"I"d think you were insane to think that I"d want anything to do with it. How can a marriage with a life span of just six more months possibly be beneficial to either of us?"
"It wouldn"t... but that"s not what I want..."
"Oh it"s always about what you want isn"t it? Well, I have news for you, Sandro..." she was still holding the now-sleeping baby to her chest and glowering furiously at the tall man seated opposite her, oblivious to her cousin who sat watching the scene unfold in absolute fascination. "I don"t give one d.a.m.n about what you want. I don"t want to stay married to you... I want my life back and I want you gone as soon as your contract with my father has been fulfilled." The silence was absolutely deafening. Finally, after what seemed like ages, he leaned back in his chair and shook himself slightly.
"We"ll still be together until the baby is born," he finally acknowledged wearily. "Up until then, I want daily updates on your health. I don"t want to be excluded from any bit of news no matter how trivial you think it may be."
"I don"t understand what you"d hope to gain from such an arrangement," she said miserably confused and frustrated by how adamant he was being on this point.
"Absolutely nothing," he murmured. "But what do you stand to gain by keeping me out of the loop?"
Absolutely nothing... And he knew it; she had no reason other than pure b.i.t.c.hiness to refuse his request.
"Fine," she said begrudgingly. "I"ll keep you updated but I want your word that you won"t interfere in any part of my pregnancy and that you"ll remain a casual observer."
"How can you expect me to make a promise like that?" He asked hoa.r.s.ely. "I am not a casual observer, Theresa! I have a vested interest in both you and the baby."
"You signed away your rights to us before you ever had us," she reminded bitterly and he flinched slightly at her words. "And you seem to expect me to not only forget that little fact but forgive it too? Sandro... I will never forgive you."
"I thought you understood what an untenable situation I was in," he shook his head angrily.
"I understand and I sympathise but that does not change the fact that the person I thought I loved, the man I married in good faith, never existed and I don"t think I"ll ever be able to get past that, Sandro." He sighed heavily.
"Fair enough," he finally conceded. "But we need to make the best of this situation in the meantime and living like strangers in the same house isn"t the best solution."
"Fine," she whispered reluctantly. "What do you suggest?"
"I would like to be present at your doctors" appointments," he said after a long pause and she hesitated, slanting a helpless gaze at her cousin who shrugged slightly.
"Why?"
"Peace of mind," he responded succinctly and she frowned, trying to think about it from all angles before sighing quietly.
"Fine... but your opinions and input are not encouraged or desired. So you"ll be there as just an observer... A silent observer. I will manage my own health and pregnancy," his jaw clenched in displeasure but he kept his mouth shut and nodded reluctantly.
"I also think..." his voice was slightly hoa.r.s.e and he paused to clear his throat before continuing. "I also think that living in the same house and never seeing each other is... well... ridiculous actually. Please stop disappearing when you know I"m home. It makes me feel like a monster knowing that you"re cowering away in some corner of the house because you"d rather not face me." He couldn"t have chosen better words to get her back up and she bristled furiously.
"I do not cower," she seethed, barely aware of the amused look he exchanged with her cousin.
"It certainly feels that way to me," he responded. "I know that you find it difficult to be around me because of the feelings you once had for me..." another outraged gasp from her. "And I also know that with the attraction between us you"re probably afraid the chemistry will flare up and we"ll wind up in bed again, I mean it"s fairly obvious how much you want me... but..."
"I... you..." she was absolutely furious with him for bringing up their s.e.x life in front of her cousin and appalled to realise that he thought she was hiding from him. Like some timid little rabbit. Okay, so maybe she had been hiding but she had been doing it to keep both of them comfortable with the awkwardness of the situation. "The colossal ego on you... I"m not cowering or hiding or anything like that! I just can"t stand to be around you."
"Of course you"d say that now," he shrugged dismissively and she gasped again, furiously rocking little Rhys back and forth as she desperately tried to find a suitably scathing response to his words.
"Anyway," Sandro murmured. "I was going to suggest we start having breakfast and dinner together again, no point in having separate meals."
"Fine," she snapped grudgingly.
"And can we try to be civil?" He asked pseudo-meekly. "Have a decent conversation while we"re having our meals?" Her eyes snapped but she simply nodded, silently telling herself that it would be for just six more months.
"Anything else?" She asked sarcastically, her tone of voice definitely not inviting any more of his "suggestions" but he chose to take her question at face value.
"Yes..." he nodded. "The Friday night gang was wondering where you"d disappeared to. The ladies were disappointed when you didn"t come again." She said nothing, she couldn"t do it... she quite simply wouldn"t do it.
"I. I can"t," she finally admitted softly. "They"re your friends and when we divorce... well, they"ll still be your friends. I don"t want to form ties with people when I know exactly how temporary the relationships will be. I can"t keep saying goodbye to people I care about." The last emerged on a whisper and he swallowed before nodding slightly.
"Then one last request," he murmured, leaning toward her intently.
"What?"
"Two hours..." His voice had dropped to a husky whisper.
"What does that..."
"In the evenings..."
"Two hours for what?"
"Just to..." His face clenched in frustration and he shrugged helplessly. "Spend together. Talk, watch a movie, read, sit... anything, as long as we spend it together."
"But that"s... I don"t understand why you"d want that?"
"Please." The word, soft and pleading, stayed the rejection hovering at the tip of her tongue.
"Two hours... three times a week," she found herself stipulating against her better judgement. 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 gaze told her he knew exactly why she had chosen those days but he grinned suddenly and nodded.
"Fine with me," he acquiesced and she sat back feeling like she"d been manipulated somehow. Rhys had fallen asleep and Lisa reached out to take him 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s of orange juice, Theresa," he said softly. "I just thought you looked a bit parched." She gritted her teeth and sheer perversity kept her from picking up the gla.s.s 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 anaemic, 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 acknowledgement before finally conceding that her childishness would achieve nothing. She leaned over to pick up the gla.s.s of orange juice and take a 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 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 doctors" appointments were less of an ordeal with Sandro"s silent support. He kept his end of the bargain, merely observing and never interfering but 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, even coming home earlier than usual on the appointed 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 st.i.tches with his creative spelling and made up words. They also had an ongoing chess rivalry and were a lot more evenly matched at that game. Theresa soon realised that she was starting to look forward to those two hours and hated the fact that he was insidiously creeping beneath her defences 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.
"Well, feel free to use it the next time you play a Frenchman!" He laughed outright at that and she caught her breath at the carefree sound. Every day he relaxed more and more around her and she often sensed that he wanted to extend their time together. He contemplated the board again, stroking his slightly stubbled jaw thoughtfully as he considered his next move. Eventually he settled on "eel" which was so badly placed it that was worth only three points and she snorted disdainfully, while taking down his points. She smiled sweetly up at him, before pointing out the free "t" which he could have used for the word "exit" before gleefully using that "t" for her own word, making use of the conveniently situated triple word score in the process and ama.s.sing a handy thirty-nine points for her "smithy".
"What is this word?" He growled. "Names aren"t allowed!" She couldn"t help but giggle at his outrage before whipping out a definition of the word for him. He glared down at the dictionary before grumbling to himself in Italian again and going back to studying the board. Theresa smiled slightly to herself, noting the way his hair had slid forward over his forehead and just dying to brush it back, she hid her hands beneath the table and clenched her fists to quell the unreasonable impulse.
"I know that it"s early days yet but I"ve been thinking about decorating the nursery," she said just to get her mind off of her crazy desire to touch him. Her words caught his attention and he looked up with an unguarded smile.
"That"s a terrific idea," he nodded eagerly. "We could go shopping for furniture and toys, I saw this huge panda bear at a toy shop a week ago that would be perfect for a baby." His enthusiastic response completely threw her and she stared at him blankly for a few moments.
"A toy shop?" She finally asked and he went slightly red.
"There"s one... close to the office and I"ve been to it a couple of times during my lunch hour," he finally, very reluctantly, admitted. "Just to see what kind of toys and things babies need these days."
Theresa had no clue how she was supposed to respond to that. Should she be concerned that he seemed to be taking more than a casual interest in the baby or should she be pleased? And how on earth was she supposed to react to his a.s.sumption that they would be decorating the nursery together? Her emotions were in such turmoil that in the end, she simply said nothing... shoving it aside to be processed later. Sandro, sensing the shift in her mood and seeming to realise that he"d said too much lapsed into an uncomfortable silence and toyed with one of his tiles.
"I"m feeling a little tired. I may just head up to bed," she suddenly said and he looked up in resentment.
"I still have an hour left," he pointed out bitterly and she bit her lip nervously.
"Yes, you do," she finally said and gestured toward the board. "It"s your move." His eyes glimmered with some indefinable emotion before he shook his head and got up.
"You"re not my prisoner, Theresa, if you"re tired go to bed," he said wearily, shoving his hands into the pockets of his tailored business suit trousers and totally ruining the cut of the expensive garment.
"Far be it from me to renege on a bargain," she maintained, remaining stubbornly seated, even though she would have liked nothing better than to flee.
"You"re being so G.o.dd.a.m.ned childish," he seethed and turned to leave the room before she had a chance to retaliate. She sat there for a few minutes before she realised that he really wasn"t coming back. It was the first time in more than a month that they"d had any kind of serious dispute and Theresa regretted that, knowing that she had been childish, because she hadn"t known of any other way to deal with her emotions. She sighed, acknowledging that she needed to apologise to him and pushed herself up off of the plush heated carpet, thinking that it was best to get it over with as soon as possible.
She headed toward his study and as she approached the slightly ajar door, she realised that he was speaking to someone in a low voice. Not wanting to intrude on his telephone call, her steps slowed slightly and she turned around to head toward the kitchen for a small snack. She was just about to walk away when she heard him groan huskily, before saying, "Francesca..." in the most agonised voice she had ever heard from him. The single word was filled with so much yearning and pain that it froze Theresa in her tracks. Sandro was still talking in that low voice, his words, which were in Italian, sounding more urgent now. Theresa took a step back towards the study and the open door and his voice became slightly clearer, even though he was murmuring intimately.
"Francesca, cara..." were two of the incriminating words she could understand amidst the torrent of Italian and she bit her lip uncertainly, not sure if he was talking to Francesca or about Francesca. G.o.d, why hadn"t she learned more Italian? Right now she understood just enough to make her miserable with jealousy and pain. After hearing the woman"s name, for the first time so many months ago, Theresa had tried to put her out of her mind... knowing nothing about her, it had seemed wisest not to speculate for fear of having her imagination run wild. Now, she wished she had done some research on this Francesca, even though having only one name to go on would have made it difficult and Theresa hadn"t been about to ask her father or Sandro for details about the mystery woman.
Sandro was obviously oblivious to her presence outside his study door as he continued his low-voiced conversation and Theresa understood only a few random words that meant little to her. He kept using endearments though; those she knew very well because he"d frequently resorted to them while having s.e.x with her. She had often wondered if that had been his way of de-personalising the act even further since he had rarely used her name during their most intimate moments. She hovered outside her husband"s study door, much like she had been hovering on the outskirts of his life for nearly two years, before turning away and heading back upstairs. She had showered, changed for bed and had long since turned off her bedroom lights when she finally heard his heavy tread on the staircase. She held her breath when he paused, as he always did, outside her door but instead of feeling the usual relief when he moved on a few moments later, this time Theresa turned her face into her pillow and cried herself to sleep.
Chapter Seven.
"I won"t be able to go to the doctor with you today, Theresa," Sandro informed Theresa while they were breakfasting in the dining room the following morning. She would never have admitted it but she had really been relying on having him there that day. She was in her sixteenth week of pregnancy and had been scheduled for a precautionary amniocentesis that day. Because of her previous miscarriage, her doctor wanted to take no chances. She was a nervous wreck about the procedure and even though she knew the risks of complications were very low, they were still there. Also even though her logical mind told her that her baby would be fine she was still dreading the possible outcome of the test. Sandro had been a rock during her first ultrasound the month before, holding her hand while he listened to the whooshing sound of their baby"s heartbeat for the first time and squeezing it tightly when they had caught sight of the fragile fluttering on the black and white monitor. It had been too early to tell the baby"s s.e.x but Theresa was confident that it was a boy and had said so. Sandro had remained quiet during the entire procedure but he had been a comfort to her.
"Why not?" She asked casually.
"I have to go to Italy next week and I have a lot to finish at the office before I leave," he informed her tightly and she lowered her eyes back to her plate.
"Is your father okay?" She asked softly and he hesitated before responding.
"Yes. My visit is unrelated to any family business," she shut her eyes in pain, suddenly knowing that he was going because of that phone call last night.
"Okay," she nodded, battling to sound nonchalant about it. "It"s just... I"m getting the amniocentesis today." He swore quietly beneath his breath.
"I"m sorry, Theresa," he murmured, seeming almost stricken by the news. "I completely forgot."
And that, of course, brought the major problem with their marriage into sharp relief. While she had been worrying about the procedure, stressing about possible complications, terrified of the slight risk of miscarriage it presented and suffering through sleepless nights thinking about the birth or genetic defects the results could reveal, her husband had simply forgotten about the test. And this just when she had started to rely on him to be there for her. Of course, she would never reveal just how much she had depended on having his solid, stoically silent presence there so she shrugged carelessly.
"I"m sure Lisa will go with me," she nodded firmly and his eyes shone with naked relief.
"That"s a great idea..." he nodded enthusiastically. "I"ll be at your next appointment. I"ll only be gone for a week or so. I"ll be back before you know it."
"I"ll be fine," she dismissed airily, digging into her scrambled eggs like someone who didn"t have a care in the world. There was an awkward silence, while he watched her eat but Theresa very determinedly kept her head down while she scooped the eggs into her mouth with as much gusto as she could manage without choking.
"I don"t want you to be alone while I"m gone," he suddenly breached the uncomfortable silence and Theresa frowned at his words, looking up at him with her laden fork lifted halfway to her mouth.
"I won"t be alone, Rick and Lisa are always around and the staff are ever present," as if to prove her words, the smiling housekeeper entered the room with a pile of pancakes which she placed in front of Theresa with a speaking look. Phumsile, who was in charge of all the domestic staff, made no secret of the fact that she thought Theresa was way too skinny for a pregnant woman and had taken it upon herself to ensure that Theresa ate healthily. Theresa secretly suspected the older woman of being in cahoots with Sandro and had even accused Sandro of such. He"d merely laughed and refused to comment. Phumsile disappeared back into the kitchen and Sandro sighed impatiently.
"That"s not enough," he muttered. "I want you to stay with your cousin."
"No." She simply went back to her eggs, helping herself to a pancake, not wanting to incur Phumsile"s wrath. The silence seethed from the other end of the table.
"I insist."
"No." She didn"t even bother meeting his eyes this time.
"Theresa, you"re being very difficult," he kept his voice level and patient.
"And you"re being unreasonable," she suddenly snapped, glaring at him furiously. "Rick and Lisa have a new baby. I will visit them regularly and I have no doubt they will come around here but for me to stay there? That"s just ridiculous. I won"t intrude and I don"t need a minder; I"m perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"What if something goes wrong? What if you need help in the middle of the night and no-one"s around?"
"Why don"t you just stay home if you"re so concerned?" She retorted furiously and immediately wished the words back when his gaze turned speculative.
"Would you like me to stay home?" He asked quietly.