The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain (15 page)
She moaned.
He cursed. “This cannot be normal,
“Didn’t say it was normal,” she muttered, her eyes shut, her head lolling against his shoulder.
Strangely he didn’t ask what it was.
“I’m surprised,” she said.
“About?”
“You aren’t demanding answers.”
“You do not have any idea how terrible you look, do you?”
“I look terrible?” she asked, a fresh spate of tears rolling down her cheeks. “Ugly?”
“
“I hurt.”
“I know.” And he sounded like the knowledge was tearing him apart, but that had to be a trick of her hearing.
Why would he care if she hurt when he hated her?
Only the way he held her was not the cruel grip of hatred or even the impersonal grip of a stranger. He held her to him like she was precious in some way and even if it was a delusion, she clung to him, needing the comfort and too weak to pretend otherwise.
She didn’t realize where they were headed until he stepped into the already steaming shower with her and then she understood why he’d gotten naked, too. He planned to hold her while she bathed. Tears of relief seeped from beneath her closed eyelids as the hot water cascaded over her skin.
He hadn’t left her alone to face her pain and she felt pathetically grateful. She kept her eyes closed, not caring that some sprayed her face. He directed water over her legs, balancing her on his knee so he could wash the blood away.
“There’s so much,” he repeated in a subdued undertone.
“It gets worse every month,” she said, wondering at her lack of embarrassment to have him caring for her like this.
But then how many times had she wished he was there to take care of her, that he cared enough to notice how hard her monthly had become and comforted her because of it? Such thoughts had always been in the realm of fantasy before, but now it was a reality and she had a hard time taking it in.
He took care of her with an efficiency and instinctual understanding she couldn’t help but admire.
She didn’t know how long they showered, but at some point he said, “I think you’re safe for the whirlpool now. The bleeding has either stopped or slowed down considerably.”
“It comes in fits and starts,” she said tiredly as she let him carry her dripping wet to the whirlpool bath.
He didn’t drop her into it like she expected, but climbed the steps and stepped down into it with her still in his arms. She made a sound of protest.
“You cannot bathe by yourself in this condition.”
“I only plan to lie here.”
“And so you will…in my arms.”
She didn’t argue any further as he settled her between his legs with his arms around her torso so that she did not have to worry about staying afloat or staying put. He took care of it all for her. She sighed contentedly, the meds beginning to take effect and leaned back against him peacefully.
She should probably feel guilty for letting him take care of her like he was taking care of everyone else right now, but it felt too good…too right for guilt. And resting in a whirlpool was not a bad thing for him, either, a voice inside her head told her convincingly.
As the pain receded and her sense of well being increased, she let herself relax totally. “This is nice.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “But we’ll have to get out soon.”
“Why?”
“I may start bleeding again.”
He sighed. “We have established that this is not a normal period.”
“No, it’s not.”
“What is going on?”
“I tried to tell you on the plane from
“No. I would remember.”
“Yes, I did.”
“When did you try to tell me about this awful bleeding and pain?” he asked, still sounding as if he doubted her.
“When I wanted to tell you why we have to end our marriage, but then you told me you wanted it over anyway and it didn’t seem to matter.” Try as she might, she could not make herself treat it lightly.
It had devastated her and that remembered devastation was in her voice.
Tension filled the muscular body cradling hers so close. “This is why you asked for a divorce? Because of this pain and bleeding?”
Chapter 8
“In a way, yes.”
“Explain what way.”
“I don’t look terrible anymore?” she asked with some of her old sense of humor.
“You sound so tired you can barely stay awake and I should leave this until tomorrow, but I cannot.”
“Neither can I,” she admitted. She wanted the truth out. She wanted him to stop looking at her as if she’d sold him out to the enemy.
“I have endometriosis.”
“What is that?”
She tried to wrap her muddled mind around the clinical description the doctor had given her. “It is a condition linked to my menstrual cycle.”
“I had figured that much out myself.”
“Yes, well…I’m not a doctor. Explaining diseases doesn’t come easily to me.”
“I apologize. I should not have been sarcastic.”
“It’s all right.” She was glad he wasn’t looking in her face, that their position precluded eye contact because she didn’t think she could get through this if she had to see his reaction to her news.
“I…um…”
“Begin at the beginning. What causes the pain?”
“In clinical terms, it’s where tissue similar to that in my uterus finds its way into other parts of my pelvic area…well, it can go other places, but isn’t as likely to.”
“Che cosa?” he asked, sounding shocked.
“Did you have sex education in school?”
“
“And you went to public school?” she asked with interest, never having actually wondered on that point before.
She knew that his brother’s children attended a public school, but Diamante was a small island. She’d never asked if the princes had done the same thing in Lo Paradiso growing up.
“Sì. Of course. If it is good enough for our people, it is good enough for us.”
“That’s not the attitude of most of the world’s royalty.”
“We are unique,” he said, his voice loaded with arrogance.
“Definitely.”
“Enough of the school system, explain this tissue you mentioned.”
“Well, I was going to say, can you remember the pictures in sex
“Sì. I am not so old my school days are a blur.”
“Good. Picture little dots of tissue on the outside of the fallopian tubes, or the ovaries…or lining the vaginal walls.”
The muscular thighs beneath her were rigid with tension. “You are saying you have growths in all these places?”
“Yes.”
He cursed.
She sighed. “It could be worse. I’m actually lucky.” But not as lucky as the women who did not have the added complication of infertility.
“You do not sound lucky. So these lesions cause pain?”
“They aren’t cuts…they’re growths, but they fill with blood during the menstrual cycle. There’s nowhere for it to go and that causes pain. Lots of pain,” she added for good measure.
“This pain…it makes it difficult to make love, no?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“This is why you have been turning me down so much these past months?” he asked, his voice curiously neutral.
“Yes,” she said on a sigh.
“I do not understand why divorce. Surely you know that if you had told me about the pain, I would not have asked for sex.”
If only it were that simple. “Yes, I knew that.” But knowing it did not change the fact that without the sex she had little value to him.
He might have stayed married to her without the infertility issue, but he would not have been happy about it. She wondered if she had not blundered in her telling, though, if she would ever have known that. She had the sneaking suspicion that his anger had made him more honest than he ever would have been otherwise.
“So, why divorce?”
“My doctor said that between thirty and forty percent of the women who have endometriosis become infertile.”
He sucked in a charged breath and then let it out. “Which means that sixty to seventy percent do not.”
“I am not one of them.”
“What are you saying?”
“The doctor told me that there was almost no chance I could conceive without IVF and even then, there could be no guarantees.”
“But you were tested for infertility before our marriage.”
“Endometriosis isn’t something you can predict. They aren’t even sure of what causes it. There are no markers that would show up on tests before it begins happening, so the doctors had no way of knowing that I would have it, much less the impact it would have on my ability to conceive.”
“And your doctor, he is certain of the impact it has had on your reproductive capabilities?”
“Yes.”
He was silent and she could not stand that silence, so she said, “There are some researchers who estimate it is the cause of up to fifty percent of female infertility.”
Which said nothing about the emotional devastation that all too significant statistic wrought. Cold numbers were only that until applied to a flesh and blood woman whose life was forever altered by the disease.
“Obviously many women have this condition then.”
“Yes.” She could have given him numbers, but they didn’t matter. The fact that millions of other women suffered from it did not alter her circumstances.
She was defective and as much as she wished it otherwise, that could not be changed.
“When did it start?”
“I’m not sure. My doctor said that birth control pills are one of the prescribed therapies. It could have started any time since our marriage…even before, but I didn’t know because I didn’t think the monthly cramps I had were all that unusual.”
“The tests…”
“I told you, there is no test for it that gives a marker. Routine fertility tests would only have told us whether my system had been affected prior to our marriage and it wasn’t.”
“So, you could have had it all along?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t usually hit until a woman is in her mid-twenties.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” She wished she did.
“How did you discover you were suffering from it now?”
“The pain.”
“I am sorry.”
“Me, too. After I went off the pill, I started bleeding more and hurting way more than I used to during my monthly.”
“You never said anything.”
“It wasn’t your burden to carry.”
“How can you say that? I am your husband.”
“But I am responsible for myself.”
“So you took it upon yourself to find out what was wrong?”
“Not at first, but…” She sighed and told him about the time she woke from a faint with blood beneath her on the bathroom floor. “After that, I knew I had to find out what was wrong.”
“Even then, you kept it to yourself.”
“It’s the way I was raised.”
“I cannot believe your parents would have expected you to deal with something of this magnitude on your own.”
“Then you do not know them as well as you think you do.” Suddenly overcome with tiredness, she slumped back against him.
The pain bombs were having their predictable effect and her brain was turning to mush. Thankfully she had said pretty much everything that needed saying.
“Perhaps,” he admitted, surprising her. Normally he was too arrogant to admit the possibility he was wrong. “You have had the diagnosis confirmed absolutely?”
“Yes.” She turned her head against him and closed her eyes, her body so relaxed, she was close to sleep.
He said something, but she didn’t quite comprehend it.
“
“Hmm…”
“You are not tracking.”
“The pills make me loopy. I want to go to sleep now.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. He lifted her out of the tub and took care of her as if she were a small child. He dried her and dressed her, making sure she was prepared for more nocturnal bleeding.