Read Online The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain by Lucy Monroe - Free Book Online Page B

plane, but she’d found it impossible to sleep with her thoughts careening from the shock of Claudio’s expressed desire for a divorce and King Vincente’s heart attack. She had believed that nothing could be worse than learning she had endometriosis with a high chance of total infertility.
    She had been wrong. Finding out she had no option but to let
Claudio
go had hurt, but discovering he wanted out…that he was bored with her had destroyed her. She no longer had any doubts about whether or not she was a survivor of their private war. She knew she had not survived, that her heart was dead inside her.
    Only if it was dead, why did it still hurt so much?
    When they arrived at the hospital,
Claudio
grabbed her arm to stop her from stepping out of the limousine. “
Therese
…”
    She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. “What?”
    “My family is under enough stress right now.”
    “Yes.” So was she, but he’d made it painfully clear he didn’t care about that.
    She’d had the audacity to ask for a divorce and that made her persona non grata where he was concerned.
    “I do not want them further distressed by news of our imminent breakup.”
    Did he have to put it that way, as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of her? “Of course.”
    “I expect you to behave as you always have toward me.”
    “I’m sure we will have no trouble maintaining the status quo.” She glared at him. “It’s not as if we have a marriage like your brothers. No one expects us to be affectionate.”
    She shook his hand off with an angry jerk and stepped out of the car, her public mask firmly in place. Then, showing that she had indeed been raised by a mother who had drilled her to the point where she had once sat out the whole second half of a girls basketball game in the sixth grade with a broken ankle rather than cry in public and let the coach know the extent of her injury, she waited for Claudio so she could walk with him into the hospital.
    It was expected of her. She would do her part to display the outward appearance of solidarity. She directed her gaze straight ahead, her body only a few inches from his, but it might as well have been a mile.
    How many times had she walked beside him and wished he would put his arm around her or take her hand…to show her in some way that he felt the connection between them? But he never did. It made her furious with herself, but she wished for that physical support even more right now.
    She had no idea what they would find inside that hospital and she was scared, her heart bleeding and battered from all sides.
    They walked toward the building through a barrage of noisy reporters and flashing cameras.
    One man broke through the security barrier and got right into her face. “What will it mean to you if King
Vincente
dies, Princess
Therese
? Are you looking forward to being queen?”
    She put her hand up and averted her face, but her feet faltered and she had to force herself to keep moving. The insensitivity of the question shouldn’t have surprised her. She knew how intrusive the press could be, but she was in no way up to handling that thoughtlessness right now. She did her best to hide it, but she flinched when another reporter got close with a flashing camera.
    Suddenly
Claudio
’s big body was there, shielding her from the reporters, his arm strong around her shoulders and his voice barking orders at the security team to do a better job at keeping the paparazzi away.
    Despite feeling like she was leaning on the enemy, she turned into the comfort his human shield offered and let him lead her past the clamoring reporters and continuously flashing camera bulbs. She couldn’t help thinking it would be like this, or worse if the press got wind of her inability to get pregnant without IVF. What kind of rotten questions and accusations would they throw at her and
Claudio
then?
    It didn’t bear thinking about. Not if she wanted to maintain her sanity in the face of her fear for