“Why not? If one may be blackmailed by the truth, let it be so.” Alex failed to flinch from her shocked condemnation. “Why should I be deprived of my son? If I take you to court. I am unlikely to win custody. It is very rare for a mother to lose her child. If I destroy your reputation to achieve my own ends, I not only embarrass my family, I sentence my son to the possession of a mother he can only be ashamed to own to in later years. Mud sticks,” he said succinctly, a fastidious flare to his nostrils. “I would be no cleaner than you if I began such a battle, and I have more pride in my family name. I will not dis[chhonour it with lurid publicity.”
She realised in stricken apprehension that Alex was not only coldly serious, he had mulled over the problem in depth. This was not an angry impulse to call her to heel. He wanted Nicky and he was not foolish enough to believe that he could separate his son from his mother without causing him a great deal of pain. In acceptance of the necessity he was prepared to take the two of them.
“Do you realise that my father has a heart condition?” she whispered shakily.
“I didn’t know, but that is irrelevant to me. Perhaps you should have thought of that four years ago,” he countered with chill emphasis. “I have more concern for my son, who is my family. To gain him I am prepared to use pressure, and let me assure you, cara, if you push me to it, I will carry through the threat. Why should I leave you to bask here in parental love and independence, raising my son as a foreigner in a…” Words appeared to fail Alex as he slashed a scornful glance round her kitchen. His mouth compressed. “My son should be in my home where he belongs, and he will be there soon if it is the last thing I do.”
Kerry was breathing fast and audibly. Alex had her symbolically up against a brick wall. No matter where she turned, she could see no hope of escape. Until now she had not known the depth of his bitterness. She had his son when she had no right to such a privilege. He had suffered by the loss of Nicky when she was the one in the wrong. She had never even begun to suspect that Alex felt as strongly about the situation. But how could she have? They hadn’t talked in all these years, and all this time Alex’s indignation had been damming up. Yesterday it had reached new heights in her parents’ home, and Kerry had foolishly given him the weapon. She had revealed how afraid she was of them learning the truth.
“You can’t do this,” she said weakly again.
Alex vented a humourless laugh. “Are you going to stop me? If you put your son’s needs first, you would not need to be forced. You would see that for him to have two parents and the background to which he was born would be indisputably preferable to what he has now. Shuttled between the two of us like a parcel, confused by two languages, two completely opposing life-styles!” he enumerated in savage repudiation. “How is he to know who he is?”
She did not need to have Alex throw the drawbacks of their divorce in her face. Did he regret the divorce now? Her soft mouth set cynically. He probably regretted the poor timing of her conception scant weeks before their break-up. Had she not been pregnant, he could have severed their ties for ever and remarried without a backward glance.
“So you have your choice,” he concluded drily.
She bit her lower lip painfully. “You haven’t given me a choice!” she argued furiously.
“You have until tomorrow to give me an answer.” Golden eyes held hers with cruel mockery.
“You ruthless bastard!” she burst out unsteadily.
Lean-fingered hands enclosed her wrists. He jerked her up against his hard, boldly masculine body as if she was a rag doll. “I’ll make you pay for every insult you give me now,” he swore roughly. “In my bed…whenever and however I want you.” Her darkened green eyes widened to their fullest extent. Alex’s fingers pushed up her chin, savage amusement burning in his gaze. “I shall enjoy that. Using you as you used me. I loved you. I loved you beyond the bounds of my own intelligence,” he confessed derisively. “I was so weak in the grip of that love that I was blind. But I don’t love you any more. I don’t need you, either. You have no hold on me now. You don’t even have my respect. If I were you, I wouldn’t incite my temper any further. You’ll only pay for it at a later date.”
The raw emphasis of the assurance left her boneless. His dark-timbred drawl had almost mesmerised her into complete paralysis. But, as his meaning sank in, her stomach somersaulted in violent rejection of his intent. A loud thump which she could hardly recognise as her own heartbeat was pounding in her eardrums.
“Capisci, cara?” With a cynical smile, he released her chin. “Tomorrow afternoon you can present yourself in my office in London. A car will call for you at two. You will leave Nicky with your parents and explain that you are attending a party with me tomorrow evening and staying overnight in London. I doubt if they will place any objection to the plan.”
“Alex…you mustn’t do this…” she whispered in absolute turmoil. “I have a life of my own…for God’s sake, I can’t spend the rest of it paying for…”
“One mistake?” The golden blaze of his bitterness lanced into her without warning. “It won’t be for the rest of your life. It will be until Nicky is old enough to do without you.”
He left her standing there. He let himself out. She stumbled over to the chair she had earlier forsaken in temper. She hadn’t even realised that she was crying. But now her hands covered wet cheeks. She had been wise to fear Alex even when he was invisible in her life, for Alex hated more fiercely than she was capable of hating. He despised her utterly, and he hated her because once he had loved her and she had proved unworthy of that love.
Yet in all those months of their marriage he had not once told her that he loved her. Indeed, it had seemed after the honeymoon was over that Alex was more set upon showing her that he did not need her around constantly. He hadn’t devoted much time to her. That primitive and fierce pride of his had seen shame in loving a teenager. Shame and weakness. Perhaps he had believed that it would give her too much power over him if she realised how he really felt about her. Instead he had slotted her into place and shut her out.
She did not doubt the veracity of his declaration of love. By making it, he had twisted something painfully within her. It all seemed such a waste. He had loved her and he hadn’t liked loving her. In the end he would have overcome what he saw as a shortcoming. Alex was built that way. It might almost have been a relief when she blotted her copybook and he could rid himself of his despised susceptibility towards her.
But what she was realising now was that Alex had suffered too, and that, in punishing her, he had also been punishing himself. Even if he had relented and come to see her in Florence, though, she was still certain that he would have carried neither pardon nor clemency in his heart. He was hard and inflexible. His standards admitted no adjustments. Wrong was wrong in Alex’s eyes.
And in her own. She might have lost her head when he threatened her, but still she saw his reasoning. She could understand his desire to have his son in his own home. She was less able to deal with the ferocity of Alex’s desire for revenge. He wanted to make her suffer. He didn’t know how much she had already suffered. Understandably, he did not believe that she had ever really loved him. What was she going to do?
Checking the time, she reluctantly put on her coat and set out for the showroom. Fortunately her home was on the outskirts of the village, and Antiques Fayre was on the main street. To her surprise, the showroom was already open. Steven was behind the counter, drinking coffee and chatting to a regular customer, who collected antique plates.
“I thought you had deliveries to make,” Kerry opened ruefully.
He grinn
ed. “I couldn’t be bothered. Have you seen the state of the roads out there? Want some coffee?”
She nodded and watched his slim, golden-haired figure disappear into the back of the shop. Nothing worried Steven—falling trade and irate customers included. On the balance side, he was a non-stop worker with the furniture he loved. His problem was that he restored for personal pleasure rather than profit. In a normal mood she would have chased him out to deliver the completed pieces to the two customers awaiting the return of their furniture. But she was still in shock from Alex’s visit.
“He’s such a pleasant young man,” the lady plate collector commented, taking her leave. “He advised me against buying that Spode plate. He’s right, it wouldn’t really fit my colour scheme.”
Kerry silently gritted her teeth. At present, they couldn’t afford helpful advice of that brand. The coffers were far from full. Steven reappeared, clutching a mug. “So where did you get to yesterday? And what’s with the plaster?”
Briefly, she told him about the accident. Immediately, he was concerned. “You should have stayed in bed today.”
“Willard Evans is coming.”
“Oh, profiteer day, is it?” Steven gathered drily.
“We’d be out of business without him.” She spoke with greater heat than usual, and his blue eyes betrayed surprise. “Oh, never mind. Can I use your car later? I have to go and pick up Nicky.”
“Do you want me to drive you? You look like death warmed up,” he said wryly. “Is there something else wrong?”
She pushed her hair off her brow. “I saw my ex-husband last night,” she confided tightly.
Steven shrugged. “No big deal, is it? What did he do? Land his private jet on the hospital roof?” He laughed lightly. “You should have touched him for some alimony, Kerry. I’ve never understood why you live like you do when you could be sitting in clover.”
Her pale skin heated with colour. “I didn’t want to be beholden.”