His Suitable Bride(124)

An image of the tiny woman dressed in black in a wheelchair at their wedding came into Rowan’s mind. The bitterness etched into her face. Isandro’s voice dragged her attention back.

‘My father was so racked with guilt for ruining his wife’s life that he took an English mistress and broke my mother’s heart. And my sister’s. That’s the root of her own unhappiness at our union    . But in truth I think she would have been unhappy with anyone I chose to marry. When my father failed her so badly, she put me on a pedestal instead.’

Rowan was feeling unsteady. This conversation was going into unknown territory that she wasn’t prepared for. He had desired her all along? She tried to focus.

‘When I saw you across that room and then found out you were Carmichael’s daughter. I told myself the desire I felt was for power, pure and simple.’ He shook his head, his eyes burning into hers. ‘But that night, our wedding night, when we slept together that first time …’

Rowan blushed and looked away. She’d practically thrown herself at him. He guessed what she was thinking and put a hand to her chin, bringing her round to face him, ‘No. It was mutual. I don’t take women to bed out of pity, Rowan. And I don’t keep taking them to bed unless I desire them.’

Her heart stopped.

‘I … I always thought. And then when I was so.’ She was blushing so hard now that her cheeks were literally burning.

Isandro rubbed the back of a hand across one hot surface. ‘It was like that for me too. But then when you retreated into your shell … which I know now was after you’d been to the doctor.’

Rowan fought to stay sane despite the heated intensity in his eyes. He was guessing, knowing too much, nearly everything. She had to remind him before she duped herself into believing she was reading something in his eyes.

‘But there was that conversation.’

His eyes didn’t change; they blazed harder. ‘Which was a mistake that you shouldn’t have had to overhear. My sister was demanding to know how I felt about you. She’s poisonous in her anger and her hatred of our father. If I had told her that I had feelings for you, she’d have gone out there and annihilated you. And, apart from that noble desire, I was an abject and miserable coward.’

Rowan frowned slightly.

‘I was so confused about how I was feeling that I wasn’t in any shape to articulate that to Ana.’

Feelings? He just meant friendship … warmth … respect.

Rowan felt as if she had to say something to avoid the awful moment when he would confirm that. ‘Look, Sandro. I like you too. I liked you from the start. I had no choice but to marry you … my father … the bank. My inheritance.’ She had to convince him.

He shook his head and sent up a silent plea. ‘I don’t believe you.’ He held her hands even tighter.

Rowan’s skin prickled and her belly fell. He wasn’t going to do this to her, was he?

‘Sandro, please …’ she begged, trying to pull her hands away from his. ‘I don’t know what you want to hear.’

‘You’re a strong woman, Rowan. I think you’ve more than proved that you don’t do anything you don’t feel passionately about. And your inheritance? I don’t think that’s ever really mattered a damn. All I want to hear is the truth …’

The truth.

She shook her head helplessly, and to her chagrin her eyes filled with hopeless tears. ‘You know. You know. That’s why you’re doing this … to make me agree … but I can’t, Sandro. I can’t.’

The blue of his eyes was hypnotic. ‘Tell me,’ he demanded hoarsely, not giving her an inch to back away.

And then the fight was too much. She was too tired. Did she really have the strength to walk away from a lifetime with Isandro even if he didn’t love her? She knew the answer.

Her hands lay limp in his, and she looked to a spot over his shoulder. Anything to avoid the laser-like gaze. ‘If I hadn’t got sick I never would have left. I would have hoped and dreamt that some day you’d come to feel about me the way I felt for you.’ She looked at him then, her eyes clear and true. ‘I think I’ve loved you since our wedding night. I told myself I didn’t love you any more when I saw you in London, but I knew I did. I was just trying to protect myself.’

She steeled herself. ‘And I do now.’ She shrugged one shoulder then, in an endearingly vulnerable gesture. ‘You and Zac. My deepest most secret dream through all those months was of us as a family together … healthy and happy.’

Isandro took up her hands, and Rowan was surprised to feel his own hands shaking violently. He bent and pressed a kiss to her palms. ‘Gracias, mi querida.’ He pressed another kiss to her hands, the other side. ‘Mi vida.’