His Royal Love-Child (9 page)

“I am primitive where you are concerned.”

“In bed maybe, but not out of it.
Fantasies is
the right word. You would never have gotten out of your car to stake a claim. Admit it.”

He was inside the house now and she shut the door behind him, her movements jerky and awkward. She felt like her arms and legs did not belong to her, as if she was outside of her body looking at the carnage within and wondering at it.

“You are wrong,
Danette
. I
would
have gotten out of my car. Never doubt it. It is a good thing for all involved it did not come to that, but you have made your point.”

“What point is that?”

“You did not like seeing the picture of me dancing with another woman. I did not like seeing you out to dinner with another man.”

“You believe I went out with Ramon to teach you a lesson?”

“Yes. Why else would you go out with him?”

She could have told him for the simple reason that she’d been tricked into it, but she held her tongue. She had no desire to set his mind at ease like that. “Maybe I wanted to go out on a date with a man not ashamed to be seen with me.” Maybe it was as simple as that.

“It has never been a matter of shame,” he practically yelled, the false front of calm blowing sky high, just that fast.

And
she realized only then that it
had
been a false front. Marcello’s entire being was vibrating with dark fury.

A week ago, that would have upset her unbearably. Now she didn’t even care. Let him be angry. She would be angry, too…if she didn’t hurt too much. “Then why not introduce me to your family? They aren’t the press and you can’t tell me that they would have leaked the story, either.”

“If my mother thought it would push me into marriage, do not bet yourself she would not do it.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“You do not know her. She can be ruthless. Give her the least scent of possible romance and she will be planning the wedding and compiling the guest list, which is why I have not introduced you to my family.”

“Because you never plan to marry me?”

“Because I do not want my family interfering with my private life.”

She had thought she’d learned all there was to know of pain growing up with the physical deformity it had taken more than a decade to correct, but there were different kinds of pain in life. She was realizing that the pain from loving unwisely was the most intense.

But
her heart, that organ which was stronger than she could ever have imagined, persisted in holding onto a tendril of hope. “You said you didn’t like seeing me with Ramon.”

Anger glittered in his eyes. “I did not.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“More to the point,” he asked, “what are
you
going to do about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I have admitted you made your point. There is no need for you to play the farce of dating another man again.”

“That’s it?” she asked incredulously, her disbelief pushing her pain aside for the moment. “You tell me you don’t like something and you expect me not to do it again.”

“Why not?
You care about me. Our relationship is important to you. You do not wish to undermine it.”

“If that is true, then shouldn’t the converse be true? You know it hurt me to see that picture, but I don’t see you offering to change your public image.”

“But I will do so.”

The tendril of hope grew stronger. “You’re ready to go public with our relationship?”

“No. I told you—”

“I don’t care what you told me. I can’t stand it anymore, Marcello. I need our relationship to be open and honest. No more hiding.”

“I
WILL
be careful not to put you in the position of seeing such a hurtful picture again.”

“And will you stop behaving like you are single around other women?”

“I will not dance with them.”

“That’s not an answer!”

He let out an impatient breath. “I am sorry.”

“Are you? Do you really care how much it hurt me to hear your brother talking about you
like
you don’t have a relationship? Does it bother you that it rips at my heart to be dismissed by you like you did at the restaurant tonight?”

“I did not dismiss you.”

“You didn’t introduce me as the woman in your life, either.”

“You know why.”

“But the reasoning isn’t enough for me anymore. I’m sorry you hate to have your private life made public, but I hate being your dirty little secret. I can’t do it anymore. It hurts too much, don’t you get it?” she begged, her voice cracking.

He pulled her into his arms and hugged her. “I do not wish to hurt you,
amante
. Please believe me.”

The tears she’d fought all night would no longer be denied and began to flow hotly down her cheeks.
“I love you, Marcello.
So much.
I need to know you care for me, too.”

He went stiff and pulled away, his expression concerned, but no reciprocal love evident. “I do not want you to love me.”

“What?”

“I told you in the beginning that our affair is temporary, that I was not looking for love and had none to give.”

“We’ve been together six months. How do you define temporary?”

“I do not define it. We do not have a limit on our time together.”

“Except that it can’t be a lifetime?” she asked painfully.

“I cannot give you love and marriage.”

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“I loved my wife,
Danette
. I will never love another woman. It is the destiny of the men in my family to love only once in such a way.”

She heard the words, but she could not believe them. He thought he would never love
again?
“Please, Marcello, I know there is always some guilt involved in falling in love again after a spouse dies, but don’t throw away what we have because of it. I cannot believe Bianca would have wanted that for you.”

“This is not about what Bianca would have wanted. It is about my ability to give you what you say you want.”

“A public acknowledgment of my place in your life?”

“My love.”

“I did not ask for that.”

“You did. You love me, you said.”

“I do love you.”

“You want me to give you my heart as well.”

“I want you to acknowledge you care for me.”

“I do care.”

“Enough to make our relationship public?”

“And when it ends, do you truly believe that having gone public, having made you the target of media attention is going to make that situation better for you?”

“Why does it have to end?”

He just stared at her.

She desperately searched for the right words to convince him that they had something bigger than an affair that he was determined to walk away from one day. “When we first began our relationship, you tried to keep your distance, but now we’re practically living together. I’m important to your life.”

She needed that to be true. Please let that be true.

“I do not deny it. We have incredible sex and I enjoy your company, but you should not be constructing castles in the sky around such things.” He pulled her back into his arms, his touch gentle and comforting. “I do not wish to hurt you, but it is only fair for me to be honest. I am not looking at marriage with you.”

Maybe not consciously, but she had to make him see that subconsciously she played a bigger role in his life than he gave her credit for.

“If you don’t see me as part of your future then why are you so cavalier about birth control, Marcello? Half the time when we make love, you forget the condom.”

If he’d gone stiff when she told him she loved him, he went positively rigid now. “That is not an indication that I see a future with you.”

“What is it, then?” She leaned back to look into his face. “You aren’t an irresponsible man. You wouldn’t risk pregnancy if somewhere deep in your heart, you didn’t think you could stand being married to me.”

He grimaced, looking uncomfortable. Was she getting through to him?

“I do not risk pregnancy. Since you were a virgin and I have always practiced safe sex, I risk nothing at all.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not on the pill and you know it.”

He sighed. “This is not something I enjoy talking about, but I see I have no choice. I am sterile,
Danette
.
Or as good as.”

“What are you talking about?”
This vibrant man incapable of fathering children?
She couldn’t believe it.

“I was diagnosed with a very low sperm count the second year of my marriage. Bianca and I tried for children until she died, but we never conceived.”

“A low sperm count is not a
no
sperm count.”

“What would you know about it?”

“I spent more time in hospital waiting rooms during my childhood and teenage years than most kids spend on the playground or in the mall. I read a lot of magazines. You’d be surprised what you can pick up in
Cosmo
.”

“As a child?”

“I didn’t finish treatment until I was nineteen.”

“What kind of treatment? Why did you never tell me about this?”

She shoved herself out of his arms. “Why didn’t
you
tell
me
about your supposed sterility?”

“It was not something you needed to know.”

“You’re wrong. I had a right to know why you’ve been playing Russian roulette with my body. You assumed that if you couldn’t get the woman you loved pregnant, you couldn’t impregnate anyone else, either.
Right?”

“It is not Russian roulette. I
cannot
get you pregnant.”

“I’ve been such a fool. I thought you were beginning to care for me but in reality the very actions I took as proof show how very little you really do feel for me.” That knowledge hurt more than anything else had tonight: how thoroughly she had duped herself into believing she mattered to him. “You think me so unimportant, so incompatible with your life that you aren’t even afraid of getting me pregnant because you assume you can’t. I really am nothing more than a body in your bed…an expendable secret mistress.” The last words came out in a choked whisper.

“That is not true.”

“The facts speak for themselves, Marcello. I only wish I’d known all of them earlier.” Oh, how she wished it.

She stumbled back from him, needing more distance than her small cottage could give her. “Get out.”

He put his hand out appealingly. “
Danette
…”

“I mean it, Marcello. Get out of my home. I don’t ever want you to come here again.”

“But what has changed between us?
Nothing.
I am the same man you received with joy into your body this afternoon.”

“Again without a condom.”

“I told you, pregnancy is not a risk with me.”

“You’re wrong, Marcello.
About that and a lot of other things as well.
Everything has changed. I have finally realized how little I matter to you.”

“That is not true. I have already said I would change my public image.”

“And you think that’s some great concession?”

“It is more than I have offered another woman since my wife’s death.”

“How big of you.”

“Damn it,
amante
—
!”

“Don’t call me your lover. There’s no love in what you feel for me. You said so yourself.”

“Do you not think I would love you if I could? I will not do to you what my father did to my mother.”

“Divorce me?”

“He did not divorce her. She divorced him.” He sighed. “They married because she was pregnant with me, but he had already had the love of his life and his feelings for my mother were not enough to keep him from other women. She discovered he had had an affair and she left him.”

“Smart woman.”

“Yes, and I am smart enough to know my own limitations.”

He didn’t love her. He never would. He didn’t even want her enough to think he would remain faithful if they were to marry. Not that he had ever considered that kind of future with her, no matter what delusions her mind had dished up.

“I wish
I
were smart, but I was stupid enough to get involved with you and to stay in a relationship that you insisted on keeping secret because I convinced myself you cared. Ramon was right. I’m
so
not in your league, and I never will be. I was a world class idiot to think you could genuinely care for me—but then, looking at my track record, I’m not exactly Einstein where men are concerned.”

“Do not compare me to that little worm you left behind in the States.”

“Don’t worry. You two aren’t even in the same stratosphere.”

“No, we are not.”

“He only bruised my heart, you’ve decimated it. He used me to get ahead in his career, but you’ve just used me, period. You’re leagues beyond him in the ‘smarmy male who doesn’t care how much he hurts a woman and uses her’ stakes.”

“I do care if I hurt you. Have I not said it? I was honest with you from the beginning. I risked your rejection to tell you the truth. I have been honest with you tonight, sharing a painful part of my history to show you the truth of our relationship. I am damn well not a smarmy male!”

“All that proves is that I let you use me, not that you didn’t do it. But I’m not going to let you use me anymore.”

“I do not use you. What we have is mutual.”

“We don’t have anything. Not anymore.”

“That is not true,
cara
. We have something very special.”

“So special you don’t want anyone else to know about it. So special
that not only will
you never love me, but you don’t want my love. That’s not special, that’s sex at its most basic. Worse…it’s pathetic.”

She could tell he was frustrated, that he didn’t know what to say. She wanted to tell him, “Welcome to the club.” Because she hadn’t known what to say to change his mind and there was nothing he could say to change hers.