He took a step forward, bringing him closer to her. They were nearly thigh to thigh, his angry heat radiating from his body into hers. He leaned down until his lips almost brushed hers. “I forget nothing when it comes to you, wife. Nothing.”
She raised her chin. “Then perhaps you might remind yourself of the bargain you made with me. A marriage of convenience. You only remain here until you get me with child. I owe you nothing, not even fidelity, after I birth your heir. That is how you wanted our marriage to be, Alessandro. You chose those terms, not anyone else.”
His nostrils flared. “You accepted them, my lady.”
“Perhaps I do not accept them any longer,” she told him, mustering the courage to be honest. “Perhaps I have changed my mind and now, I want something more.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Such as?”
“Such as a husband who will not abandon me one day soon,” she dared to say before spinning on her heel. “Do not expect me at dinner, my lord. I find I have lost my appetite.”
“Catriona,” he called after her.
“Do not wait for me,” she tossed over her shoulder. “I am exhausted after a long day, and I need rest. Good evening, Lord Rayne.”
With that final shot issued, she slammed out of the study.
On the way to her chamber, the sounds of further desecration of the chamber her husband occupied ringing through the house, she recalled she had been meant to calm him rather than further infuriate him. But then she sternly reminded herself she could only offer so many olive branches. If he refused to take them, the choice was his.
Chapter Twenty-One
Catriona regretted herhasty decision to eschew dinner later that night as she rolled onto her stomach in her bed and flipped another page inThe Silent Duke. The starving grumble echoed through the quiet of her chamber, further taunting her. Though the book was well-written and engrossing, she could not concentrate. The tumult of emotions roiling within her were rendering her enjoyment of the cleverly crafted words impossible.
As was her hunger.
How could she have been foolish enough to fall in love with a man who had done nothing but promise to leave her? With a man who had told her his heart would forever belong to another? He had given every part of himself to his first wife, and there was nothing left for her.
Closing her eyes against the tears, she released a heavy sigh. It seemed no number of attempts at distraction could change the truth. Her life was a series of mistakes. Of loving men who would never love her in return. How wrong she had been to believe marrying Alessandro would give her freedom. She would have been happier in Scotland, disgraced and ruined.
At least her heart would have remained whole.
A knock at the door joining her chamber to her husband’s startled her.
What could he want? Had he come to exercise his husbandly rights? The notion made heat unfurl through her, even as she knew she must not allow it. Her heart could not bear such intimacy tonight, not when he remained so removed from her in every other way. Not when he insisted upon maintaining the distance between them.
“I do not want company tonight,” she called out, for it was the truth.
He had hurt her far too many times. Small hurts. Just enough to make her bleed.
The door opened despite her denial of his entry. He stood on the threshold, bearing a tray in his hands. In the warm glow cast by her candlelight, he was a half-shadowed mystery.
Her heart ached at the sight of him.
“I brought you some sustenance,” he offered. “I thought you may be hungry.”
As if on cue, her stomach growled.
She frowned and pressed a hand over it as if she could absorb the sound and make it cease to exist. “I am perfectly well.”
“You must eat,querida.” His tone was disapproving. He moved into her territory now, striding toward her, and as the light licked over his form, she was reminded of why she had not wanted him within her chamber.
He was temptation incarnate, and she could not resist.
But his irrational anger earlier could not be so easily forgotten. Nor could the cavalier manner in which he regarded their union. Theirs was a marriage of convenience.
A most inconvenient one.
She sat up in bed, clutching the bedclothes to her as if they were a shield which could protect her from his magnetism. “Go away.”
