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She had shown the te she felt was ione ballistic Not only that, he just assu they needed to divorce had to be spurious and selfish ones Why? She had given hiive as his wife, even if he had not realized it When had she ever made any choice related to him out of selfishness? Even her decision to e that she could be the kind of wife he wanted

She had loved hi he did not love her if she had believed she would not be the right kind of wife for hionized over as best for hi on her own behalf, she wondered if she was some kind of masochist or a real idiot, or both

But then she’d spent her whole life trying to please other people First her parents, each of whoenda for her life She’d fulfilled her mother’s because it had see at

Mother had said tireatest assets, that she was to play those assets carefully That had been easy to do The physical beauty was a gift of Providence and the poise was sohter could survive her school years without

Those attributes had won Claudio’s attention, but even her perfect h to sway hie vote He’d wanted to be sure she would not disappoint him in bed and had tested her on that score

She re Not in those exact words, of course, but she’d knohat the other woman meant After all, Therese knew these Scorsolini men She’d been shocked by Tomasso’s behavior only because it had been so obvious to her froie

He loved her and no one in the family could doubt that fact Not now Not ever, in her opinion

But Claudio did not and had not loved Therese when he had been courting her with an eye forpassion, evoking a response that she had learned to accept, but which had at first shocked and terrified her To be so at ainst her need for control and the way she had been raised to suppress any deep emotion

Truthfully she would probably never have allowed her love for Claudio to bloom fully if he had not evoked her latent sensuality It had broken through her every emotional barrier and laid her heart bare to his influence

Now she would pay the price for her weakness

Vulnerability always caain, and her h in different words? Yet, she’d been powerless to stop herself falling in love with the prince who had a heart made of stone

The cost of that love was her own shattered heart

Learning of King Vincente’s illness had added another level of pain to the maelstrom of hurt inside of her She loved her father-in-law in a way she’d never been free to care for her own father But then King Vincente had accepted her as her father had not He adth and told her so He enjoyed her company and told her that as well

He commented on his son’s dedication to duty in less than colected He had been her ally for three years and if she lost him to death, it would tear her apart It would also reater

Claudio had said the older man was stable, but she kne unpredictable a heart condition could be And no one had even known that King Vincente had suffered from one As unfair as she’d felt Claudio’s accusations about her behavior had been, if she had known her father-in-law’s health was at risk, she would have waited for her husband’s return froe

Because she cared tooVincente, as a better father to her than her blood relative to have ever allowed for the possibility that he ht end up alone in a hospital rooard were enough tofrom the way Claudio had s more to him than a body in his bed and a political sidekick of the necessary sex

She honestly did not think she could stand an ongoing war of silent hostility with her husband in addition to everything else Though once she explained about her endoht be bitterly disappointed He ht even see her as a complete feer be furious with her