The slap came fast and furious, stinging so hard her eyes watered. Calla expected it because this wasn’t the first time Lorenzo had hit her, even as his heavy weight on the bed pinned her down. “Now look what you have done.”

Her husband had been impotent the last three times he’d tried to have sex with her. His grip on her arm tightened. “First, you come to me tainted. Then you cannot conceive. Now you have emasculated me. Puttana!”

He’d called her slutty names before. She strained against him. “Let me up.”

Still on top of her, he slapped her again. Harder. “You are not contrite enough.”

“And you are not the same person I married three months ago.” She vaguely remembered the man who had walked her up the aisle of St. Catherine’s Cathedral in Casarina’s capital, handsome and debonair in his white tuxedo. Now he was as ugly as the devil.

“Did you hear me?”

In answer, she bucked, twice, and yanked at his hair, so he rolled off to the side of the mattress. At least she could breathe.

But he came up on his side and clamped his arm over her middle. How many times had he encircled her with warmth and affection when she’d been promised to him? “This cannot go on, Callandra.”

“We should see a doctor.”

“About this?” Horror contorted his face. “I will not subject myself to humiliation.”

“You want an heir.” And that was all he wanted, she’d learned. She was a baby machine to him. Besides, if she had a boy, the child would be the next king of Casarina. This was too much glory for him to give up. And caused him to wait a decade until she returned to marry him. She hadn’t caught on to what he was really like, though, until after the wedding.

She lay still for a few seconds then, sick of this, sick of everything, she clawed at his arm then used her body weight to break his painful grip on her. She was more nimble than he, so she slid off the mattress before he could stop her, found her robe and wrapped it around her, belting it tightly. She crossed to the window and tried to remember how she’d gotten into this situation.

Her first clue had been when he refused to sign the prenuptial agreement her father had not only agreed to for her mother, but had promised Mamá all his daughters would have. She should have realized that when Lorenzo had legal claim to her, he didn’t need to pretend anymore. And in the three months they’d been married, he’d gotten progressively meaner.

“This isn’t working, Lorenzo. I want a divorce.”

His laugh was cruel. “We live in a Catholic country. Divorce isn’t allowed in Casarina.”

“Then an annulment. You can cite the fact I can’t meet my wifely duties.”

“That would be an option.” She heard rustling. He must have gotten out of bed. He came up behind her and clasped her arms in a vise, where she knew he’d leave bruises. “But not now. I refuse to allow you to run back to the Americano and be together. I have not forgiven you for your infidelity.”

“I know that, dear husband, every time you touch me.” She thought of something else. “Maybe your roughness is causing us not to conceive.”

Yanking her around, he raised his fist.

She closed her eyes against the pain.

Two months later

Renata Marcello Gentileschi sat at her dressing table, rubbing lilac lotion on her hands. She blanked her mind of everything that had happened in the last week and concentrated on the task.

Soon, the door flew open.

“Enough, Renata. You are to come back to my rooms immediately. You have sulked for days and it is time you started acting like the Queen of Casarina.”

If her husband wanted a showdown, they’d have one. Rising gracefully from the bench, as her mother had taught her to do, she walked toward Alessio. He was a descendant of a royal family off the coast of Italy, now the king of Casarina, reigning over their sovereign state. For the hundredth time, she wished he wasn’t still so handsome at fifty-seven. She wished he was shorter, slighter, less muscular. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by his charms. “I am the queen. Therefore, I will do what I want.”

“I forbid you to sleep in your own rooms any longer!”

A black brow arched. “Have you forgotten the prenuptial agreement you signed?”

His dark complexion reddened. “I was a fool. A young, smitten fool who would do anything to get my pregnant girlfriend to marry me.”

When she was seventeen, she’d been madly in love with the young prince and desperately wanted to wed him, but he was seven years older than she, and had a stern side that up until she thwarted him, she hadn’t seen directed at her. Because recalling those days weakened her toward him, she folded her arms over her chest. “I reread the contract. It says you can’t order me to do anything I don’t want to. You can’t cut me off from money, though I have my own from my parents’ trust funds and don’t need your wealth. You can’t forbid me to do anything.” She took a few steps toward him. “And you can’t strike me.”

The horrified look on his face was honest. “I would never.”

She stepped up so she was close to his face. She knew her eyes burned with anger. Black coals, he’d called them. “But you would order your daughter to go back to an abusive situation. I will not forgive you for that.”

“He never signed an agreement as I did, as all the girls’ husbands are supposed to do. And she didn’t tell us. I thought I prevented anything harmful from happening to all of my girls.”

That was true. But he’d done the unthinkable when Callandra had shown up here with a black eye, given to her by that bastardo, her husband.

As if he was remembering, too, he added, “That night she came to us, I sought him out, Renata. I beat him within an inch of his life with my own hands. Told him I’d kill him if he did it again. He begged her on his knees to return. In front of us.”

“And when you came back, you told her to go back to him.”

“I retracted that. After you got so hysterical because I wanted her to go back, and we fought bitterly in front of her, I told her you could be right.”

He had. But she’d taken Callandra to her rooms and discussed options. She’d never forget her daughter’s face.

“You know very well she succumbed to your wishes, against her own, because she believed she was the cause of the rift between us, the likes of which had never happened before. The rift you caused by your initial demands.”

“So it was her decision.”

“You didn’t even try to make her stay! And I couldn’t.”

“Marriage is sacred.”

In frustration, Renata gestured expansively with both arms. “We could have gotten her an annulment.”

“It was too soon for that. I honestly thought trying to work it out was the right thing.”

“I will never, ever agree with that.”

Alessio sighed deeply. “Renata, tesoro, the marriage seems to be working out. She hasn’t reported any occurrence, has she?”

“Don’t call me darling now. And, no, Callandra hasn’t come to us again. Neither would I. You let her down once, and she won’t ask for your help again.”

Clearly frustrated, Alessio threw up his hands. “What can I do about this?”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t know. I hope the damage you’ve done to her, and to our relationship, can be fixed. But it is not happening yet. Perhaps someday I will reside in your bedroom with you. Perhaps I will make love to you again. But not now.”

“Perhaps?”

Avoiding his persuasive gaze, she looked past him.

“We’ve never been apart this long!”

That was true. When he had to travel, she often went with him. And brought one of the girls along. She’d thought he was such a good father. Maybe that was why this was so hard.

“Renata? Please.”

“I can’t make myself feel differently now.” She turned and walked back to the dressing table. “Go. I won’t argue further.”

He stalked to her and grasped her arms.

She whirled on him. “Don’t you dare touch me when I’ve said no. I will leave you, the palace, but before that, I’ll fight back. Physically, Alessio. I’m able to protect myself.”

His face blanked as if she accused him of adultery. Or murder. Straightening to his powerful six-four height, he turned and strode out of her bedroom.

Distraught, Renata slid into her bed. She wanted to weep for the chasm between her and her husband. She wouldn’t, though. She had to be strong for her eldest daughter who she worried about every minute of the day.

Somehow she fell into a fitful sleep.

Renata awoke with a start. Someone was in her room. Dear Lord, he wouldn’t...

“Mamá,” she heard, recognizing Callandra’s voice, weak though it was.

Rising quickly from the bed, she turned on a nightstand light. And almost fell to her knees. Her child stood before her. One eye was closed shut, one cheek purplish, and her shoulder drooped as if it had been dislocated. “I would hug you, sweetheart, but it will hurt too much.”

A trembling hand gripped her arm. “You must help me, Mamá. I can’t go back to him. I fear for my life.”

“Of course you won’t. You will never go back to him! Never. This I promise you. I will protect you now.”