Millionaire Marriage collapse

Chapter 2

Breakfast passed with agonising slowness, the silence broken only by the sound of his newspaper as he carefully perused the business section. She barely ate and hated him for being so unaffected by the tension that he could finish a hearty meal. She picked up her dishes and headed to the sink.

"You have to eat more than one slice of toast," his voice suddenly growled unexpectedly. "You're getting much too thin." The fact that he had noticed what she'd eaten, despite having hardly glanced at her over his newspaper, startled her.

"I'm not that hungry..." she responded softly and placed her dishes in the sink.

"You barely eat enough to keep a sparrow alive," he lowered his paper and met her eyes for a few seconds before diverting his gaze back to the mug of coffee on the table in front of him. The direct eye contact was so unusual, that Isabella barely restrained a gasp.

"I eat enough," she responded half-heartedly, normally she would have let it go but she wanted to see if she could goad him into meeting her eyes again. No such luck, he merely shrugged, neatly folded his newspaper and dropped it onto the table beside his empty plate. He gulped down the last sip of his coffee before getting up from the table.

She watched as he stretched; his black t-shirt lifting to reveal the toned and tanned band of flesh at his abdomen. Her mouth went dry at the sight of that dark flesh and once again she was disgusted by her reaction to his physical presence. She had spent the first year of her marriage believing that Sandro would come to love her. She had firmly believed that he would get over his anger at being forced to marry her and that he would go back to being the laughing, affectionate man she had known in the first few months after they had met. But after nearly a year she had been forced to face reality, he truly hated her. He hated her so much so that he couldn't bring himself to speak to her, kiss her, touch her outside of bed or even look at her. Isabella had finally realised that there would be no thaw; their marriage was a perpetual winter wasteland and if she ever wanted to feel the warmth of the sun on her face again, she had to get out of it. Unfortunately, she now knew that escaping would be trickier than she had thought. She would have to find a way out that did not include hurting her cousin. Lisa and Rick were expecting their first baby and while Lisa was having a fairly easy time of it, Isabella was concerned that anything that would upset her could be potentially harmful to her or the baby. Also, while Rick's advertising agency was fairly successful, Lisa had always prided herself on the fact that she held her own financially in their relationship. Taking her bookshop away could put too much strain their relationship and Isabella didn't want that on her conscience!

She sighed heavily and started to do the dishes. She liked to do little household tasks despite the fact that Sandro, who was the president of the bank his father owned, "had more money than God" as her father had once put it. Isabella had even enthusiastically insisted on doing some of the cooking herself. They employed a housecleaning staff, as was practical since they lived in a ten bedroom, five bathroom monster of a house but on Saturdays the staff had the day off and Isabella liked pick up after herself and Sandro instead of letting the staff get to it when they returned. Sandro didn't pretend to understand her need to have a hand in the every day running of the house and had mockingly accused her of playing house once, shortly after their wedding. He had never seemed to notice it again after that. She stared down at the dishes she had ready to be placed in the dishwasher and quite abruptly abandoned the task halfway through before heading upstairs and leaving Sandro still in the kitchen.

She changed her clothes from sweat suit to jeans and t-shirt, dragging her pale, shoulder length Titian hair into a ponytail and tugging on a denim jacket to ward off the early autumn chill. She passed by the den where he had retreated with his laptop, probably to get some work done, on her way to the front door.

"I'm going out," she casually called through the open door and his head jerked up while his eyes flared with some indefinable emotion.

"Where..." he began.

"I don't know how long I'll be gone," she dashed out before he could utter another syllable, grabbing her shoulder bag and car keys on the way out. She had her reliable little silver Mini Cooper fired up by the time he eventually made it down to the front door. With a cheery little wave that she knew had to grate, she reversed out of the driveway and headed out. She had no clue where she was going and knew that there would be hell to pay when she got back but it felt good just to do something so defiantly out of character. Her cellular phone started ringing seconds later and when she stopped at a red light; she switched it off and tossed it aside.

It was still early, barely nine and because it was Saturday the roads were a bit congested. Still, she felt free and she headed from the relative tranquillity of Clifton, one of the wealthiest suburbs in Cape Town, towards the city. Usually she would go to Newlands and spend the day with Rick and Lisa... but she knew that it was the first place Sandro would look. He knew how limited her social life was. Instead, she thought of all the things she could do with this unexpected time and, deciding to stick with the trend of the day, opted for the most out of character thing she could think of... she went to the movies. It was the purest form of escapism she could think of and if there was anything that Isabella desperately wanted, it was to escape from her life. So she spent her day, going from one cinema to the next; laughing, crying, cringing or jumping, depending on the plot. It was the most unproductive day she had ever spent in her life and she loved it!

By the time the last show of the day finished it was after midnight and she had a throbbing headache from nothing but darkness and the flickering light of the projector and a slightly upset stomach from a diet of soda and popcorn. It was as she was heading back to her car, that the sudden reality of her situation sank in and she started trembling. She didn't know what to expect from Sandro... she had never seen him display anything other than icy control, even in bed but it was the first time she had ever done anything like this and while she knew he would never physically hurt her, she also knew that emotionally, his potential to hurt her was unlimited. She cringed at the thought of his icy sarcasm and reluctantly made her way home. The house was ablaze with light when she got back and the dread made her stomach heave. She swallowed down her nausea and bravely parked her car and headed toward the front door. It was wrenched open before she even had the chance to get her keys out.

She gulped slightly at the huge form of her husband looming in the doorway and stifled a yelp when he grabbed her arm and yanked her inside. He slammed the door shut, gripping both shoulders in his huge hands and backed her up until she was leaning against the door. It took her a few seconds to get over her disorientation and realise that he wasn't hurting her, his gaze was feverishly raking up and down her trembling body, until apparently satisfied that everything was in relatively good condition he raised his eyes to meet hers full on.

His eyes, which she'd had so little opportunity to actually look into, were heartbreakingly beautiful. They were chocolate brown and set between incredibly thick, blue-black lashes and beneath sweeping brows and right now they were smouldering with something that, in any other man, might have been described as fury. His hands released her shoulders and crept up to her face... she flinched slightly at the contact but they remained gentle, moving to cup her jaw, his large thumbs brushing over her cheeks. Her breathing became ragged when he leaned toward her, dipping his head closer to hers... he was so near now she could feel his clean, warm breath on her face. He tilted her jaw slightly and she groaned, aching for his lips on hers, wanting it so desperately her legs had just about turned to jelly and the only thing that kept her from falling to a puddle at his feet was his own huge body braced against hers. She could feel his erection throbbing against her stomach and knew he wanted it as desperately as she did... His lush mouth was centimetres away from hers and when he finally spoke, his lips brushed against her mouth.

"You pull a stunt like this again tesoro mia and I swear to God, you'll regret it!" She flinched away from him as reality brought her back down to earth with a thump. He let her go and she slid down the door to land at his feet. He raked a contemptuous gaze over her, the ice back and the fire gone...

"Where have you been?" He asked calmly. She staggered to her feet, humiliated that she had allowed him to affect her to such an extent that she would fall at his feet. She tilted her head back defiantly and refused to answer him. "Isabella... I'm warning you..."

"Warn away..."she taunted shakily. "You want to stay married? Fine. But I refuse to let you walk all over me anymore. It's time you start showing me some respect!"

"How the hell am I supposed to respect someone who sold herself to the highest bidder?" He growled with tight control and she gasped, stung. "I have no respect for you, Isabella... not even as the potential mother of my child because, quite frankly, you can't even do that right."