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He scowled at her. “I have no choice about that, do I?”
Did he mean because like her, he thought she was already pregnant? “I don’t know,” she said honestly. Her menses weren’t due for another week.
His laugh was harsh. “For a man with family pride, it is no choice.”
“You feel like you have to get me pregnant?” She felt further and further out of her depth, while the pain of his rejection went deeper and deeper.
“Enough of this playacting. You know the alternative is untenable for me.”
“I only know that three days ago I was happier than I have ever been in my life and now I’m miserable.” Tears clogged the back of her throat and she couldn’t go on.
Something twitched in his face, but he turned away from her. “Go back to bed, Hope.”
“I don’t want to go back without you.” Her pride was in tatters around her, but she was desperate to get through to him.
“I’m not in the mood for sex right now.”
For a hopelessly oversexed guy like her husband, that statement was the final blow to her rapidly toppling confidence.
“Neither am I,” she whispered from a tight throat as she turned to leave the room. She had never wanted just sex with him and clearly even that wasn’t on offer.
He let her go without a word.
The next day, Luciano took off for a business trip abroad and Hope did her best to hide her despair from his mother and sister. She wasn’t entirely successful, but both women assumed her melancholy was due to Luciano’s absence and she did not disabuse them of the notion. In a way it was the truth. She did miss him, but she had missed him before he left and had no faith his return would decrease that one iota.
On the third day of his absence he called to tell her he would be gone another week. While he had not been overly warm on the phone, the fact he had called at all led to a rise in her spirits. His rejection had not diminished her love or need for him any more than years of her grandfather’s neglect had exorcised the old man from her heart.
Was she destined to spend her whole life loving, but never receiving love?
Luciano walked into the bedroom he shared with Hope without turning on a light. He had been gone for ten days and he’d missed his wife. He hated the knowledge. It made him crazy. He shouldn’t miss a woman who had deceived him so ruthlessly, but he had.
He woke in the night, reaching for her body and she was not there. He had dreamed about her and ached for the release he found in her sweet flesh. That, at least, he would no longer deny himself.
He reasoned that he had to make her pregnant so his control of his family’s company would be assured. Which meant he had to make love to her. Besides sleeping in separate beds was not an option. His mother and sister would notice and his pride would take another lashing.
He’d told himself that was why he called her so frequently when he was gone. It would look odd if he called his mother more frequently than his wife and he had no intention of telling his family how he had been blackmailed into marriage.
He stripped off his clothes and climbed into the bed. His wife’s small body was wrapped around a pillow. She looked so damn innocent, completely incapable of the duplicity he knew she harbored within her. She also looked desirable like no other woman did to him now.
He caressed her in a way he had learned aroused her and she moaned his name in her sleep. A shaft of pain went through him. At least she had been honest about that.
She did want him.
He pulled the pillow from her arms and kissed her in one movement. Her lips responded even though her body remained limp from sleep. He tugged at her bottom lip with his teeth and she opened her mouth. She tasted so sweet, it was impossible to keep reminding himself that she was his enemy.
Right now, she was just his wife.
He slid the thin strap of her nightgown off her shoulder, exposing one pouting breast. Caressing the velvet flesh of her nipple with his palm, he nuzzled her neck, taking in the scent of wildflowers that he associated so completely with her.
The soft bud below his palm hardened and she moaned.
His body responded predictably.
It had been almost two weeks since he had lost himself in the sweetness of her body. Thirteen days too long. He ached with hunger for her, with the need to feel her naked skin against him.
She did not wake up as he carefully removed her gown. He laid down beside her again, pulling her body into full contact with his. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to revel in the sensation of holding her again. Something he could not have done if she was awake.
He let his hand trail down her body, brushing tender buds that taunted him with remembered sweetness.
He lightly touched the soft curls at the apex of her thighs and she stirred.
