‘I want to use you as you used me and then throw you away again when I get bored. Does that clarify the issue?’ Lean, strong face hard, Roel met her shocked stare levelly.
Hilary released a dazed little laugh. ‘You don’t mean that…’
‘I’ve arranged for us to lunch with your sister, so you should start packing.’
Hilary froze. ‘How could we be meeting Emma for lunch? She’s at a school miles out of London—’
‘As we speak she’s being driven down for the occasion.’
‘But how…I mean why would you make such an arrangement?’
‘I had excellent reasons. Did you think you were the only one of us who could pull a dirty trick? I’m a master at manipulation, bella mia.’ Roel dealt her a look of pity. ‘Emma thinks we’re enjoying a reconciliation and she is ecstatic at the news, so you’ll have to come up with loads of smiles and lots of that bouncy chatter at which you excel to keep her happy—’
Hilary’s skin had turned clammy with shock. ‘How the heck could you have even got in touch with my sister?’
‘She phoned me at the town house this week and very touchingly apologised for her hostile attitude when we first got married.’
‘Oh, no…’ Hilary groaned in guilty dismay because she realised that it was her own fault that Emma had contacted Roel. Since her return from Switzerland, Hilary had only spoken to her sister on the phone and she had ducked all the younger woman’s questions about the state of her relationship with Roel. Unable to tell the truth, she had not been able to bring herself to tell lies. ‘I never did get round to admitting to her why we got married because I was scared…well scared—’
‘That she might be less respectful of a sister who marries a man for money?’ Roel slotted in with cruel accuracy. ‘You’ll be relieved to know that I left all her illusions intact. She told me how upset she was that we appeared to be living apart again and asked if that was her fault.’
‘And what did you say…that we were having a reconciliation?’ Hilary recalled with a visible effort to overcome her disbelief. ‘Was that what you said a moment ago?’
‘We are having a reconciliation…on my terms, and if they turn out to be on the punitive side of vengeful you only have yourself to thank for that.’
‘You think I’m a lying, cheating, horrible person…I’d have to be out of my mind to go anywhere with you!’ Hilary flung at him.
‘Non c’e problema…don’t worry about it,’ Roel urged. ‘I’ll take your sister out to lunch on her own and tell her the entire unlovely story of our relationship from start to finish—’
‘That would be a rotten, nasty thing to do!’ Hilary broke in, her horror unconcealed.
‘Unlike you, I would only be telling the truth as it happened. I’m relieved that you appreciate just how inexcusable your conduct has been,’ Roel spelt out grimly as he left the room.
Hilary raced out into the hall in his wake. ‘If you want me to grovel, I will, but don’t drag Emma into this—’
Roel gave her a sardonic glance. ‘Grovelling is for peasants and you should know me well enough by now to know that when I want something, I take it. You’re going to learn how to be a Sabatino wife and you’ll save me the time and effort of picking out another mistress by taking on the role personally—’
‘No way!’ Hilary yelled at him.
‘But you worked so hard to get yourself into that position. Not indispensable, you understand,’ Roel asserted drily, striding back to the front door and pulling it open, ‘but certainly worth a return visit.’
‘You wouldn’t dare tell Emma what I did,’ Hilary told him.
‘I would…’
A chill of apprehension enclosed her. ‘But doing that wouldn’t profit you in any way. Why would you be so cruel?’
‘It’s what you deserve.’ Roel studied her with brooding dark intensity. ‘You conned me into giving you a wedding ring and, before I kick you back out of my life again, I intend to level the score.’
‘I didn’t con you…I didn’t—’
Roel did not appear to be listening. ?
?A limo will collect you in an hour and a half and deliver you to the hotel where we’re lunching with Emma. I’ll meet you there. I’m calling into my London office first.’
Hilary was panicking. ‘If I leave my business again, I’ll be risking bankruptcy and I can’t do that because—’
Roel gave her a withering look. ‘I’ll settle your debts—’