“What is this? Some kind of payback? You want me to see what it feels like to be used? Well, you’re doing a pretty damned good job of it, Theresa. Consider it a lesson well learned.” He used his superior strength and lifted her off him as if she weighed nothing, and she curled up into a humiliated ball, tears slipping down her cheeks as her entire body clenched with sexual and emotional frustration.
“I wasn’t trying to prove anything,” she protested thickly. “I just didn’t want to get emotionally involved again! I didn’t want to start thinking that there was anything other than physical attraction between us. I can’t afford to make that mistake again.”
“Mi dispiace, cara,” he said regretfully as he got up and shoved his hands into his pockets to stare down at her. “I can’t give you what you want. Not the way you want it.”
“You did it before,” she pointed out, sitting up and swiping at her hot, wet cheeks. “We can just go back to that.”
“There’s no going back to that,” he negated harshly. “Never again.”
“I know I’m not your type.” She strove to sound casual about that painful fact and ignored the slight sound of dismay that seemed to rumble out from deep within his broad chest. “Compared to all those supermodels and actresses, I know I’ve always been Miss Dull and Dowdy, but you overlooked that once. I thought maybe…”
“Are you fishing for compliments?” he asked, his face creased into an incredulous glare. “Because I know that you cannot be serious with this load of tripe!” She looked into his outraged face, and he barked out a disbelieving laugh at the confusion in her eyes.
“Well, how do explain the fact that you can barely stand to look at me?” She found her voice a few moments later, and he winced at the painful embarrassment and anguish that she couldn’t disguise. “I know how much you hated touching me. I may have been a virgin when we married, Alessandro, but I knew enough to understand that a man who has to drink himself into a stupor before touching a woman, a man who can barely exchange a civil word with her and has to scrub her scent and touch from his skin as soon as he’s capable of getting up after sex…a man like that has to be repulsed by the woman in his bed.” Another harsh sound was torn from his chest, and he lifted both hands to scrub over his face and eyes and up into his hair, leaving it in messy peaks. Finally he stood there, staring down at her with his fingers linked across the nape of his neck, seemingly unable to respond to her pained words.
He sat down next to her, dragged her back into his lap, and groaned helplessly. He turned her until she was straddling him again. This time he dragged his knees up to support her back and wrapped his arms around her slender frame, building a fortified human cage around her trembling body.
“Theresa…” he groaned, burying his face into her soft, fragrant hair. “I do want you, cara. I’ve always wanted you.” He cupped the back of her head in the palms of his hands and stared intently down at her, trying to convey his earnestness through sheer force of will. Theresa’s tear-drenched eyes swept over his deadly serious face and she found herself unable to read his expression. Once again he had his emotions under tight control and even though he was saying the words she couldn’t tell if he was being sincere.
“You don’t have to lie,” she whispered, dropping her head to one of his broad shoulders and closing her arms around his broad back, feeling safe, warm, and protected. “I’m sorry I brought this up again, Sandro. I didn’t mean to. I don’t mean to keep throwing the past back into your face like this. I do recognize how difficult the situation must have been for you and—”
“Stop it.” He finally interrupted the burble of words that she couldn’t seem to control. “Just stop it. Yes the situation was beyond my control. It was, and still is, incredibly difficult but this does not mean you deserved the treatment you got from me and it certainly doesn’t mean that I never wanted you. Theresa, most nights I could barely keep my greedy hands off you.”
“You couldn’t?” She lifted her head from his shoulder to stare up into his grim face.
“Why do you think I insisted that we share a bed?” he pointed out. “That way, I didn’t have to go and find you when my need for you overrode all else.”
“Oh…” she responded.
“Yes…‘oh.’” He nodded. “And despite all of my idiotic stratagems to keep intimacy between us to a minimum, remember I blamed you for this marriage as much as I did your father, I could never get enough of you.”
“Oh…” she muttered redundantly, and his lips twitched into a little smile.
“That’s why I never slept with those women the tabloids kept pairing me up with,” he whispered, his long thumbs stroking back and forth across the satiny skin stretched over her high cheekbones.
“You really didn’t sleep with any of them?” she asked in a small, uncertain voice, and he nodded, never shifting his eyes from hers.
“Why would I? When I had you waiting for me at home,” he growled, and she blinked back her tears, which threatened to overflow.
“Why should I believe you?” she asked.
“Why would I lie to you? I have nothing to gain from it; we’re getting divorced, going our separate ways in a few months’ time…right?” The last emerged a bit uncertainly, and Theresa blinked at the unwelcome reminder.
“Right. Of course.” She nodded.
“So lying about this now would achieve nothing.” He shrugged.
“Thank you.” She wasn’t sure what she was thanking him for. Telling the truth? Not sleeping with those women? All she knew was that she felt incredibly relieved because the public humiliation hurt so much less now that she knew the rumors of his many infidelities had been unfounded. She shut out the painful, lingering memory of the omnipresent Francesca and dropped her head back onto his shoulder. He stroked her back gently. There was nothing sexual in their embrace anymore, just comfort and support, which Theresa needed more than the physical release she had been craving before.
“You must be starving,” he murmured into her hair, lifting his head to smile down into her eyes. “I’ll get us something to eat. We can have dinner and watch a movie in bed, okay?” She nodded and reluctantly allowed him to lift her from his lap. He dropped a sweet kiss on her head and left the bedroom with a smile.
CHAPTER NINE
That day signaled a turning point in their rocky relationship. The peace remained and along with it a mutual, ever-deepening respect blossomed between them. Sandro consulted her on some of his business decisions, seeming to value her opinions and take her advice. Taking her cue from him, Theresa started asking for his opinions on some of her designs and developed a keen admiration for the eye he seemed to have for quality jewelry. With his encouragement, she started attempting more difficult pieces using new mediums and was pleasantly surprised with the results.
Life was better but by no means perfect—they still slept apart at Theresa’s insistence. While he accompanied her to all of her doctor’s appointments and was even her coach at the natural childbirth classes she had started attending, Theresa hardly ever talked to him about the baby and did her utmost to discourage any discussion. Lisa was meant to be her coach but her cousin had her hands full with Rhys and promised to be there for the birth but could not put in the time commitment at the classes. That, of course, meant that Sandro was nothing more than a temporary replacement, which she knew grated on his ego. Francesca still loomed large between them, and even though Theresa was careful never to mention the other woman’s name, she was never far from Theresa’s mind.
Sandro had gone to Italy a couple of times during the past three months and after compulsively checking the Internet for any news about him while he was away, she had finally found pictures of the two of them together, attending some glamorous function in Milan. She couldn’t read the Italian article, but it had been an extensive four-page spread on the event and Sandro and Francesca Delvecchio, as the captions had identified her, had been two of the most beautiful people there. So of course there were at least a dozen pictures of them smiling, dancing, and drinking. Sandro had looked so relaxed and happy with the statuesque, gorgeous brunette on his arm that Theresa had been unable to stop staring at the pictures. That was how he should have looked on their wedding day, carefree and in love. Instead his face had looked like it would crack wide open if he so much as tilted his lips at the corners. It had physically hurt her to see those pictures, but the one that had torn her apart had been of him bending down to drop a kiss onto Francesca’s cheek. Never had she seen two more evenly matched people.
Theresa sighed and shook herself slightly, as she found herself thinking of that picture again. It had been more than a month since she’d seen it, and she hadn’t mentioned it to Sandro, knowing that it would achieve little, especially with their separation looming less than three months away. She ran a gentle hand over the football-size mound of her stomach, trying to ease the restlessly moving baby beneath her touch. She had no right to be jealous, despite the fact that they had a much better relationship now than they’d had during the first year and a half of marriage. She couldn’t lose sight of the fact that they were married in name only and would separate as soon as the baby was born.