The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted #1)(10)
“‘Played into our hands? There is no us here, Jackson. I had nothing to do with your obscene little scheme.”
“Oh, spare me your sanctimonious drivel, Sandro,” her father scoffed. “It smacks of hypocrisy when you gained a hell of a lot out of this deal. And even if you’d known about Theresa’s expectations, it would have made no difference to the eventual outcome. You know that as well as I do.”
“She’s your daughter!” Sandro suddenly roared. “That should have meant something to you.”
“Of course it meant something to me. It meant that she could at last be of some use to me! Her role in my life is now quite vital. So you’d better keep her happy, get her pregnant, and stop her prattling on about divorce. You know what you stand to lose if your marriage dissolves before I get what I want.”
“I had a life before we made this ridiculous arrangement and I would like to get back to it at some point,” Sandro said. Theresa bit her lip hard to stop herself from crying out at the knowledge that her husband had always considered their marriage to be something outside of his real life. She had never met his family, all of whom lived in Italy. He visited them every other month for at least two weeks and never bothered asking her to join him. Of course he had never wanted them to meet her, not when she was just his “temporary” and unwanted wife.
“Well, you know what it would take to get out and I’m amazed that it’s taken you so long to accomplish that task.”
Sandro remained silent for a moment.
“You know we had a setback, it’s been difficult to recover from that!” he responded. Theresa’s brow furrowed, and her sweaty hand tightened around the receiver, which was practically welded to her ear. She tried to figure out what they were talking about. What was this goal that would set her free? It had something to do with a mutual business interest if the conversation was anything to go by. She would do anything to help Sandro accomplish whatever he needed to if it meant she could get out sooner. And once she was free, she would walk away from them both and never look back.
“Yes…that damned girl can’t do anything right, can she?” her father suddenly grated, and Theresa’s head came up when she realized that they were talking about her. What on earth did…? “The one thing you’d expect the woman to be able to do and she botched even that.” Oh God! Theresa finally understood what they had been referring to in such dry terms and she nearly doubled over in pain.
“No one was to blame for what happened,” Sandro shocked her by saying. “It was just one of those things.”
“Regardless,” her father dismissed. “Sire a boy on the brat and be done with it. Surely the task shouldn’t be too difficult for a strapping young man like you? After that, you’re most welcome to obtain your divorce and live happily ever after with that Francesca woman of yours. ‘The love of your life’—that’s what the press once called her, right?”
Francesca? Theresa didn’t know what to process first, the fact that this whole marriage had been about her being a broodmare for whatever sick goal they had in mind, or the fact that Sandro was in love with another woman. Both bits of information hurt so much that Theresa felt like she had been physically assaulted. She’d always assumed that Sandro’s desire for a son was fueled by his Italian male ego; the need to propagate his line and all that. The thought that it was part of some kind of bargain that he had made with her father had never even crossed her mind! Even though she had hated the way he could never touch her without that ultimate goal in mind, she had always believed that it was something he wanted, a son to carry on his name and an heir to inherit his fortune. Instead the baby would only ever have been a way for him to gain his freedom and carry on his life with Francesca.
But what was supposed to happen to her and the baby once Sandro had fulfilled his end of the bargain? Would he leave and forget about them? The one thing she had never doubted was that if Sandro wanted a son, he would love the child. Now she wasn’t even sure of that! Sandro seemed to despise her so much she now knew that even though any baby they had would carry his name, it would ultimately be neglected and unloved by its father just like she had been by hers. She couldn’t allow that to happen and this made her even more determined not to have a child.
As for her father’s role in all this, she certainly knew why he wanted a grandson. He had always bemoaned his lack of male progeny to carry on his line and his business. Theresa had never been good enough to inherit, which he had always made quite clear, but she had never grasped how far he would go to ensure a male heir. It was all so archaic.
Theresa was so wrapped up in her painful thoughts that it took her a while to register the low buzzing in her ear and realize that the two men had disconnected their call. She very carefully, as if it were the most fragile thing in the world, replaced the receiver in its cradle and sat quite still for a long time before suddenly exploding into action and dashing to the en-suite bathroom, where she violently threw up the meager portion that she had had for breakfast.
After she was done she rinsed her mouth, headed back to the bedroom, and crawled to the center of the huge bed. She sat there with her knees drawn up to her chest and her face buried in her hands, too hurt to even cry. She was shaking so badly that her teeth were chattering. She didn’t know what to do or where to turn. She needed to get out of this situation, as far away from both men as she possibly could. Possible solutions and scenarios kept marching their way through her traumatized mind, but nothing viable presented itself. There was still Sandro’s threat against Lisa’s business to consider; she also had no real money of her own and she knew that with their considerable resources, her father and husband would find her before she could get very far.