He’d taken her words in an entirely different manner.
She’d sensed it in the stiffening of his body. Saw the rejection in his eyes as he withdrew from her. Within seconds, they were at each other’s throats exactly as they always were.
Was it any wonder then that she’d snapped at him? It wasn’t the right thing to do, she knew that. She should have attempted to explain herself, explain the unexplainable. But she was scared, so she’d done what any woman would have. Using her words, she’d tried to put some distance between them. Time was what she needed so she could figure this out in a calm sort of way. Get herself under control.
Her usual pattern.
When had her usual patterns ever worked with this Vico Mattare?
Why couldn’t he have seen her heart opening to let him in? What did he think it meant for her to give herself to him, all of herself?
“He doesn’t want what I feel,” she muttered into her pillow as she slid over on her side and wrapped her arms around her body. “He only wants sex.”
The ache in her heart spread down her torso to lodge in her womb.
There’d been another shock, as well as the love, to justify her behavior. The shock of realizing she’d do anything with this man, anywhere. It didn’t matter if it was the office, the car, the bed, the bath. If he wanted her, she wanted him. Being a lady fell right off her radar screen when she was around him. When Vico Mattare came into her picture, there was no hope for the lady.
Why couldn’t he have seen she was shocked by this monumental change inside herself?
Instead of giving her some space or trying to understand, her husband had ranted and raved and turned into his typical rude self after turning off his randy self so quickly it made her senses spin. While she was still attempting to get a grip on the pleasure coursing through her body, he was slapping her with marching orders.
“Brainless idiot.”
Her righteous murmur didn’t help.
“Spiteful ass.”
The tears didn’t stop. The pain didn’t diminish.
She hadn’t been able to think. Not until hours later. Slowly, though, she’d wrestled her emotions together and figured them out. The love for him, the passion, the hope. Despite the fact that they’d fought, she’d held on to a slender thread of optimism as she mulled over the newness of her raw feelings, the tenderness of a fresh perspective. For hours this afternoon and into the evening, she’d lived in a fantasy world of girlish dreams long after any other woman would have taken a clue. She’d supposed they’d come together again, he’d yell, she’d yell and somehow…somehow…
Somehow they’d recapture what had happened so gloriously in his office this afternoon.
A more silly, foolish woman would be impossible to find.
Because this was Vico Mattare.
A man who was a notorious womanizer. A man who’d tricked her. A man who’d had to marry her. The draw between them was only sex to him. Not earth-shattering as it was to her. There was no love in the man, no real passion for her.
The true facts had finally started penetrating the fog of her love as the sun set and hope left with it.
The reality drummed into her as she made her way to bed.
The truth was right in front of her as she stared into the night.
Lise placed her hand on her heaving chest and tried to quiet the turbulent heart smashing against her ribs. Her brain continued yelling out the logical facts, the undeniable reality, the cold, hard truth. The mix pressed behind her eyes and roared in her ears.
Her heart didn’t listen. It kept beating. Bursting.
Hugging the pillow, she wiped her cheek on the soft cotton. She forced herself to look at the other ravaging reflection she’d arrived at on this horrible night.
Her instinctive withdrawal from him from the moment they’d met had not been what she’d thought. Her reaction to him hadn’t been disgust or disdain. It had been far more serious than that. Her womanly heart had instantly known exactly the damage he could do to her if she let him.
She’d let him.
The damage to her was breathtaking.
It was quite, quite hard to breathe when one was sobbing.
Did crying this way make a person sweaty?
Pushing the covers back, she tried to take a breath, tried to suppress another sob. Perhaps if she got up for a drink of water, it would calm her down. She hated feeling like this. She hated any feeling of any kind and she was never, ever going to allow her heart to fall so far into feeling she lost herself. Not again.
She flicked on the light.
Blood.
Blood on her nightgown. Not sweat.
The sob turned into a scream, scraping her lungs and throat with an acid taste of raw fear.
Fumbling for her mobile, another scream rattled in her soul.