“So, what is it you think I feel for you?”
“Desire. I think you like me…or at least you used to. I think you feel guilty now…because you wish you’d noticed my condition before, and maybe even because you were so cruel about the divorce before you knew why I had suggested it.”
“But you are certain I do not love you?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose that makes us even,” he said on a sigh. “But things are about to change around here.”
With that he turned and walked away.
With King Vincente’s return to the palace, things were too hectic the rest of that day for Therese to think much about Claudio’s final statement in the garden. However, that night when she was alone in their apartments while he attended a function in his father’s stead, her mind chewed on it endlessly.
She had suggested she should go with him to the State dinner, but Claudio had refused and no amount of arguing on her part would change his mind. She had even had to assure him that she was feeling much better, which she was, before he had been willing to go himself. Which was a hundred and eighty degree turn around for him.
Duty came first, last and always for Claudio Scorsolini.
Or it had…maybe it still did. He said his duty to her as his wife was of primary importance, but it hadn’t always been that way. She knew it hadn’t. There was too much evidence to the contrary. What had changed? Or, maybe she was tipping at windmills to think anything really had. Only, was guilt really strong enough of a motivator to make someone as entrenched in his responses to life as Claudio change so much? It seemed a stretch, even for a Scorsolini.
Equally as important, what had he meant in the garden?
In saying they were even did he mean that he agreed with her and that he didn’t think he loved her, either? Or was he saying that he didn’t believe she loved him? And in either case…what did he mean that things were going to change? No matter how she looked at it, the implication was that love was entering into their marriage bargain…by Claudio’s say so.
Despite her final plea to the contrary, he told his family about her condition the next day. He also told them that she would be having surgery for it, and how soon. In a move that was again totally out of character, he had gone on to tell them that while surgery would hopefully take care of her symptoms, enough damage had already been done to her female organs that without IVF, she was for all intents and purposes infertile.
His brothers and father were clearly stunned by his openness, but the other women treated the news as if it was something that the whole family should know. But just as Therese had thought it would, the news caused a minor uproar in the family with Flavia taking it hardest of all.
She and King Vincente were sitting together on the butternut-yellow suede leather sectional sofa in the family reception room.
The family reception room was the only one in the palace that was decorated with comfortable modern furniture. Therese had insisted on disposing of the formal pieces and furnishing the room in warm tones and comfortable seating arrangements. King Vincente had informed her that the two recliners she’d had installed were the only ones that had ever been allowed in the palace. A month after the room was finished, he requested a recliner for his own apartments as well.
She’d wanted a place to congregate comfortably as a family once their children came along. It had been important to her to raise her sons and daughters with a sense of normalcy pocketed into every aspect of their lives. She’d wanted warmth and togetherness to be a natural part of their lives, not an anathema. The Scorsolinis were warm and loving people and cooperated with her despite their royal heritage.
Everyone was in there now except Tomasso’s children, who had gone to bed already. King Vincente should probably have been sleeping as well, but that was not an option. While he had been willing to sit with his feet up on the chaise lounge at one end of the sectional, he had drawn the line at being sent to bed like a child as he had put it. Flavia had grumbled, but she had fussed around him to make sure he was comfortable and then taken her seat beside him.
Therese was sitting on the part of the sectional catty-corner to her mother-in-law. Claudio had pulled her down to sit beside him rather than allowing her to take an armchair which was her normal habit. Then he’d draped his arm over her shoulders with casual possessiveness. It felt nice, if a bit strange.
Tomasso was seated in one of the recliners with Maggie settled snugly in his lap. Which was a lot more intimate…so Therese was not embarrassed. Marcello and Danette were at the other end of the sectional, his arm around her waist and her back against his body rather than the sofa.