“What do you call assuming divorce was the only option when you discovered you had endometriosis?”
“Practical. I call it practical.” The only solution that made sense. Particularly now that she knew he had grown bored of her. Had come face-to-face with the reality that her only value to him was a sexual one. Only, even knowing that to be true, part of her heart rebelled at it.
Part of her…the very foolish part…simply refused to believe.
He said nothing, but his expression was not pretty.
Once they reached their apartments, he carried her straight through to the bedroom. “I will get your pain pills.”
He laid her on the bed and then turned to get her meds. He shook two out into his hand and gave them to her. Then, like the night before, he helped her swallow them, sitting beside her and putting one arm around her shoulders for support.
She took the pills.
“Is this your version of coddling?”
“Do you feel coddled?”
Regardless of her pain, she smiled. “Yes.”
“Then, yes.”
“Thank you.”
“Do not thank me. This should be your right.”
“So, you’re being so careful with me out of duty?”
“Tell me something, cara.”
“Yes?”
“Until recent months, your response to me in bed and generosity with your body were all that a man could wish for.”
“So you’ve said.” He had valued her for them.
“Were they the result of doing your duty?”
“No, of course not. How could you ask me that?”
“As easily as you now ask if what I do for you is from duty alone.”
“You don’t love me, Claudio.”
“I care for you. I have always cared.”
“I thought so, too…in the beginning.”
“What changed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
“But still you became convinced I do not care.”
“You said you were bored with me.”
“I was angry. It was a lie.”
She didn’t believe him, but bent over in an acute attack of pain before she could say so.
He lowered her to the bed. “Therese?”
The tightening in her lower abdomen relaxed some and she straightened, breathing shallowly to manage the pain.
“Is it very bad?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“The hospital?”
“No.”
“You are not reasonable.”
“Arguing does not help me control the pain.”
His jaw clenched. “We should not have gone down to dinner.”
“Is that the royal we? If I recall, you were proposing I stay here to eat off a tray, not you.”
“But naturally, I would have stayed with you.”
There was nothing natural about it. In fact, this whole coddling thing was unnatural in their relationship. “Why?”
“You are ill.”
“And you have obligations to your family.”
“Which I was content to dismiss in favor of obligations related to my office for the past week. I was here at the palace for you.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“You are my wife.” He said it as if that should explain everything, but it didn’t. Not by a long shot.
“I was your wife two years ago when I had the flu as well, but you didn’t stay with me then. In fact, you had me moved to another room for convalescence so there was no risk of passing the bug on to you. I was your wife last year when I had a cold and you left me to the tender care of servants while you flew to Italy on business.”
He looked at her like he did not understand the correlation she was trying to draw. “Those circumstances were different.”
“In what way?”
“You were not in excruciating pain and we knew each ailment would run its course.”
“And duty precluded you offering anything resembling tender loving care.”
“Did you want me to become your nursemaid? I did not see that desire in you at the time. You are a very independent person when you are ill. But then I think that for all your quiet gentleness, you are an extremely independent, not to mention stubborn woman all of the time.”
“Thank you for not mentioning it,” she said sarcastically. “And I’m not independent.”
“Oh, but you are. So independent that you have taken it upon yourself to make decisions about our marriage without consulting the other primary partner first.”
“That’s why I went to New York…to consult.”
“A demand for a divorce is not a consultation.”
“I wasn’t going to start it that way, but you put me on the defensive the way you jumped down my throat for coming at all.”
“I leaped to a false conclusion and was cruel to you because of it. I am sorry.” He said it stiffly, like he was embarrassed, and she remembered his comment before dinner.