The Unwanted Wife Part 11

"What about girl names?" He finally asked. "You haven't thought of any?" Of course she hadn't thought of any! She was having a boy. She refused to answer his question.

"I like the name Lily," he murmured, his voice almost dreamy as he continued to gently stroke the slight mound of her abdomen. "Or Sofia... Lily would have black hair like mine but beautiful green eyes like yours... but I think a Sofia should have red hair and brown eyes, don't you?" He didn't wait for her response, merely continued on in that same dreamy voice. "Lily would be a sweet child... but Sofia... she's temperamental. She likes to throw things..."

"Stop it," she finally hissed angrily. "There will be no Lily or Sofia! There will be a Liam or an Ethan, maybe a Kieran or an Alex... and he will have red hair and green eyes. He will be a sweet and lovable child." He didn't comment, merely kept up the soothing, non-threatening movements of his large, strong hands. A while afterwards, the lazy stroking slowed down, before stopping completely and his hands became heavy on her body, his large frame slumping heavily against hers. A soft snore confirmed that he had fallen asleep and Theresa sighed quietly before allowing herself to drift off as well.

The natural light in the room had a warm orange glow to it when she woke up later and she realized it was just after dusk, meaning that she had slept for nearly five hours. She sighed lazily, feeling remarkably warm and comfortable with her head cus.h.i.+oned on Sandro's warm, hard chest, her neck supported by his upper arm, which was curled around her shoulders; his big hand snuggled just under her right breast. One of her hands was tucked under her cheek and the other was... she tensed abruptly when she realized where her audacious hand had come to rest. It was cupped over the firm bulge of his crotch, a bulge that was rapidly swelling and hardening beneath her palm.

"Don't panic...." Sandro's sleep-roughened voice growled the deep tenor of his voice rumbling through the chest beneath her head. "Don't... it's nothing."

"It doesn't feel like nothing to me," her own voice was husky with sleep and she amazed herself when, instead of following her first instinct and s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand away from his crotch, she gently and almost tentatively, curled her hand around the thickening shaft of flesh.

"Madre de Dio, cara..." he choked out on a strangled voice. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

"Nothing," she murmured, her small hand petting and stroking him in much the same way he had done earlier, only a lot less innocent.

"Theresa," his voice was strained. "Sweetheart, please... if you keep doing that I don't know... I don't think..."

"'Don't think'..." she purred, lifting her head from his chest to meet his pleading brown eyes. "That's a good idea."

"What the h.e.l.l has gotten into you?" Theresa didn't really know the answer to that, only she had missed having him in her bed, in her arms... in her body the last few months and while, logically, she knew that her raging hormones had a great deal to do with her unwanted urges, she also knew that a large part of it could be attributed to her annoyingly undying love and desire for him.

"Theresa, I don't think this is what the doctor had in mind when he recommended bed rest and... you don't really want this..." he muttered, reaching down to drag her hand away from his straining, fully erect length.

"I do," she protested, trying to pull her hand free of his strong grip.

"No... you're... I don't know... your hormones are out of control because of the pregnancy, that's why you feel like this," his voice trailed off when one of her slender thighs moved up to where her hand had just been, he moaned helplessly when she applied slight pressure and relaxed his hold on her. That was all she needed and she was straddling him before either of them realized her intention. Suddenly her warm feminine mound was grinding up against him and both of them were groaning. Theresa watched as his head tilted back on the pillow and smiled in catlike satisfaction when his hands dropped to her thighs to drag her even closer. She braced her hands on his broad chest in order to maintain her balance and continued to sensuously rub herself against him.

"I think you may be right," she eventually gasped. "About the hormones... I want you but I don't want to want you." Her frustration with herself and the situation were clouding her clear green eyes and his eyes went stormy with some kind of ruthlessly repressed emotion.

"Sssh... sweetheart... I read that pregnant women sometimes... well most times, get really..." his voice trailed off as he struggled to find the right word, his mind obviously not on what he was saying as sweat started to bead his brow and his eyes took on a glazed, faraway look.

"h.o.r.n.y?" She supplied and she sensed the utter shock in his absolute stillness. She had never said the word before, even though he had on numerous occasions.

"Yes..." he finally said, after clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Because I am," she reiterated, enjoying his discomfiture immensely as she continued to move sensuously against him. His hips were starting to strain upward slightly with each lazy movement she made and she relished the absolute power she had over him.

"You said there would be no s.e.x," he reminded desperately, his breathing becoming more laboured. "And I don't think we can have s.e.x while you're on bed rest..."

"But maybe we can fool around a bit?" She smiled down into her husband's shocked face, feeling like the cat that had stolen the cream. He lifted one of his arms and covered his eyes, biting back a cry of pleasured anguish as she exerted more pressure right where it counted. He lifted his arm from his face and his fevered gaze bored into hers, his face was taut with the control he was exerting over himself, the harsh planes standing out in sharp relief beneath his tanned skin. He reached up and tangled his large hands in her tousled red hair, tugging her towards him until their lips were a breath apart but Theresa smiled serenely down into his strained face and pushed her hands down onto his heaving chest to force some distance between them. He reluctantly let her go, relinquis.h.i.+ng the opportunity to use his larger size and superior strength against her, obviously content, for now, to let her control events.

"Theresa, please," he finally begged. "Give me your mouth. I need to taste you... per favore"

"No lips," she shook her head. "This isn't..." she hesitated and his eyes flared and his body went still beneath her, taut with tension.

"Isn't what?" He demanded and she blinked down into his suddenly furious eyes. "Isn't what, Theresa?"

"Personal..." she completed on a whisper and was shocked and dismayed when she surprised a flash of hurt in his usually unreadable gaze.

"This feels pretty d.a.m.ned personal to me, cara," he hissed.

"I just... need you," she half-sobbed and he shook his head, grabbing her narrow hips between his large hands.

"Not me," he shook his head, keeping her hips steady as he ground himself against her. She shuddered in involuntary pleasure. "This!"

"Yes," she cried out, pus.h.i.+ng herself against him. "Please..."

"I won't let you use me like that, Theresa," his voice was so brittle it cracked.

"Why not?" She keened, tears of frustration, anger and heartbreak sliding down her cheeks. "You used me in exactly the same way... and you kept it impersonal too. No kissing, no cuddling, no intimacy, no talking, no warmth... nothing! You stripped the act of everything but the bare essentials and right now, that's all I want from you."

"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 d.a.m.ned good job of it, Theresa. Consider it a lesson well-learned..." he finally used his superior strength and lifted her off of him as if she weighed nothing and she curled up into a humiliated ball, tears finally slipping down her cheeks as her entire body clenched with s.e.xual 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 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've done 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 fis.h.i.+ng for compliments?" He asked in an insultingly suspicious voice, his face creased into an incredulous glare. "Because I know that you cannot be serious with this load of tripe!" She blinked up 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 finally found her voice again and he winced at the painful embarra.s.sment and anguish that she couldn't manage to disguise. "I know how much you hated touching me and I may have been a virgin when we married, Alessandro, but I knew enough to realize 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 s.e.x... 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 them over his face and eyes and up into his hair, leaving it in messy peaks. Finally he simply stood there, staring down at her with his fingers linked in the nape of his neck, seemingly unable to respond to her pained words.

He sat down next to her and dragged her back into his lap with a helpless groan, arranged 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 large hands and stared intently down into her eyes, trying to convey his earnestness through sheer force of will. Theresa's tear-drenched gaze swept over his deadly serious face and she couldn't read it. 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 or not.

"You don't have to lie," she finally 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 of 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 stupidly.

"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 s.h.i.+fting his eyes from hers, as if he could make her believe him through sheer force of will.

"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 finally 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 rumours 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 narrow back gently, there was nothing s.e.xual in their embrace anymore, just comfort and support which Theresa needed a lot more than the physical release she had been craving before.

"You must be starving," he finally 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 gentle smile.

Chapter Nine.

That day signaled a turning point in their rocky relations.h.i.+p, 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 and, 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 she was pleasantly surprised with the results.

Life was better but by no means perfect, they still slept apart at Theresa's insistence, and even though he still accompanied her to all of her doctor's appointments and was even her coach at the natural childbirth cla.s.ses she had started attending, Theresa hardly ever talked to him about the baby and did her utmost to discourage any discussion he may want to have about it. 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 cla.s.ses. 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 there had been 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 his Francesca's full, pouting red lips. 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 sized mound of her stomach, trying to ease the restlessly moving baby beneath her touch. She had no right to be jealous... even though they had a much better relations.h.i.+p now than they'd had during the first year and a half of marriage, they were married in name only and would separate as soon as the baby was born.

She had started decorating the nursery and Sandro, who had thrown a fit one day when he'd returned from the office early to find her perched on a ladder attempting to paint the walls, had done the painting. She spent a great deal of time in the nursery, adding little touches here and there, often going out and shopping for furniture and toys. There really was very little left to do but she still kept adding little stuffed toys and tiny infant sized clothes. The colour scheme was cream and pale lilac. She had started out with blue but had come home from visiting Lisa one day to find that Sandro had changed to colour to something more "gender neutral" as he'd put it. She hadn't protested it too much because she had found the new colour scheme soothing and prettier than the blue on white she'd had planned. She also found Sandro's touches elsewhere in the nursery... he bought toys, girls' toys. Stuffed dolls, teddy bears, toy ponies, anything a little girl's heart could possibly desire. Theresa chose not to acknowledge them in any way and every time she came across one, usually insidiously hidden amongst the toys she had bought, she would relegate it to the corner furthest from the beautiful crib that they had selected together. There was a quite a collection forming in the area which she had dubbed Toy Siberia. She did not know why he kept buying those things and she refused to ask. He never mentioned the heap of toys that she had stowed in the corner, just kept doggedly adding more and more to the nursery.

Their two hours three times a week had branched out into a few hours every day. There was no longer a time limit on the amount of time they spent together because Theresa had stopped enforcing it once it became clear that Sandro was going to sneak a little time every day and it just became easier to pretend not to notice it. Theresa's health continued to fluctuate, her pregnancy being a lot more difficult than she, Sandro or the doctor had ever antic.i.p.ated. She had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia the month before, Sandro had turned into a paranoid old woman about what she could and could not do. He had even stopped going into the office, working from home and hovering twenty-four/seven. She didn't know how she would get through the final two months of her pregnancy without resorting to some form of violence because the man was driving her completely crazy.

Now she sat with her feet up, staring gloomily out at the rain pouring down outside. It was an unusually wet and miserable spring afternoon in October and Theresa had long ago abandoned her book in favour of her roiling thoughts. So absorbed was she in those thoughts that she didn't hear Sandro come in and nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a large hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he murmured, bending down to drop a quick kiss onto the soft, exposed skin where her shoulder and neck met. "I called your name at least twice but you were totally wrapped up in your own little world."

"I was just thinking..." she shrugged, her voice trailing off.

"About?"

"Everything... nothing," another listless shrug.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, coming down on his haunches in front of her.

"I'm fine. A little tired..." He lifted a hand and gently traced one of her delicate cheekbones with his thumb before nimbly jumping to his feet and sitting down on the sofa next to her. Neither of them said anything for a while, they just listened to the rain and watched it cascading down the window like a waterfall.

"I want you to meet my father," he suddenly announced unexpectedly and she froze before turning her head slowly to meet his brooding gaze.

"What?"

"My father..." he repeated and she bit her lip before clearing her throat uncertainly.

"I don't know if that's..." she began but he interrupted her before she could finish.

"His condition is deteriorating very quickly," he said abruptly, his voice broke slightly as he said the words and his jaw clenched.

"Oh Sandro, I'm so sorry..." she whispered, her eyes going liquid with sympathy for him. "When's your flight?"

"I'm not leaving," he told her grimly and her eyes shadowed in confusion, before flaring as she realized why he refused to go and be with his father.

"Sandro," her voice was so low it barely carried to the man who sat inches away from her. "You can't stay because of me. You have to go and be with your family. Your place is with them right now."

"You're my family too, Theresa," he suddenly snapped, a maelstrom of frustration and pain welling up in his eyes. "And I refuse to leave you here alone."

"Hardly alone, Sandro..." she dismissed airily. "The staff, Lisa and Rick and even my father are here for me. Go home to your family..."

"This is where I have to be, this is where I'm staying. Stop arguing with me for G.o.d's sake!" he growled.

"You are not going to blame me for this too, Sandro..." she fumed impotently, recognizing the stubborn tilt of his jaw and the steely resolution in his eyes and knowing that his mind was made up and he wouldn't budge on the issue unless something drastic happened to change his mind. "The only reason you're here now is because of my father and his corrupt little blackmailing scheme! My father and I have messed up your life and your family enough; don't make it worse by staying here with me of all people, when the family you sacrificed your freedom for needs you the most."

"Don't you ever," he suddenly seethed, grabbing and gripping her hand so tightly he cut off the circulation. "Lump yourself into the same category as your father again, Theresa, none of this is your fault and right now you need me too."

"I do not need you," she enunciated clearly. "I refuse to let you martyr yourself like this. Duty above all else... is that it? Long-suffering Sandro, always doing the right thing, always putting everybody else's needs before his own. Always sacrificing his own happiness at the altar of familial obligation. I am not going to be your obligation, Sandro. I refuse... go be with your family!"

"You are my family, d.a.m.n it! You, you, you!" He suddenly shouted in frustration and she jumped in fright, her jaw going slack as he leapt from the sofa to loom over her furiously. So rarely did Sandro lose his cool like this that Theresa simply stared up into his frustrated, wretched face in shocked silence. All the air suddenly seemed to leave his sails and his shoulders sagged as he dropped to his knees in front of her, bringing his eyes down to the same level as hers. "I want to be here with you... why is that so hard for you to understand?" His voice had dropped down to a whisper. His eyes suddenly, shockingly, filled with moisture which he made no attempt to hide from her and he muttered something in Italian, his voice thick with emotion. She bit her lip and shook her head.

"I don't understand..." she whispered regretfully and he reached out a large hand to cup her cheek.

"My father is dying, cara," he repeated in English, his voice absolutely wracked with emotion. "Please... I need you to just not fight with me right now." She nodded and reached out with both hands to stroke his hair back from his broad, proud forehead. The gesture seemed to undo him and his face crumpled before he wrapped his strong arms around her thickened waist and buried his face in the mound of her stomach and Theresa curled her upper body protectively over his head as she whispered soothing little snippets of nothing into his hair.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't mean to make this more difficult; I just thought that you were staying out of some misguided sense of honour and obligation. I would hate that, Sandro. I would hate for you to stay and then if the... the worst happened... you would blame me because you couldn't be there at his side."

"I know," he murmured, finally lifting his head to look up at her, his face grim and carefully neutral, despite the roiling emotion she could see in his eyes. "And I can see why you would think that... I have blamed you for way too much in the past and treated you terribly but you have to believe me when I tell you that the last thing in the world I want to do anymore, is hurt you, Theresa." She said nothing... knowing that even though it would not be intentional, he would still hurt her when he eventually left, when they divorced, when he married Francesca. All of those things were as inevitable as the sunset, they would happen and they would devastate her.

"So what did you want to ask me?" She finally asked, without acknowledging his fervent words. The omission did not go unnoticed and Sandro flinched slightly before taking a deep breath and levering himself up off his knees to sit down on the sofa beside her, angling his body so that he could face her.

"I want you to meet my father," he repeated and her eyes showed her confusion.

"I'm not sure I understand... you know that doctor Shelbourne has prohibited any flying during my third trimester," he smiled slightly before shaking his head.

"Theresa, cara, you really need to catch up to the twenty-first century," he teased half-heartedly, it had become a standing joke between him and Rick, of all people, that Theresa was so technologically-backward. She could barely operate her mobile phone, so e-mailing, instant messaging and every other form of electronic inging, left her completely baffled. She had wiped out the hard drives on three laptops in as many years and now kept her records strictly on paper in a filing cabinet in her office.

"So then, what do you have in mind?" She asked curiously.

"Certainly nothing that involves either you or my father flying anywhere... have you never heard of video-conferencing?" He asked, brus.h.i.+ng back a strand of hair that had slipped from its anchor behind her ear, to swing into her face. He always did little things like that lately, he was always touching her, petting her and after her initial discomfort with all the contact, Theresa now barely even noticed it, simply enjoying the pampering.

"That thing where you have a meeting and you can see people on the other side of the world on a monitor in the room?" She asked vaguely and he grinned slightly.