The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted #1)(14)
“The only reason I got Lisa as a bridesmaid was because my father deemed it appropriate for my first cousin to be in the wedding party. If she’d been just a friend, I doubt she’d have fit the bill!”
“It turns my stomach to hear someone who has led such a privileged life whine on about how terrible her life is. You’ve been spoiled and you’ve had everything money could buy…”
“Except love, specifically my husband’s love and my father’s love. Apparently I’m not quite worthy of that.”
“You’re feeling sorry for yourself and I’m getting sick of it.”
“Yes, I’m feeling sorry for myself,” she acknowledged bitterly. “And it’s very liberating. In the past all I’ve done is accept everything you and my father dished out…thinking it was my lot in life, even thinking I deserved it. After all, if two such powerful men as you thought that I wasn’t worthy of love and respect, then who was I to differ? But I’m starting to recognize that I’m not the one at fault here. I’m not the one with the personality defect…at least my motives for marrying you were honest; I stupidly believed that I loved you. Yours were less than stellar, weren’t they? They certainly had nothing to do with love.”
“They had everything to do with love,” he suddenly thundered, silencing her abruptly as she stared up at him in wide-eyed shock. “Just not love for you.” She blinked up at him, her green eyes the only color in her deathly pale face.
“What does that mean?” she asked through barely moving lips. “Love for whom?” Was he referring to Francesca? If he really loved the other woman so much, why on earth marry Theresa? It made no sense.
“None of your damned business,” he grated furiously, a muscle working frantically in his jaw.
“It never is.” She nodded bitterly. “It has nothing to do with me, yet it affects every aspect of my life. You want something from me but you’re unable to give me anything in return. Well, I’ve had enough of that, Sandro. You want a baby but this is my body and so it’s my decision to make.”
“I’m your husband…”
“No. You are not my husband,” she interrupted in a voice thickened with hatred and tears. “You have never been my husband. A husband loves, honors, and cherishes. A husband is a lover and a champion. Look into the next room if you want to see what a real husband is, because you are no such thing!” He reeled away from her, looking like a man who’d just been bitten by his favorite pet, and she pushed herself away from the fridge to brush past him.
“Theresa, wait…” He grabbed one of her arms to prevent her from running off.
“I have to go, please tell Rick and Lisa that…”
“No,” he interrupted gently. “You stay. This is your family. You are right, this is your place and I should not have intruded. I’m sorry.” His eyes skirted away from hers as he apologized and Theresa’s jaw dropped at his second apology in twenty-four hours. She felt certain that the world would grind to a halt at any moment. “I will leave now…it is how it should be.” With that he dropped her arm and walked out, leaving her to stare after him in confusion.
CHAPTER THREE
The house was dark and quiet when she got home, with no seething Sandro waiting at the front door this time, just echoing silence as she made her way upstairs and back into the spare bedroom. After a hot shower, she collapsed into bed and didn’t stir until the following morning, when she woke to bright sunlight. She sat up in confusion as she tried to get her bearings and saw that she wasn’t in the spare bedroom anymore. She was back in the master suite and a glance down at the empty space next to her confirmed that Sandro had indeed slept beside her. She peeked down at herself and was relieved to note that she still had on the T-shirt she had worn to bed.
She checked the clock and groaned when she discovered that she had slept till nearly ten in the morning. Pushing the tumbled mass of her hair out of her face, she got up and was alarmed when the room started spinning wildly. She stumbled forward before reaching for the headboard of the bed and steadying herself. She frowned slightly as she tried to recall the last time she had had a decent meal…definitely not the previous day’s breakfast, which had come back up after that overheard phone call, or lunch, which had been spoiled by Sandro’s appearance at Rick and Lisa’s place, and dinner had been a nonevent. Even though Rick and Lisa had urged her to eat the night before, Theresa just could not stomach the thought of food after the day she’d had! Saturday had been much of the same; all she’d had to eat was popcorn at the movies.
Now she was paying the price for all those missed meals. Heading for the shower, she decided to treat herself to a decent brunch. Monday was Phumsile’s day off, and they had no other live-in staff, so Theresa had the house to herself. She was looking forward to spending the day on her own, trying to figure out what her next move would be. She couldn’t leave him and it seemed that he couldn’t leave her. So what now? Sighing she decided to switch off her brain until after she’d eaten lest she lose her appetite again.
Less than an hour later she was dry-heaving over the commode in the downstairs guest bathroom. Just the smell of frying bacon and eggs had been enough to set her off. After her stomach stopped revolting, she stumbled out onto the patio, as far away from the nauseating smell of cooked food as she could possibly get, and sank down onto a chaise longue overlooking the huge infinity swimming pool.