The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted #1)(52)
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.