The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted #1)(21)

Her hair had always been long; her father had absolutely forbade her to cut it, and Theresa knew that the one thing Sandro absolutely adored about her, aside from her rather small breasts, was her hair. When he was having sex with her, he was always touching, stroking, or tugging at her hair. Now she waited with bated breath for his inevitable negative reaction to the cut, which framed her face and emphasized her large gray-green eyes and high, delicate cheekbones. His hands clenched and he seemed to swallow with visible effort.

“You look…” His voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat before starting again. “You look bellissima, cara.” His quiet voice seemed to ring with sincerity and something that, in any other man, would be akin to reverence. “Absolutely stunning.”

She blinked.

“Oh,” was all she could think of to say, and he came farther into the room, still so riveted on her hair and face that he very nearly tripped over a small footstool placed beside an easy chair. He frowned at the offending piece of furniture before sinking into the leather easy chair opposite the matching sofa Theresa was curled up on.

“Uh…” He dragged his focus down to the book in her lap and seemed strangely desperate to make conversation. “What are you reading?” His sharp eyes honed in on the title before he raised his gaze to hers in consternation. “Dogs?” He sounded so nonplussed that she hugged the book defensively to her chest.

“I happen to like dogs,” she said fiercely, and his strangely gentle eyes swept over her tight features before coming to rest on the book. He leaned forward and extended his right hand.

“May I?” He watched her steadily until she reluctantly let up on the death grip she had on the book and handed it over to him. “Thank you.” He leaned back and flipped through the glossy pages, pausing here and there before grinning almost boyishly at her. He looked so breathtakingly handsome that for a long moment she didn’t know that he was talking to her.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” she whispered, and his smile widened as he flipped the book toward her, tapping his long index finger on a picture of a grinning black Labrador retriever.

“I had one just like this,” he informed her, and she frowned.

“One what?” she asked blankly, mesmerized by his devastating smile.

“Dog,” he told her patiently before turning the book back toward himself. His expression was gently reminiscent. “I like dogs too. The way I see it, anyone who doesn’t like dogs is not to be trusted. My retriever was called Rocco. He died just before I started university. I’d had him for sixteen years. I suppose you could say that I grew up with him.” She smiled at his obvious affection for what must have been a well-loved pet.


“You must have had a dog too, growing up?” he prompted, and she nodded slowly. “What breed?”

“She was a bit of a mutt,” Theresa whispered, more than a little reluctant to continue.

“What was her name?” Why was he being so damned persistent?

“Sheba,” she supplied, her voice going even quieter, and his smile faded as he leaned forward intently, his eyes fixed on her downcast face.

“Tell me more,” he invited quietly.

“Nothing much to tell,” she shrugged, clearing her throat. “My mother took me to the SPCA for my eleventh birthday and told me to choose any dog I wanted. I’d been going on and on about getting a dog for months before that, promising that I would take good care of it. It was getting to the point where, I guess, she would have done anything to shut me up. So I chose Sheba, with her soulful brown eyes, her scruffy black-and-white coat, and her happy, wagging tail.” He smiled at that and so did she. “She wasn’t much to look at but I adored her.” She sighed heavily before stopping and shrugging, ultimately lifting her eyes to meet his. “Time to get ready for that dinner now, isn’t it?” He frowned before shaking his head.

“How long did you have your dog?” he asked softly in a tone that said he wouldn’t rest until he knew everything, and Theresa tugged at her full lower lip with her teeth.

“About three weeks.”

He smothered a soft curse at the whispered confession.

“What happened?”

“Mom and Daddy didn’t agree on most things, and apparently my getting a dog was yet another excuse to fight. Getting Sheba was Mom’s way of scoring points against Daddy and getting rid of Sheba was Daddy’s way of scoring points against Mom.” Her parents had been deeply unhappy together, and it really shouldn’t have surprised anyone when her mother swallowed a handful of sleeping pills mere weeks later. Theresa had blamed herself for a long time, thinking that if she had been less insistent about the dog, her parents wouldn’t have fought and her mother wouldn’t have abandoned her. She had been petrified for many years that her father would desert her too if she wasn’t the perfect daughter, but by the time she had finished high school, she had understood that Jackson Noble was too selfish to harm himself in any way. By then, being the perfect daughter had become an unbreakable habit.

Now she strove to sound flippant about the dog, but the tremor in her voice made a liar out of her. Sandro said nothing but he seemed to be struggling with something, his jaw so tightly clenched that she could see the little muscles knotting just below his ears, and his knuckles showed white where his grip had tightened on the book.