She leant back against the work surface, arms folded across her chest.

This was what he’d wanted just ten minutes ago. For them to talk. For her to tell him what was troubling her. Was it really the lack of sex within their marriage that had caused it? Or something deeper?

What he hadn’t expected or wanted was for her to demand the conversation start with him.

‘We married for one reason and one reason only,’ he reminded her.

‘Our baby,’ she supplied flatly.

‘Yes. For our baby. It’s the only reason we married. We did not marry for ourselves. I became concerned that your feelings for me had developed beyond mere convenience.’

Her eyebrows shot upwards. ‘You were concerned about my feelings?’

‘Alessandra...you are an incredibly sexy woman. I would have shared your bed every night since our wedding but I didn’t want you mistaking good sex for real emotions.’

‘Why would you have thought that? Because I’m a woman and incapable of separating my emotions?’

her eyes when she’d looked at him at their wedding. It was the desolation he’d caught glimpses of

rolled her eyes but there was a definite tremor in her voice. ‘And you wonder why I don’t want to sell my apartment? Where else am I supposed to go when our marriage

happen. There is no reason for us to fall apart provided we stick to

if our original agreement doesn’t suit me any

swept up

a legacy for our child? Well, this place is my legacy. It’s the only thing

marriage. Real to us. We both

Our marriage is no more real than

his ribs no longer had any connection to desire or lust. Fear knotted in his guts but he knew not what the fear was of. ‘You knew the score from the start—it’s what we agreed on. It’s what we both

had seen the way Rocco and Olivia were together. If her brother

problem was

He spoke as

want a husband to sleep with every night, not just for sex but to curl up to. I want to wake up every morning and know that the man I love loves me in return and doesn’t regard me as a means to an end.

looked as if he’d been sucker-punched. ‘Have you met someone

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