'COULD I s-speak to Alessandro Bonetti, please?'The public call box smelled of s tale cigarettes.

Pale faced, the full length of her slenderbody muscle-locked by the mettle she needed to make this telephone call, Joanna barelynoticed the sme ll or the unsavory mess littering the floor beneath her black-booted feet asshe stood there clutching the telephone receiver to her ear.'Who is calling, please? ' a coolly concise female voice enquired.'I'm she began-then stopped, white teeth pressing into her full bottom lip as the answerto that question stuck firmly in her throat.She couldn't say it. She just could not bring herself to reveal her true identity to anyonebut Alessandro himself when there was a very good chance that he might refuse to speak toher, and in the present state that she was in, s he didn't need some cold-voiced telephonistlistening to that little humiliation. She had been there before...'It-it's a personal call she temporized, closing her eyes on a faint prayer that the replywas enough to get her access to the great man himself.It wasn't. 'I'm afraid I will have to have your name: the voice insi sted, 'before I canenquire if Mr. Bonetti is available to speak to you.Well, at least that stone-walling response placed Sandro in the country. Joanna made a gr imnote. She had half expected him to have gone back to live and work in Rome by now.'Then put me through to his secretary,' she demanded, 'and I'll discuss this further with her.'There was a pause, one of those taut ones, packed with silen t pique at Joanna's rigidlydetermined tone. Then, 'Please hold,' the voice clipp ed at her, and the line went quiet.The seconds began to tick slowly by, taking w ith them the desperation that had managed tobring her this far. A desperation th at had kept her awake last night, trying to come up withsome other way to get he rself out of this mess without having to involve Sandro. But everywhich way she' d tried to look at it, it had always come down to two straight choices.Arthur Ba tes or Sandro.A shudder ripped through her, the mere thought of Arthur Bates' na me enough to keep herhanging onto that telephone line, when every self-preservin g instinct she possessed wastelling her to cut loose and make a bolt into hiding somewhere rather than resort to this.But she was tired of hiding. Tired of-bein g this person who stood on her own, isolated byher own inability to reach out to another human being and simply ask for help. So, here shewas, she reminded hers elf bracingly, ready to ask for that help. Ready to reach out to theonly human b eing she felt she could reach out to. If Sandro said No, get lost, then shewould . But she had to give him one last chance-give herself this chance to put her li fe backtogether again.After all, she consoled herself, against the fretful doubt s rattling around inside her head,she wasn't intending dumping permanently on hi m, was she? She was simply going to put aproposition to him, get his answer, the n get the hell out of his life again. For good. Thatwould be part of her proposi tion. Help me this one time and I promise never to bother youagain. Easy. Nothin g to it. Sandro wasn't a monster. He was in actual fact, quite a decenthuman bei ng. He couldn t still be feeling bitter towards her, surely? Not after all this ti me.Then the telephone suddenly began demanding more money and her self-consolati on died adeath as a much more familiar panic soared abruptly into life, gushing through her systemlike a raging flood.You're Reading a Free Preview Pages 4 to 15 are not shown in this preview. Read the Full Version And she'd felt too sick to do more than nod her head in agreement before she'd t urnedand walked stiffly out of his office, only to slump weakly against the wall beside his closeddoor, in much the same way she was now slumping in reaction to Sandro.Only there was a difference, a marked difference between having reacted as she hadthrough sickened revulsion at what Arthur Bates wanted to do to her, a nd reacting like thisthrough helpless despair at what Sandro could do to her.Sig hing heavily, she forced herself to move at last, pushing out of the telephone k iosk andhunching deeply into her thick leather bomber jacket as she walked the f ew hundred yardsback down the street to her tenement flat in icy March winds-wea ther that grimlythreatened rain later. Letting herself into the tiny flat, she s tood for a moment, heart andhands clenched, while she absorbed the empty silence that always greeted her now when shestepped inside. Then, after a small flexing of her narrow shoulders, she relaxed her hands,and her heart, and began removin g her heavy jacket.Time was getting on, making deep inroads into Sandro's one-ho ur deadline, yet, instead ofhurrying to get herself ready for the dreaded interv

iew, she found herself walking acrossthe room to the old-fashioned sideboard whe re she stood, looking down at it as if it had thepower to actually inflict pain on her.Which it did, she acknowledged. Or one particular drawer did.Taking a dee p breath, she reached out and opened the drawer-that particular drawer. Andinsta ntly all the memories came flying out; like Pandora's box, they escaped and bega ncircling around her, cruel and taunting. So cruel, it took every ounce of selfcontrol shepossessed to reach inside, search for and come out with what she had opened the drawer tofind. Then she was sliding it shut again with a gasped whoos h of air from aching lungs, whileclasped in her trembling hand was a tiny high-d omed box that instantly spoke for itself.Stamped on its base in fine gold letter ing was the name of a world-famous jeweler itsprovenance in a way, or a big hint , at least, that what nestled inside the box was likely to bevery valuable. But the contents meant far more than just money to Joanna. So much more, in fact , thatshe had never dared let herself lift the lid of the box in two long years. Not since she'd glanced down one bleak miserable day and noticed her wedding and engagement rings still circling her finger and been horrified-appalled that she had walkedout on her marriage still wearing them! So she'd scrambled around in h er things until she'dfound the box and had put the rings away, vowing to herself to send them back to Sandroone day. But she had never quite been able to bring herself to do it. In fact, each timeshe'd let herself so much as think about San dro, the old panic had erupted, a wild, helpless,anguished kind of panic that wo uld threaten to tear her apart inside. It had erupted in thattelephone kiosk onl y a few minutes ago. And it was doing it again now as she stood here withthe sma ll ring box resting in her palm. Teeth clenched, mouth set, grimly ignoring all thewarnings, she flicked open the box's delicately sprung lid-and felt her heart drop like astone to the clawing base of her stomach.For there they lay, nestlin g on a bed of purple satin.One, a slender band of the finest gold, the other, so lovely, so exquisite in its tastefulsimplicity, that even as she swallowed on t he thickness of tears growing in her throat hereyes could still appreciate beaut y when they gazed on the single white diamond set intoplatinum.A token of love f rom Sandro.'I love you,' he had declared as he'd given the engagement ring to he r. It was that simple,that neat, that special; like the simple, neat, special ri ng which, for all of that, must havecost him a small fortune. He'd given it to h er with love and she'd accepted it with love, sherecalled, as the tears blurred out her vision and a dark cloud of aching emptiness began todescend all around h er. For now their love was gone, and really, so should the rings havegone with i t.She could sell them, she knew that, and easily payoff her debt to Arthur Bates with theproceeds: just another of the ways-out she had spent her sleepless nigh t struggling with.But she knew she couldn't do it. For selling these rings would be tantamount to stealing from the one person in this world she had taken more than enough from already. S he'dstolen his pride, his self-respect, and, perhaps worst of all, his belief in himself as anacceptable member of the human race.'You are tearing me apart, can you not see that? We must resolve this, Joanna, for I cannottake much more!' Th ose hard, tight words came lashing back at her after two long miserable years an d she winced, feeling his pain whip at her as harshly now as it had done then.An d it had been because of that pain that she had eventually done the only thing s he couldthink to do. She had left him, walked out on their marriage to move in w ith her sister Molly,and had refused contact with Sandro on any level, in the ho pe that he would manage to putbehind him the failure of their marriage and learn to be happy again. Maybe he had foundhappiness, because after those first few m onths, when he had tried very hard to get her tochange her mind and come back to him, there had been no more contact-not even whenshe'd phoned him up to tell hi m about Molly.Molly...A sigh broke from her, and, lifting her gaze from the box of rings, she glanced across theroom to where a small framed photograph stood be neath the lamp on her bedside table andher sister Molly's pretty face smiled out at her. Her heart gave a tug of aching grief as shewent to drop down on the edg e of her narrow bed. Gently laying the ring box aside, shepicked up Molly's phot ograph instead.'Oh, Molly,' she whispered. 'Am I doing the right thing by going to Sandro for help?'There was no answer-how could there be? Molly was no longer

here.But Sandro was very much alive. Sandro, the man she had loved so spectacula rly that shehad been prepared to do anything to hang on to that love. Anything. But then, what womanwouldn't? Alessandro Bonetti had to be the most beautiful ma n Joanna had ever set eyesupon. The evening he had walked into the small Italian restaurant where she had beenworking waiting on tables had quite literally chan ged her whole life.You're Reading a Free Preview Pages 19 to 39 are not shown in this preview. Read the Full VersionYou're Readin g a Free Preview Pages 46 to 157 are not shown in this preview. Read the Full VersionYou're Readi ng a Free Preview Pages 161 to 170 are not shown in this preview. Read the Full VersionSearchSearc h History: Searching...Result 00 of 0000 results for result for p. the marriage surrender romance novel Download or PrintAdd To Collection721 Reads6 Readcasts6 Embed ViewsThis is a private document. Published by marrrykatt FollowSearchTIP Press Ctrl-F?F to search anywhere in the document. Read without ads and support Scribd by becoming a Scribd Premium Reader. See Premium Plans Info and Rating Category: Books - Fiction Rating: Upload Date: 01/05/2013 Copyright: Attribution Non-commercial Tags: No tags ebook download or readfalse online. Flag for inappropriate content http://www.scribd.com/doc/119067969/the-marriage-surrender 04/04/2013 pdf text original .Download and print this document Read offline in your PDF viewer Edit this document in Adobe Acrobat, Notepad Keep a copy in case this version is deleted from Scribd R ead and print without ads Email the fileChoose a format to download in.PDF .TXT Download Choose a format to download in .PDF .TXT Download Download and print this documentChoose a format to download in.PDF .TXT Download Read without ads and support Scribd by becoming a Scribd Premium Reader. See Premium Plans