‘Then you know the truth,’ she clipped, and turned away to stare unseeing out of the window, her hair like living flame around her pale face where the sun caught it. ‘I would have spared you that, Roberto,’ she added bleakly.
‘As I said,’ he agreed, ‘they were not good people. They did not consider an old man’s feelings in their eagerness to please his curiosity. But,’ he went on, ‘on knowing the truth you believe, Marnie, my dear, I then have to ask myself why you are allowing yourself to become tied to a man who could so callously use you in that way? Which is why I brought you here,’ he added before she could answer. ‘I see a recipe for disaster broiling up between you and my son for a second time, and I cannot—will not allow it to happen!’
‘Roberto!’ she sighed, turning impatiently. ‘You can’t—’
‘My son, Marnie, is using your brother and the delicate condition of his wife to coerce you into marrying him again.’ He held up a silencing hand when she went to gainsay it. ‘It is no use denying it,’ he stated. ‘I saw the truth written in your eyes when I quizzed you earlier in my study. You only confirmed my initial suspicions. But, on doing so, I knew I had to act. For, just as I cannot allow Guy to do that to you, nor can I allow you to go on believing a lie cleverly staged for your benefit by wicked and bored people who believe fun can only be gained at the expense of someone else’s happiness!’
‘But that’s all crazy!’ she cried, pulling herself together because she suddenly realised that Roberto meant business here. She could see it in the hard flash of his eyes—hints of the ruthless man he used to be before he bestowed all his power on to his son. ‘Guy and I are marrying because we find we still love each other!’ she insisted, and wondered why the lie did not feel like a lie. ‘The past is over! We’ve come to terms with it and decided to put it all aside! That’s all, Roberto!’
‘With a four-year-old lie festering between you?’ he challenged harshly. ‘May I sit down?’
‘Oh, goodness! Of course!’ Instantly she was all concern when she realised just how long he had been standing on that bad leg. She darted across the room and pulled out a chair for him, then went to help him into it.
‘Ah, that’s better,’ he sighed, then gave his weakened leg an impatient slap. ‘You have no idea how much I hate this incapacity!’ he complained. ‘It makes me want to hit something!’
‘You just did,’ she said, grinning teasingly at him. ‘Your poor leg.’
Roberto grimaced, then smiled himself, and thankfully some of the tension between them faded away—but only for a moment. Roberto caught her wrist as Marnie went to move away again, his grip urgent.
‘I brought you here, Marnie, in the hope that seeing this beautiful place my son created for you would soften your heart enough to let you listen to the story I want to tell you. Will you?’ He gave the wrist a pleading shake. ‘Will you at least listen to what I have to say?’
‘Oh, Roberto.’ Sighing, she twisted her wrist free. ‘Why can’t you just leave well alone?’
‘Because it just is not good enough!’ he grunted. ‘Not now. Not when you and Guy are embarking on yet another road to disaster! The truth must come out, Marnie. And the truth is that Guy was so drunk that night you caught him with that woman, he had no idea she was there!’
‘My God, Roberto, will you stop it?’ she cried, the pain that vision resurrected almost making her sway.
‘They saw you enter the party,’ he pushed on regardless. ‘Fowler and Anthea Cole. They set you up for that tasty little bedroom scene. Fowler hated you because you turned him down when he tried to proposition you. And Anthea hated you because you took her lover away from her! They wanted to see you bleed!’
And they did! Marnie thought as she reeled away from Roberto’s fiercely sincere gaze. ‘That’s enough!’ she whispered painfully. ‘You are making Guy out to be a blind and gullible fool by saying all of this. And really I don’t think he would appreciate it!’
‘Too true,’ a coldly sardonic voice drawled.
CHAPTER TEN
MARNIE swung round sharply to find Guy standing in the open doorway, the sheer strength of his anger filling the whole aperture.
Roberto muttered something. Then after that there was complete silence, the tension so thick you could almost taste it as Guy flicked his angry gaze from one to the other of them several times before finally settling on Marnie’s paste-white features.
‘Please leave us, Father,’ he said, stepping away from the door in a pointed way which had Roberto struggling to his feet and limping towards it.
But he halted when he drew level with his son. ‘She has a right to know the truth!’ he insisted harshly. ‘What you are both doing to each other is wrong! And the truth must come out!’
‘I asked you not to interfere in this,’ Guy said tightly. ‘I did think I had your trust!’
‘You have, son, you have,’ Roberto sighed wearily. ‘What I find sad, though, is that I do not have yours.’
Guy relented a little at his father’s crestfallen expression, reaching out a hand to squeeze the old gentleman’s shoulder. ‘Leave us,’ he urged quietly. ‘Please.’
‘The truth, Guy,’ Roberto insisted grimly. ‘The only way forward for both of you is through the truth.’
Guy just nodded. And Roberto limped out of the door, leaving them alone and facing each other across the sun-filled room.
Marnie turned her back to Guy, unable to continue looking at him while her mind was running frantically over everything Roberto had said to her. She didn’t want to believe him. In fact, she could see what a clever little let-out a story like that could be for someone caught in the situation Guy had been caught in. Yet Guy himself had never tried to excuse his behaviour by feeding her the same story. Or had he? she thought suddenly, her mind filtering back to a scene on the same night she had caught him with Anthea. A scene when she was wild with pain and the bitter humiliation of one who had discovered the very worst about her own husband. When she had flown at him with her nails, and Guy, white-faced and trying desperately to hold her still in front of him, had said something very similar to her. And drunk, she remembered. He had still been half drunk when he had turned up at the apartment that night, could hardly hold himself up straight when he’d lurched into the room.
She heard the quiet closing of the door behind her, then Guy’s footsteps sounding on the tiled floor as he crossed the room. Her nerves began to buzz, and she stiffened slightly, not sure what was going to happen next.
She saw, from the corner of her eye, him go to the wide white porcelain sink in one corner and turn on the taps. It was then she realised that he must have come straight from the workshop, because, although he was still wearing the clothes he had travelled down in, he had rid himself of the dark jumper and had rolled back the cuffs of his shirtsleeves to his elbows.