The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted #1)(43)
Author: Natasha Anders

“Oh please,” Lisa rolled her eyes disdainfully. “This is exactly what he signed up for. He wanted you pregnant, remember?”
“I remember,” Theresa nodded forlornly.
“Look, far be it from me to defend the guy…” Rick intervened reasonably. “I mean you know I can’t stand him after the way he treated you and I would have cleaned his clock ages ago if you hadn’t called me off, Terri… but quite honestly the man looked downright pitiful just now. Not your typical ruthless Sandro.”
“I’ve been seeing a change in him lately, too, Theresa,” Lisa said.
“Please,” Theresa shook her head. “He’s the same as he’s always been. He wants out of this marriage and so do I.”
“Theresa…” Lisa murmured in her most reasonable voice.
“Lisa, don’t defend him… you don’t know what he’s done…” and suddenly it all came out, how he’d blackmailed her to prevent her from divorcing him, using Lisa’s loan as his leverage. “He probably gave you that loan so that he would have some kind of future hold over me if I ever stepped out of line!” Rick and Lisa exchanged a meaningful look before Rick shrugged, seeming to answer some unspoken question from Lisa.
“Theresa,” her cousin still clasped one of her hands tightly. “I know about that.”
“You do?” She was shocked by that. “How? How long have you known?”
“Sandro confessed all the last time you two came by. Remember? He wanted to talk to me alone?” Theresa nodded dazedly. “For whatever reasons, he doesn’t want or need that leverage anymore, he offered to write off my debt entirely. I refused… but I get the feeling that he’s going to do it anyway.”
“That’s what he wanted to talk about that day?” Theresa gasped incredulously.
“Yes and he made me swear not to tell you about it… but I suppose these are extenuating circumstances,” Lisa nodded and Theresa frowned in concentration.
“But I don’t understand any of this… why would he do that?” She asked in confusion before her face cleared up and she laughed at her own stupidity. “Well, he doesn’t really need the leverage anymore, does he? Not when I’m doing exactly what he wants? But to clear the debt before the baby’s born still doesn’t make sense… unless…”
“Is this a private conversation or can anyone join in?” Rick interrupted her musing drily and she blinked up at him. “I think you’re over-analyzing. From what Lisa tells me he was desperate to cancel that debt. She thinks, and I’m inclined to agree after what I just saw, that he wants a clean slate with you but doesn’t really know how to go about it.”
“Well, I live with him and I know you’re both wrong,” she maintained stubbornly, shoving all those Scrabble and chess nights to the back of her mind, determinedly trying not to think about the companionable meals and the silent support he lent her at every doctor’s appointment. “He’s in love with someone else! I’d say another woman, only in this case, I think I’m probably the other woman.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Rick asked furiously.
“He was in love with her before my father forced him into this marriage. She’s the woman he wants to have a family with. I’m the one who screwed up his life, Rick… not vice versa. Once I have this baby we’ll go our separate ways and both be happier for it.”
“This is so messed up,” Rick shook his head in disgust. “What about you and the baby? Don’t you count for anything?”
“I would hate it if he stayed out of some outdated sense of duty… I’m worth more than that, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” Lisa whispered, squeezing Theresa’s narrow shoulders reassuringly before sitting down on the chair beside the bed and leaning toward Theresa. “So you felt the baby move?”
Theresa’s eyes lit up with remembered joy.
“It was amazing,” she nodded and both Rick and Lisa went misty as they verbally recalled Rhys’s first movements. “After the fright I got, it was such a relief to feel him moving around in there.”
“Is he doing any wriggling now? His Auntie Lisa wants to meet him,” Theresa shook her head with a slight laugh.
“He’s all quiet right now,” she rested her hand on her stomach. “I can’t believe I have to stay in bed for a week.”
“Yeah that’s a bit crap,” Lisa nodded sympathetically. “So glad I wasn’t confined to bed at any time during my pregnancy.”
“God, if only… she was like a little dynamo, I had to force her to slow down,” Rick recalled with a shudder.
“Do you think I could stay with you for the next week or so?” Theresa asked hesitantly and Rick and Lisa both frowned before nodding.
“Of course,” Lisa said. “But why?”
“Sandro’s going to Italy for a week and before this happened I had every intention of staying in my own home but…”
“If you think I’m going to Italy with you confined to bed, you can damned well think again,” Sandro’s gruff voice suddenly interrupted from the doorway and three heads swiveled towards him. He looked… strange. His hair was disheveled, his suit wrinkled and his tie loosened. He was also clutching a wilted bunch of flowers in one hand and gaily wrapped square box in the other. Added to that he had an incongruous bunch of foil helium balloons trailing behind him and it was the latter that caught and held everybody’s attention. They were colourful, some were downright garish and most of them either read Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary and one woefully out of place dolphin had the legend “Yippee for SUMMER” emblazoned across its side, a very optimistic sentiment considering it was July and the middle of winter.