‘So…so what are you suggesting?’
‘I am suggesting that we might have to be a little flexible on the length of our reconciliation,’ he said. ‘It will not hurt, a week or two either way.’
She gaped at him in alarm. ‘What do you mean, it wouldn’t hurt?’ she asked incredulously. ‘It would hurt a lot!’
‘As usual, you are making a drama out of something that is really quite simple, Keira.’
‘It might appear simple to you, but it certainly doesn’t to me,’ she said. ‘I hated every minute of acting out a lie i
n front of the boys. In fact I even hated acting in front of Marietta over the past couple of days. I can’t help thinking she suspects something. I can’t imagine maintaining this pretence for the next six days, let alone six weeks.’
‘You will have to do it if I say so,’ he said with an intractable edge to his tone.
Keira stiffened in her seat. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘I am merely telling you that our mock reconciliation will be run by my rules and my rules only,’ he said.
‘You can stick your stupid rules,’ she clipped out. ‘I am not going to be bossed around by you.’
‘You will have to do what I say this time around, Keira, otherwise you will find yourself in an untenable situation.’
She tossed her head, sending her wild curls bouncing. ‘I’m not even going to ask what you mean by that,’ she said. ‘I really couldn’t care less.’
‘That is because you are still intent on being a petulant child instead of a fully grown adult,’ he said. ‘I had no idea when I married you how immature you really are.’
Keira felt stung by his criticism, even though she knew there was a lot of truth in what he had said. Their whirlwind courtship and marriage had not given her enough time to get to know and understand the stresses Patrizio had to deal with in terms of his life as a high profile businessman. She had resented almost from the start the way his work cut into her time with him, arguing with him and taking it far too personally when he was late or had to cancel a dinner date at the last minute. He had been patient with her at first, obviously trying to see things from her point of view, but in those last couple of weeks before the night of her leaving him she had felt his patience wearing thin. They had argued more than usual over silly little inconsequential things and many a time Keira had stormed out, threatening never to come back, never realising at the time that she would eventually do just that with such heart-wrenchingly devastating consequences.
The car purred into the driveway of his mansion and Patrizio killed the engine and swivelled in his seat to look at her. ‘I think you should know that your parents came to me some months ago while we were still together. They were having trouble meeting their financial commitments.’
Keira felt a shiver scuttle up her spine like a suddenly startled mouse. ‘So…’ she moistened her lips ‘…what has that got to do with me?’
‘It has everything to do with you,’ he said and, stretching out an interminable pause, added, ‘I have been paying your brother’s private school fees ever since.’
Keira swallowed back her rising panic. ‘You wouldn’t go as low as to involve Jamie in this…would you?’
He gave her a cool impersonal smile. ‘Not only have I been paying the rather extortionate boarding school fees of your brother, I have also paid out in full the loan your father took out to cover your university fees.’
‘No…No!’ she gasped.
He gave her one of his inscrutable looks. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘We have rather a score settle to, do we not? If I cannot get you to cooperate by other means, what choice do I have but to use coercion?’
‘It’s not coercion, it’s blackmail.’
‘Whatever.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘I can’t believe you would use Jamie to get at me.’
‘I have already offered to pay his university and halls of residence fees for whatever course he chooses to study,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Your parents are, of course, very grateful.’
‘You sick bastard,’ she sniped at him. ‘How else have you ingratiated yourself into my family?’
‘You have always been at war with your parents but over the last couple of months I have come to realise that it probably has more to do with you than them. They have tried hard to bring you up in a decent and loving environment but you constantly kick back against their every attempt to get close to you.’
Keira felt as if he’d punched her in the middle of her stomach. In the past he had always demonstrated his understanding of how alienated she felt from her strait-laced parents. He had consoled her on so many tearful occasions when she had ranted and raved about the way her father could never give her a compliment without some pithy comment attached. Her mother had been no better, constantly criticising her for everything, including her choice of career. It hurt to think Patrizio had joined their camp when for that precious time while they had been together he had been her greatest ally.
‘If I say our reconciliation will continue for as long as the boys need it to in order to make their last weeks of school as enjoyable and pleasant as possible, then it will do so,’ he said into the silence, which was throbbing with tension. ‘As far as I see it, you do not have any other choice.’
She sent him a caustic look. ‘Have you informed your mistress that you won’t be available for another couple of weeks or do you plan to sleep with her as well as with me?’