The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain by Lucy Monroe Read Free Book Online

her…made it harder for her to think, to cope with what needed to be said. She simply had not expected him to respond with such fury. After all, they were in effect discussing the dissolution of what he considered a business contract. Nothing more.
    For him. For her, it was the end of everything beautiful in her life.
    Unless…maybe their marriage was more important to him than she had thought. Could it be true? Could his reaction mean he cared after all? Inside her, her heart leaped…could she have misread him from the beginning? All of the evidence she had compiled in her own mind pointed to the fact that she did not matter to him on a personal level, not for who she was—the person inside who craved his love so ardently.
    But had she misread it all? She didn’t see how she could have. No. She shook her head. It simply wasn’t possible. Maybe she could have misread a misspoken phrase here and there, but not an entire lifestyle that continuously pointed out how small a role she played in his life. And nothing could be more convincing than her knowledge of how a Scorsolini male acted in love, because she’d seen it in his younger brothers.
    Yet, he was behaving as if the end of their marriage really mattered to him. “Why are you so angry?” she asked in an almost whisper, trying not to let hope build again.
    He looked at her in incredulous fury. “You have just told me you want a divorce and you ask me this?”
    “Yes.” His answer meant so much, she was trembling with fear and anticipation of what it might be.
    “I had certain requirements when looking for a wife, you knew this,” he gritted from between clenched teeth.
    “Y-yes.” It was not sounding promising.
    “One of those requirements was a wife who understood and accepted the importance of duty and sacrificing one’s personal happiness for the sake of what is best for
Isole
dei Re.
”
    “Were you sacrificing your personal happiness to marry me?” she asked painfully.
    She’d always wondered if he’d wanted a different woman, even a different kind of woman. One who was more vivacious and exciting. A woman who would not necessarily make the ideal princess, but who would have matched the fiery passion that bubbled beneath the solid surface of his duty.
    “Happiness never came into it one way or the other.”
    Hurt lancing through her, she said, “It did for me. I was happy to marry you. I wanted you more than I could imagine wanting anyone else.”
    For some reason, her words made him flinch. “But now you want a divorce. Your desire for me, this happiness you mention was short-lived. It did not last even three full years. And yet what did I withhold from you that I promised to give you?”
    “Nothing.” He had withheld nothing except his love and that had never been on offer as part of their bargain.
    “So, you will accept that I have not reneged on my side of our marriage bargain?”
    “Yes, I accept it.”
    “You accept also that you married me with the understanding that it was for a lifetime?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    He moved to tower over her, his fury all the more powerful because he stood there magnificently naked and not in the least bit ashamed of it. “Then you must also accept that I will not allow you to renege on the lifetime commitment you made to me.”
    “Sometimes things happen that make it impossible to keep a bargain.” Even in his vaunted world of business.
    “Not in our marriage, they do not.”
    “They do. They have. I have…” Her throat closed over. She had to say it, but it hurt more than she’d ever expected to say the words out loud.
    “Do not say it,” he barked. “I will never let you go.”
    She stared at him. “You don’t mean that,” she gasped out.
    He spun away from her, his whole being vibrating with a palpable rage she still did not understand.
    “You will not walk away from our marriage and make me the second sovereign in Scorsolini history to be divorced. Do you understand me?” he