AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We’re not a family just because we get married – just like we weren’t really married before simply because we had a wedding.”
“I made a mistake back then,” he said urgently. “I freely admit that. I should have negotiated our marriage with you directly, to be sure you understood what I wanted. I treated you like a child, but this time you will know exactly what you’re getting into, what I’m offering.”
Her throat felt thick. She went to move away but his hand clamped around her back, holding her right where she was, pressed to him, the roundness of her stomach between them.
“I want to raise our child with you. In the midst of all this, it feels like the right thing for us to do.”
“How can you say that?”
“How can you not?” He prompted. “Think of what this would mean to our daughter – and our families – particularly your father.”
“I told you, I’m done doing things for other people.” She tilted her chin defiantly so he had an overwhelming urge to kiss those full, pink lips into submission, to drive anything from her mind but the spark of desire that was always humming just beneath the surface. Getting her to agree to this took on a new imperative.
“Marry me and I will make you ten times happier than you were sad during our first marriage.”
Pain lanced her. “How will you do that?”
“By being a real husband to you.” The answer was swift and simple, and fraught with complications.
“Meaning what, Max? That we’ll have sex?” She spat the words to cover the temptation of their pull.
“Yes,” he agreed, his hand stroking her spine. “We will have sex and we will have meals together and we will share our lives, but we will both understand the limitations of our marriage, so that there can be no emotional fall out this time. Our arrangement will be perfect and simple – leaving no room for hurt feelings.” He paused, his eyes scanning hers in an attempt perhaps to read her deepest thoughts. “I don’t want to see you as you were at the end.” He dropped his head to hers, and now his lips did brush hers so she startled and then groaned, a soft sound of acquiescence.
“What limitations?” She tried to grip hold of sanity.
“Neither of us will be deluded into thinking this is about love.” Before she could remind him that love was the only reason worth marrying someone, he answered that objection. “Our marriage will be stronger because it will be based on friendship and respect and the best interests of our daughter, and any children who might follow.”
Her eyes swept shut, pain filling her. It all sounded so sensible and neat, so easy, but as a twenty year old, she’d believed herself madly in love with her husband. What if even now she wasn’t immune to that risk?
“I won’t hurt you again, Alessia. In fact, I swear I will do everything in my power to look after you, for the rest of my life.”
“I don’t need looking after,” she disputed, even as his words warmed her right through.
“I will do it anyway,” he promised. “Marry me but not as you did then. Marry me as my equal, understanding the kind of man I am and what I can give you – marry me knowing that your happiness and that of our daughter is what I will fight for every day for the rest of my life. Bene?”
“No, it’s not ‘bene’,” she said quietly, even as his words were pulling through her, lighting her up with threads of silver and gold. “You’re not the only one who lived to regret our wedding. For a year of my life I tried to make our marriage work and time and time again you rejected me, Max.” The words hurt to say but that pain was nothing to the memories that burned her. “You treated me like an afterthought. How can I believe you’d ever value my happiness now?”
“You understand why I married you then?”
“Because dad was on the verge of bankruptcy, yes. That information would have been helpful to have at the time, believe me.”
“I know,” he agreed, his expression taut. “If I had the opportunity again, I would explain that to you right from the beginning.”
“And I would have refused to marry you for such mercenary reasons,” she swore.
“Perhaps I understood that,” he muttered. “You are stubborn like your mother.”
Her chest squeezed. Their families were so intertwined, his knowledge of her mother was something that occasionally filled her with envy – when her mother had died, Alessia had been twelve. She remembered a lot but never enough. Max had been twenty-three; he had clearer recollections.
“I have a sense of morality that makes marrying for money absolutely distasteful.”
“And marrying to save Carlo from destitution? Would that have been distasteful?”
“I would have spoken to him, convinced him to let you help him without the charade of our wedding. What were you thinking to believe making me your wife had any kind of merit?”
“You were at university, busy with your studies. I thought your life would continue more or less as it had before, except instead of living at your father’s house, you’d live at mine.”
Something inside of her snapped. She pushed at his chest, putting some distance between them, her breasts moving sharply. “Damn you, Max, how dare you? You treated me like an object with no living will of my own. How dare you?”
