‘What it is, cara,’ Sandro drawled, ‘is you on the run again. But, as you see, I am not going to let you. So you may as well turn and face me yourself, rather than have me make you do it.’
And he meant every silkily threatening word of it, Joanna acknowledged sinkingly. Sandro was that man on a mission again, and her innermost soul laid out for his inspection was that mission’s goal.
‘Y-your mother—’
‘Is very relieved to know that I have you safely
back here with me,’ he inserted. ‘And has gone home to recover from the whole wretched scene you threw!’
I threw! Joanna repeated in silent scorn. And who had instigated the wretched scene? His mother, that was who!
‘Turn, Joanna.’
Her hand was at her aching eyes again, but almost instantly dropped to her side. Making a small fist, she grimly straightened her shoulders before she spun abruptly on her heel. ‘Happy now?’ she tossed at him defiantly.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘You look dreadful.’
He didn’t look too good himself, she noticed with a terrible ache inside her. His face was still pale, still drawn, his eyes too black, his lips still held in a thin, tight, angry line.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, unable to stop herself.
As usual he wasn’t impressed by the apology. ‘Has it never occurred to you, cara, that there is a hell of a lot more to loving someone than the size of their bank balance? ’
‘I’ve never wanted your money!’ She denied that implication hotly.
‘Quite,’ he said, throwing her into a mind-numbing confusion as to what he was trying to get at here!
Then she found out. ‘As I never wanted your virginity,’ he declared, watching almost detachedly as she went white at the very mention of the word. ‘Although I do admit that once I believed I was getting it I felt honour-bound to treat such a gift with the respect it clearly deserved. No, don’t you dare turn away from what I am saying here!’ he rasped out, when she went to do just that. ‘You will keep facing me and listen!’ he commanded, levering himself away from the door to start towards her. ‘You will listen, Joanna,’ he gritted. ‘As I had to stand and listen to your heart-rending little speech just now!’
‘I knew you would never understand how I feel!’ she cried, backing away as he came nearer.
‘Oh, I understand that you truly believe I held your innocence in a higher regard than the love I felt for you!’ he snapped. ‘And you insult me with that opinion, do you know that? You insult what we had together and you insult the way I loved you!’
Fine words, three years after the event, Joanna thought bitterly. She could still remember the fuss he’d made about her virginity then—and the way he’d changed towards her! Goodnight pecks on the cheek, instead of long, passionate embraces! Holding her hand instead of letting his hands roam all over her!
In fact, she had begun to wonder if he would actually bring himself to take that precious virginity from her once it was his for the taking!
‘And you’re turning it all round to suit your own view of things again,’ she threw angrily back at him. ‘It is always how you feel, Sandro! How I let you down all the time—as if you think I don’t already know exactly how badly I failed you!’
‘Not with this virginity thing, you do not,’ he denied. ‘For what is a thin veil of skin in reality, cara? It is there for the practical purposes of protecting the female womb against infection and disease until the said female is ready to go forth and produce children. Nothing more—’ he shrugged ‘—nothing less. Unless you are some kind of purity-obsessed barbarian, of course, which I am not,’ he declared.
‘But it was mine to bestow where I wanted to bestow it,’ she reasoned shakily. ‘And I wanted to give it to you!’ It was a cry from the very heart of her. ‘When they stole that right from me, they stole my special gift to you!’
‘And once it was gone, it was gone for ever, Joanna,’ Sandro grimly pointed out. ‘Yet the importance you place upon it seems to suggest that once you had given this precious gift to me, you would have had nothing else left to give!’
‘Which doesn’t alter the truth, Sandro! That I find I cannot even think of letting you m-make love to me without it tearing me apart inside because of the loss of that gift!’
‘You think I will miss it?’ he demanded. ‘That I will mourn its loss and think less of you for that loss?’ He had the gall to laugh, albeit contemptuously. ‘I would have thought it was damned obvious that I would rather be allowed to make love to my wife than live the bloody frustrating life I have been living without being allowed to touch her!’
‘I told you you wouldn’t understand,’ she sighed out shakily.
‘Oh, I understand a whole lot more than you give me credit for,’ he came right back. ‘I understand very well that you are really nothing more than a very frightened virgin at heart.’
Joanna jumped, shocked and hurt by the interpretation.
‘What those two animals did to you does not count,’ he dismissed with a deriding flick of his hand. “That was a mere technicality beside the real issue that keeps you in this pathetic state of high anxiety. And what is the real issue?’ he proposed. ‘You,’ he answered for himself. ‘You have difficulty finding enough courage to give yourself to me. Yourself, Joanna,’ he repeated forcefully. ‘Your virgin self! The self you give freely to me—which is the real gift of love from one person to another. Not that fine veil of skin you set so much store by. And if you continue like this,’ he concluded as he turned towards the door again, so obviously sick to death of her that it showed in every distasteful line on his face, ‘then you are condemning us both to lot of misery,’ he warned. ‘Because you will be condemning me to a life of frustrating celibacy, and yourself to a life of guilt and anguish while you watch me suffer like that!’
‘W-what do you mean?’ she whispered, not liking at all what she suspected he was saying.