The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted #1)(39)

“But that’s…I don’t understand why you’d want that?”

“Please.” The word, soft and pleading, stayed the rejection hovering on the tip of her tongue.

“Two hours, three times a week,” she found herself stipulating against her better judgment. Still, enforcing some kind of restriction on his request made her feel like she had some measure of control over the way things were going. He nodded eagerly.

“Name the days,” he invited, and she nibbled at the lower lip, giving it some serious thought.

“Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.” She deliberately chose his busiest office days, the days he often trudged home much later than usual, hoping that it would force him to cancel a lot of the time. His sharp eyes told her he knew exactly why she had chosen those days, but he grinned and nodded.

“Fine with me,” he acquiesced, and she sat back feeling like she’d been manipulated somehow. Lisa reached out to take Rhys from Theresa.

“I’ll just put this little one to bed,” the other woman said quietly, and Theresa nodded numbly. She felt completely drained and looked it too. Sandro sat down on the sofa and leaned toward her, very gently nudging the glass of orange juice in her direction again. She shot him a warning glance, and he grinned slightly.

“I’m not trying to bully you into drinking a glass of orange juice, Theresa,” he said softly. “I just thought that you looked a bit parched.” She gritted her teeth and sheer perversity kept her from picking up the glass and quenching her thirst. He said nothing further, merely leaned back in his chair with a soft sigh.

“So what did the doctor really say yesterday?” he asked after a pause.

“I’m slightly anemic and that’s what’s causing the dizziness. He adjusted my diet to include more iron,” she responded quietly, and he nodded.

“Everything else is normal?” he asked after another short pause.

“Yes.”

“You’d tell me if it wasn’t?”

“Yes.”

He seemed satisfied with her answer and smiled slightly. “Thank you.”

She sighed and nodded an acknowledgment of his thanks. She leaned over to pick up the glass of orange juice, conceding that her childishness would achieve nothing, and took a thirsty sip. Fortunately he made no comment and his expression remained neutral. Again there was silence, and this time it lasted until Lisa returned. Things were surprisingly amicable after that, and Theresa and Sandro left about forty minutes later.

On the way home, she asked him about his private talk with Lisa, but he refused to be drawn into a conversation on the subject, and Theresa eventually gave up in frustration.




The following month sped by. Theresa and Sandro’s new arrangement worked well, their meals together were civil, even pleasant, and her doctor’s appointments were less of an ordeal with Sandro’s silent support. He kept his end of the bargain, merely observing and never interfering. Still, just having him there made such a difference to Theresa’s sense of well-being.

What surprised Theresa the most was how much she was enjoying the time together that he had requested. Contrary to her expectations, he hadn’t cancelled once. Instead he came home earlier than usual on the designated nights. Sometimes they simply sat side by side in the den, sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching a movie, rarely saying much. Sometimes they would play Scrabble and Theresa usually enjoyed those nights very much. It wasn’t often she got to beat Sandro at anything, and to his profound horror he was appalling at Scrabble. He blamed his lack of prowess on the fact that English wasn’t his native language, but he approached every rematch with a never-say-die determination. Unfortunately said determination hadn’t yet resulted in a victory for him, and Theresa was delighted by the fact that she was a better player than he was.


Despite his lack of skill, he played hard and often had her in stitches with his creative spelling and blatantly made-up words. They also had an ongoing chess rivalry and were a lot more evenly matched at that game. Theresa soon discovered that she was starting to look forward to those three nights a week and hated the fact that he was insidiously creeping beneath her defenses again. Unfortunately, much like a car accident, she could see it coming but couldn’t seem to find a way to prevent the inevitable disaster from occurring. She was always very strict about the time, trying hard to maintain some kind of control over the situation and whatever they were doing, unfinished or not, had to stop exactly two hours after it had started. They usually picked up where they had left off the next time anyway.

“No,” Theresa insisted adamantly one night, during one of their aggressive Scrabble games; they were sitting on the floor with the board placed on the low coffee table between them. “I totally challenge that word! Lexiquon is not a word, Sandro, and you know it.”

“Of course it is.” He nodded blithely. “You’re challenging it because you don’t want me to have the bonus points and the two triple word scores.”

“Of course I don’t,” she agreed scathingly. “Two hundred and seventy-five points for a made-up word? Never going to happen! I’m not running a charity here.” He grinned boyishly at that, and she averted her eyes, trying very hard not to be charmed by him. Finally he grumbled good-naturedly and removed his tiles from the board.

“Maybe it’s a French word,” he muttered defensively, and she rolled her eyes.