The Unwanted Wife (29 page)

“That’s good,” he finally said, keeping his eyes on the suckling baby. “I’m happy to hear that, Theresa.”

An awkward silence descended and Theresa wasn’t sure what had caused it. His response to her news had been lukewarm at best.

“You do
want
me to move back, right?” She asked after another long silence and was surprised by the flash of fury she saw in his eyes when he looked up at her.

“Of course I
want
you to move back, Theresa. I also want you to trust me, to forgive me… to
love
me,” he seethed, sitting up abruptly and leaving the bed to pace the room like a menacing cat, all feral grace and power. Theresa watched him in helpless fascination.

“I don’t know what to say or do anymore, Theresa,” he said quietly, running agitated hands through his hair. “Then again it doesn’t seem to
matter
what I say or do… you’re determined to keep an emotional distance between us. Do you think I haven’t noticed? How much longer are you going to punish me for my stupidity?”

“I’m not trying to punish you,” she was appalled that he would think that. “I’m really not. I just…” she didn’t know what to say, because now that she thought about it, she wondered if she hadn’t been subconsciously punishing him after all.

“I have something for you,” he finally muttered grimly. “It’s your birthday present. I was going to give it to you in the morning but since you’re up…” he left the room abruptly and returned a couple of minutes later with a thick envelope in his hand. He reached over to take the sleeping baby from her and dropped the envelope into her lap. She stared at it uncertainly for a long time, while Sandro continued to pace with Lily cradled in his arms. Finally, hesitantly, she reached for it and turned it over in her hands. But the plain brown exterior of the A4 sized envelope gave no clue as to its contents. She glanced up at Sandro but he was now standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows, presumably staring out at the stormy predawn sky.

“It won’t bite you,” his deep voice startled her and she realised that, because of the glow from the lamp, he could see her reflection in the window. She ran a finger under the flap of the envelope to open it and reached inside to extract a thick sheaf of legal looking papers. Her stomach plummeted at first when she saw their names printed on the top sheet and for a brief awful moment, she thought he was serving her divorce papers. Then she looked closer and frowned.

“Sandro… what did you do?” She whispered in shock. “You can’t do this.”

“I can… I have,” he shrugged, still watching her reflection in the glass. “It’s yours.”

He had given her the vineyard. His
father’s
vineyard.

“But it’s your father’s.”

“And when he died, it became mine. I suppose technically your father could snatch it back at any moment but it’s a gesture, Theresa.”

“Why?” She asked helplessly.

“I didn’t want you doubt my reasons for wanting to be with you… I didn’t want it hanging between us anymore.”

“But your mother and sisters…”

“They know about it and for the most part approve of my decision. Not that it would have mattered if they didn’t. This isn’t about them, this is about us. It’s about fixing what I broke.” He finally turned around to face her and stalked back to the bed. “The vineyard is
yours
, Theresa and if you don’t want it, you can burn it to the ground or transfer the deed to Lily. You can hand it back to your father on a platter. It doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters to me is you. You’re the sun I revolve around and without you…” he shook his head as his voice broke.

“I think it’s time you told me about Francesca,” Theresa finally said and he inhaled deeply, before sitting down next to her. Theresa reached over and took Lily from him. Thankfully the baby continued to sleep peacefully.

“Francesca…” he shut his eyes as he tried to gather his thoughts. “She’s the kind of woman I always pictured myself marrying. Poised, sophisticated, beautiful… she keeps all her emotions locked up tight, which suited me fine because I never appreciated messy emotional scenes. We dated and got along pretty well. I fancied myself in love with her. It was a very neat, clinical and uncomplicated version of love. I thought that we were perfectly suited…” Theresa tried to keep her expression neutral but it hurt so much listening to him talk about the other woman in such terms. “Then I came here to meet your father and saw you for the first time. Your quiet beauty drew me immediately. I don’t think I ever told you that. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you that first time and I wanted you with a violence that shocked the ever-loving hell out of me. If your stupid father had left things alone, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands off of you. But when he forced the issue, he did the one thing that guaranteed I would keep my distance from you. I don’t
like
being told what to do,
cara
. And even though you were exactly what I’d wanted, I very perversely kept you at a distance.

“I resented you and I resented your father for messing up my life and my future plans. I went into our marriage, determined to grab that damned divorce with both hands as soon as you had a son. But things got messy… and emotional. I tried so hard to keep you at a distance, I refused to kiss you, I pretended to want other women and all the time I couldn’t stay away from you. I could see how much I was hurting you and…” she watched him struggle to find the right words before he shook his head and dropped his gaze. “At first I didn’t care. I rationalised that it was nothing more than you deserved. But the more distant and closed off you became more frustrated I became with you. I told myself that it was because I wanted to
see
you suffer but when I gave it any serious thought I knew it went deeper than that. I hated not having your attention. When we first married you showered me with attention, you knew something was wrong but you were always so determinedly affectionate and loving. Seeing that affection and that
trust
fade from your eyes… it was so much harder than I’d ever anticipated.”

He got up and started to pace again. Theresa watched him prowl aggressively around the room and felt the ice around her heart melting with every word he uttered. He was being so brutally honest with her, some of his words were ugly and hurtful, while others sent her heart soaring.

“Every time I returned to Italy I spent time with Francesca…” he confessed roughly, stopping his pacing abruptly to pin her with his fierce gaze. “I
never
touched her. I want you to know that. Not in any sexual way. I never wanted to. My mother and sisters kept arranging these little get-togethers with her family and ours; they tried to push us together more often than not. I very rarely sought out her company. I saw her at parties and family gatherings but never felt the need to contact her at any other time. You were never far from my thoughts while I was out of the country. I found myself wondering what you were doing, who you were with, if you were happy… if you missed me,” he cleared his throat self-consciously. “I
really
wanted you to miss me, Theresa. I told myself it was because you would suffer more, wondering what I was up to… what a joke! I wanted you to miss me because I missed you. The few times I called home you were so distant and it drove me out of my mind. All I could think of when I was in Francesca’s company was getting back to you. I fantasized about the things I would do to you when I had you naked beneath me again. Why else do you think I was always so damned horny when I got home after those trips?” Theresa blushed as she recalled a particularly memorable homecoming; Sandro had returned on a Friday and hadn’t let her out of bed until the Monday morning. The man had been insatiable.

“That morning when you said you wanted a divorce,” he shook his head. “You shocked the hell out of me. Up until that point you’d been so passive and accepting of the situation.”

“The quintessential doormat you mean?” She inserted drily.

“I don’t think you were ever a doormat, Theresa. I think you were trying to make the best of a bad situation and in the end when you no longer could, you showed me who you truly were. I was fascinated with you before but once I started seeing the real you, I fell hard and fast. I was appalled when I realised that you knew nothing about your father’s sick arrangement. I hated what I’d done to you, how I’d made you suffer for his mistakes. I tried to make it up to you but by then you clearly despised me and with good reason. I wanted get to know you, I wanted us to have a real marriage but you insisted that you wanted nothing to do with me… and Theresa, if you ever wanted revenge for the way I’d treated you, you got it in spades when it felt like nothing I was doing or saying was making any difference to the way you felt about me.

“And then when you told me you were pregnant,” he knelt on the bed and stared down into their sleeping baby’s face, before raising his eyes to hers. “Suddenly it felt like there was a ticking time bomb in the house. I didn’t have all the time in the world to make you love me again; I had only a few short months. The one thing I’d wanted above all else in the beginning was now a noose around my throat, tightening with every passing day. I loved the baby with everything in me but I feared it too because I was terrified that it would eventually take you away from me. I didn’t want you to exclude me from the pregnancy, I wanted to show you what we could like if we operated as a solid family unit but you were so depressingly obsessed with having a son that it felt like a constant uphill battle. I started praying for a girl because I knew a girl would buy me more time. A girl would keep you with me longer; it would also prove to you, once and for all that your father’s ridiculous contract meant nothing to me anymore. That I wanted our marriage to last forever.” He finally seemed to run out of words, taking in a deep breath of air and exhaling it shakily. His eyes searched hers desperately but she kept her expression neutral, despite the joy bubbling up inside of her. This vulnerable and naked passion was what she’d been waiting for. He’d finally bared his soul for her and it was almost blindingly beautiful.

“So you want our marriage to last forever?” She finally asked after a long silence.

“Yes.”

“And you love our baby?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And you love me?” Her voice shook a bit at the enormity of that realisation.

“God,
yes
!”

“Good.”

“Just good?” He asked in disbelief.

“Well, what else do you want from me?” She asked innocently and he growled. She laughed at the feral sound, before reaching up her free hand to cup his tense jaw. “Sandro, you gorgeous idiot… I
never
stopped loving you. I just got much better at hiding it from you. I was too afraid of being hurt again.”

“I’ll never hurt you again,” he promised vehemently.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Alessandro” she warned direly.

“Okay, I’ll try my
best
not to inadvertently
hurt you again,” he rephrased carefully and she smiled, the old affectionate smile that she used to shower him with in the beginning of their marriage. She heard Sandro’s breath catch at the sight.

“Much better,” she approved and he growled again, this time the sound was more a sexy purr than a warning. He swept both her and Lily up in a fierce hug but when Lily made a high-pitched sound of protest, he let them go reluctantly.

“I love you with all my heart, Theresa and I want to marry you,” he said huskily and she started.

“I love you too, Sandro but the last time I checked we were already married.”

“I want to give you the wedding you should have had,
cara
. I want to make my vows again and mean them with all my heart.”

“You don’t have to do that, Sandro,” she shook her head. “I know you love me. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“I don’t have to do it, Theresa… but I
want
to do it. I want my family there to see me marry the woman who holds my heart in her hands. Please marry me again, Theresa, and make me the happiest man in the world.”

She wound an arm around his neck and dragged his head down for a long kiss.

“Yes. With all my heart yes, Sandro.”

Epilogue

              The weather on the late spring day in September was perfect. The sun was shining and the sky was a gorgeous shade of blue with not a single cloud marring its perfection. The string quartet struck up the bridal march and the small gathering of people who were seated on the wrought iron chairs in the beautiful garden all turned in unison, craning their necks to see the bride.

Theresa clung to the arm of her maid of honour as she regally made her way down the flower-strewn red carpet. Her eyes were fixed on the tall man standing beneath the rose bower, his hands were solemnly folded, one over the other, in front of him and his eyes were devouring her as she walked towards him. He looked gorgeous in his simple black suit, his hair had been cut close to his scalp and as she got even closer, she could see the nick on his jaw where he’d cut himself shaving that morning. She could see the appreciation in his gaze as he took in her simple ivory chiffon slip dress, with its lightly beaded sweetheart neckline, to its dropped waistline and the ankle length flowing skirt. Her gleaming hair was topped with a simple coronet of white roses and in her hands she held an equally simple bouquet of creamy white roses.

She stepped up beside him and Lisa, her maid of honour, offered Sandro his bride’s slender right hand. He smiled down at his wife’s cousin and dropped an appreciative kiss on her smooth cheek before focusing his attention on his beautiful bride. Theresa handed her bouquet over to Lisa, who stepped back to stand beside Gabriel Braddock, Sandro’s best man. Theresa had eyes only for her husband, who looked absolutely stunned at the sight of her.

“You look…” he shook his head. “There are no words,
cara
. Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe you.”

She lifted her free hand to his jaw and stroked his slightly stubbled skin tenderly, with all the love in the world reflected in her eyes. The pastor cleared his throat and they stepped apart. Theresa sent a quick glance over to where her ten month old daughter was sitting on her elegant grandmother’s lap. Theresa smiled at her mother-in-law and Sandro’s sisters, all three of whom were present. A smiling Rick sat beside Isabella de Lucci with a sleeping Rhys cradled in his arms. Her father had made an appearance and sat in the row behind the de Luccis. Things were still very strained between him and Sandro but he had begrudgingly released Sandro from their contract and hadn’t tried to take the vineyard back, saying that he wouldn’t contest Theresa’s ownership. Theresa still hadn’t decided what to do with the contentious plot of land but was leaning towards deeding it over to Lily. Theresa often took Lily to visit Jackson and while he was still cold towards his daughter, he seemed to love Lily in his own gruff way and spoiled her rotten. Theresa had invited him to the wedding, never expecting him to show up and now sent a small appreciative smile in his direction and he nodded slightly in acknowledgment.