoke. “I suggest you get sure of them by the time I return to the suite tonight.”

“And if I don’t?” she dared to taunt.

“Then it will be a very unpleasant night for us both, but I warn you…my weapons are and will always be superior to yours.”

“You are so damm arrogant, Claudio.” She sighed, her anger draining away. “Anyway, don’t be so sure my weapons can’t best yours because I have an awful feeling they can.”

Her condition and infertility because of it was pretty much nuclear bomb strength when it came to the power necessary to destroy their marriage.

He paled.

“I do not have time for this.”

He left.

CHAPTER THREE

THERESE heard the outer door to the suite close with a sense of unreality and then sank onto the edge of the bed, her legs feeling like jelly.

He’d never spelled out for her how little she really meant to him before, but his parting shot pretty much summed up their relationship. He didn’t have time for her unless she was playing her role of princess wife to perfection or concubine in his bed.

They’d been married three years and not once had she put her feelings ahead of her duty. The one time she did, he let her know in no uncertain terms that he would not tolerate such behavior from her.

Tears burned a slow path down her cheeks.

She didn’t have a marriage. She had a business partnership where she was the junior partner all the way. And the primary partner had no interest in or desire to renegotiate terms. She would fulfill her duties, or else. Only the or else in this instance was both permanent and painful. And the thing that hurt the most was that she didn’t think it was going to bother him at all.

He would just move on to another businesslike marriage after shattering her heart and not even knowing he’d done it.

“Your Highness, would you like me to order you some dinner?” one of the security men asked from the open doorway.

She averted her face so he could not see the tears, then took a breath to steady her voice. “No, thank you.”

“If you are not hungry now, I can order later delivery.”

Oh, gosh…she could not handle this. She just wanted to be alone. She forced her convulsing throat to speak. “I do not want any dinner, thank you. And, Roberto, could you…” She had to swallow back a sob.

“Your Highness?”

“Could you please shut the door?”

Her answer was the quiet snick of the door latch catching.

She felt her control slip another notch as the nominal privacy of the shut door registered with her emotions. She’d been holding herself in check for so long; forcing herself to bite back the words of love she’d wanted to utter, to hide her distress at the frequent separations from Claudio brought about by their schedules, and for the past several months pretending that the horrific pain of endometriosis did not exist.

At first, she’d convinced herself it was just the period pain made more intense by going off the pill. But then, one night when Claudio had been gone on yet another business trip, she had fainted from the cramps and when she woke up on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood, she’d known she had to find out what was wrong.

She’d gone to see her doctor in the States, a habit she’d developed early in her marriage to protect her privacy. Trips abroad were easy enough to justify in her schedule that she found it quite easy to hide the purpose of her stopovers in Miami.

Her doctor’s initial prognosis had been utterly disturbing. He’d thought she was probably suffering from endometriosis, but the only way to tell for sure was to perform a laparoscopy. She thought she could handle it and accepted a prescription for painkillers, only to give in the following month and schedule the outpatient surgery.

She’d gotten the results the day before along with a big bucket of ice water to dash her hopes that she would be one of the lucky ones who wasn’t impacted too heavily by the disease. Apparently she’d had it for quite a while, but being on the pill had mitigated its effects. There was major tissue build up on both of her ovaries and even with the surgery to remove it all, her chances of getting pregnant without IVF were less than ten percent. Even with IVF, there were no guarantees.

Those were not the kind of odds Crown Prince Claudio had been counting on when he had her take fertility tests before announcing their engagement. A future king had responsibilities to the throne and one of the most important ones was providing an heir to carry on his lineage. He expected her to be able to do that with one hundred percent success and for all intents and purposes, she was infertile.

After seeing the way the press and the Scorsolini family had reacted to Marcello’s supposed sterility, Therese knew there was no chance her proud husband would willingly suffer similar vilification for her sake. And she wouldn’t expect him to.

If he loved her, it would be different, but then so much would be. Love was not an emotion that could be faked, nor could it be replaced with a sense of duty.

Claudio might offer to remain married, but his heart wouldn’t be in it and she could not live with the knowledge that she was a burden around his neck…a source of humiliation to his royal pride.

A sob snaked up from deep inside her to explode out of her mouth and she had to clamp her hand over her lips to keep the sound from traveling to the other room. Feeling like an old woman, she pushed herself to her feet.