The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain by Lucy Monroe Read Free Book Online Page B

reason to make a mockery of him in that way. He’d gone to pains to marry a woman who would not do just that very thing. She remembered when he told her about his stepmother divorcing his father.
    Therese
had been shocked the woman had gone to such extremes. She’d grown up around couples who had stayed married in similar circumstances for the sake of political unity. She realized now why
Claudio
had liked that reaction so much. Although he’d been absolutely committed to fidelity, saying it was one sin he would find impossible to forgive in either himself or her, he had liked knowing she had been trained to believe that marriage vows were to last a lifetime despite personal differences. Duty came first, last and always.
    Which was exactly why she’d asked for a divorce, but he didn’t know that. Once he did, he would grasp for an end to their marriage grabbing a divorce with both hands.
    Therese
slowly sank into one of the armchairs in the corner, weariness overcoming her.
    She could not have handled the confrontation with him worse if she had tried. Instead of telling him of her condition and almost certain infertility, she had told him they had to divorce. While that might well be true, it was not the first thing she should have said to him.
    He thought she’d brought up divorce because she wanted one, which could not be farther from the truth, but duty dictated she let go of the man she loved for both his greater good and that of his country. His final words before they were interrupted had said it all. He needed heirs. She could not guarantee providing them. The odds of conceiving were not good enough for a future king.
    Those facts left her dreams in shambles around her feet. Why was life so hard? What had she done wrong to bring this kind of misery on herself? Her doctor had said it wasn’t personal, that endometriosis happened to lots and lots of women, but it felt personal to her.
    Especially when the results of the disease were ripping her life apart into big jagged patches of pain and more pain.
    And that was her only excuse for the way she’d handled the news. She was hurting so much, her usual diplomacy had completely deserted her. Her father would be so ashamed, but then he’d never been overly impressed with her to begin with.
    In his eyes, she’d always had two strikes against her…she’d been born female and she had no interest in politics. No matter how pleased Mother had been, the fact that
Therese
had ended up married to a crown prince meant nothing to her father. He would have been happier if she had gone to the right schools, made friends with the right people and pursued American politics. Then she would have been of benefit to him.
    Regardless of
Claudio
’s influence in world politics, she could not personally significantly benefit her father who had moved on to a diplomatic position in South America. He therefore considered her useless to him and let her know it in all the subtle ways he had been employing since her childhood.
    Psychologists said that women often married men like their fathers and she’d been determined not to. She had always believed that she had succeeded in marrying a man very different, but now she realized she’d done exactly what she’d sworn not to. She’d married a man who was no more enamored of her person than her father was.
    Looking back over almost three years of marriage, she saw that
Claudio
employed a subtle means of letting her know the insignificance of her place in his life as well. She simply hadn’t seen the road signs for what they were because she so desperately wanted them to say something else. Because he had needed her in the most basic ways—sexually and as an adjunct to his position—she had believed he had more feelings for her than her dad did.
    She couldn’t even blame him for deceiving her, the delusion had been entirely self-perpetuating. But acknowledging that did not make the pain of realization any less.
    Talk about being an