He was as good as his word and mostly left her alone to listlessly browse around the upmarket boutiques in the very high end shopping mall that he had driven her to. She had the first ten minutes away from him to buy the pregnancy kits, six of them, all different brands (who knew there were so many choices available?), just in case he changed his mind about leaving her alone but surprisingly he did nothing but constantly call or text her to be sure she was okay and didn’t need him but that got rather tedious after the tenth text message in forty minutes and the fifth call in an hour and a half. In the end, she simply told him she was done shopping and he suggested they meet up and head to a restaurant for lunch.
The upscale restaurant was obviously one Sandro often patronised so, even though it was lunch time on a Saturday afternoon and the place was exceedingly popular, they were seated immediately. Theresa watched the staff fawn all over him and bitterly wondered if he had brought any other women here. The suspicion was confirmed, when the waiter turned to her with a slight smirk.
“And what will the lady be ordering today?” He asked in that supercilious manner that servers in upmarket restaurants often had.
“Your Caesar salad, no dressing, toast and water,” she ordered brusquely.
“And have you decided on a main course yet?” He asked with that annoying smirk.
“That would be it,” she responded shortly, his smug attitude was really grating on her nerves.
“Theresa,” Sandro leaned forward in concern. “You didn’t have breakfast; you need to eat something more substantial than just salad.”
“I’m really not that hungry,” she shrugged dismissively, handing the thick leather-bound menu back to the waiter. “Please just let it go.”
“If you’re on some crazy diet…”
“I’m not on a diet!” She snapped. “Just, please, stop trying to manipulate every single aspect of my life!” His jaw clenched and his lips thinned in obvious anger but surprisingly enough he let it go before proceeding to order a staggering amount of food from the waiter. Once they were alone, he leaned back in his chair and stared at her thoughtfully.
“Seriously,” he began after a long silence, which she had stubbornly refused to break. “What’s going on with you?” She gaped at him, unable to believe the stupidity of that question and he lowered his eyes, apparently realising that himself.
“Aside from the obvious,” he qualified. “And try to keep the sarcasm down to a minimum.”
“Well aside from the obvious fact that I’m unhappy with my life as it is right now,” she shrugged. “I can’t say that there’s much going on with me.”
“You’re lying to me,” he sounded so incredulous at that fact that she actually laughed in genuine amusement. “Are you having an affair?”
“Back to that are we?” She was laughing even harder now. “Sandro, not everybody stoops to infidelity when things aren’t going right in their lives.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He sounded outrageously offended and leaned toward her, all affronted, bristling male.
“Oh come on, Sandro, you know what it means!”
“No I don’t, do enlighten me,” he invited sarcastically.
“It means,” she spoke with exaggerated and offensive slowness. “That I’m not the one who has been having the affairs. It means that I had the misguided notion that the sacred marriage vows we took were just that, sacred vows. It means that I’m not the one who deliberately set out to hurt and humiliate my spouse as publicly and as painfully as possible.”
“I admit that I did some things to deliberately hurt you… in a misguided attempt to punish you for a situation that wasn’t your fault,” he began carefully.
“How magnanimous of you to admit that,” she interrupted sarcastically.
“You were misled into believing that I… loved you,” he ignored her interruption. “I was misled into believing you were…”
“Your drinks,” the waiter’s smooth voice interrupted the first really meaningful exchange they’d had on the subject and Sandro slanted him an annoyed look before gritting his teeth and waiting in fulminating silence for the man to finish. When the waiter finally left, Sandro turned his gaze back on her.
“I thought you knew about your father’s scheme, I thought you were fully on board with it,” he admitted softly.
“What exactly is my father’s ‘scheme’?” She asked carefully, wary of being shot down again.
“He owned something that I desperately wanted and the only way he would let me have it was if I paid a huge amount of money for it and then married you.”
“I see,” she dropped her gaze to the intricately folded napkin on the table in front of her and traced her fingers lightly over the folds. “So, in essence, you paid an exorbitant sum for this mysterious something you so desperately wanted, with me tossed in as your unwanted free gift?”
“I had no choice, to get what I wanted; I had to accept you as part of the deal... I thought…” his voice tapered off and he shrugged miserably.
“You flattered yourself into thinking that I was fully cognisant of this scheme and that I was so desperate to have you, I would have my daddy blackmail you into marrying me?” He nodded reluctantly. “Well you got what you wanted and since it’s obvious that we’re both miserable in this sham of a marriage why won’t you give me that divorce?” She continued to probe, desperately hoping that he couldn’t tell how much actually hearing this confession hurt her.