Heart of Deception

Isabella fell back onto the mattress, her body slick with perspiration and limp with pleasure. Spasms of her powerful release still violently racked her slender frame. Alessandro had disentangled, detached and distanced himself from her within seconds of their mutual orgasm and lay on his back beside her, his breathing heavy and ragged.

Isabella turned on her side to lovingly trace his harsh profile with her eyes, yearning to touch and caress the smooth, silky and slightly tanned skin but knowing from experience that her touch would be rebuffed. His words, the ones that were always wrenched from him during his climax, still hovered in the air between them and they still, after all these months, hurt more than they should have.

"Give me a son, Isabella..."

With those five words, he inevitably killed the afterglow, destroyed the intimacy of the moment and relegated the act into nothing more than a biological imperative. After eighteen months of the same, Isabella had finally realized that it would never change. It wasn't an abrupt realization, rather it was one that had been growing steadily since the very first time he'd said the words.

But Isabella had her own five words! They were words that had been on the tip of her tongue for months and should have been spoken long before now. They were words that she could no longer swallow back; no matter how much it killed her to say them. She sat up, naked, her body still trembling and drew her knees to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs, pressed her cheek to her knees and watched as his breathing steadied, his own shaking was subsiding slightly. He lay spread-eagled, also magnificently nude, his eyes were shut but she knew he wasn't asleep. No, he would take a few moments to compose himself before heading for the shower, where she always imagined him frantically scrubbing her scent and touch from his bronzed skin.

She could no longer contain the words and they spilled from her lips with desperate earnestness.

"I want a divorce, Alessandro."

He tensed, every single muscle in his body went as tight as a coiled spring, before he turned his head to meet her watchful gaze. His eyes were hooded and his upper lip curled mockingly.

"But I thought you loved me, Isabella," he taunted with exquisite cruelty and Isabella lowered her eyelids, trying to mask the shaft of pain at his words. When she was sure she had her emotions under control, she once again lifted her eyes to his dark gaze.

"Not anymore," she managed, hoping the lie sounded convincing.

"Hmmm..." it sounded deceptively like the purr of a cat. "What happened to 'I'll love you forever, Sandro'?"

"Things change," she whispered.

"What things?" He rolled onto his side and propped himself up onto his elbow, resting his head on his hand. He looked so much like a Roman gladiator in repose, that her throat went dry with desire. She swallowed painfully.

"F.feelings change..." she stuttered haltingly. Again that husky purr of agreement but Isabella wasn't fooled by his relaxed posture; he was as tense as a coiled snake. "I.I've changed..."