Rose finds Adriana’s hand and holds it tightly.
‘You never gave our marriage a fair chance. You won’t change anything, you want to keep cheating on me, so I am finished. I want a divorce.’
Bernard’s tan appears to fade as the blood leaves his face.
‘You can’t,’ he says, still imperious despite his pallor. ‘Not in front of these people,’ he adds.
Grazia ignores this.
‘I could have possibly coped with your cheating, your determination to ignore how much it upset me. But given how helpful everyone here has been to me, I can’t forgive you for what you tried to do to Rose.’
Adriana squeezes Rose’s hand
‘What? I did nothing,’ blusters Bernard.
‘But you did,’ his wife goes on. ‘You have been trying to shut down the retreat from the start because you were scared of what secrets would emerge.’
‘I only came here for you!’ growls Bernard.
‘You didn’t give it a chance,’ Grazia says. ‘You used your old trick with businesses you wanted to buy at a low price, I know all your little games. Your fixer agreed to put up messages on social media, promising to tell secrets unless the retreat was stopped.’
Rose can hear Christos inhaling deeply behind her.
‘Of course, you should be more careful of your phones, Bernard,’ Grazia adds icily. ‘I saw a message on one of your phones and I knew who’d sent it. I had to read it, obviously. For a clever man you can be surprisingly stupid. Getting a stooge to send a blackmailing message on Instagram is a mistake because it’s easier to trace. Easy for, say, an organisation like Europol to find out who it is. Did you know that Christos has a pal in Europol?’
Christos waves menacingly at Bernard, whose face is almost totally white now.
‘What have you done?’ he hisses at Grazia.
‘What haveIdone?’ she asks with hauteur. ‘Your behaviour disgusts me.’
Everyone is staring at Bernard and even the chauffeur seems to find it all riveting.
‘You can’t prove anything,’ says Bernard wildly, looking at Rose then back to Grazia.
‘We can,’ says Christos grimly, waving a piece of paper. ‘We have screenshots of the Instagram messages, we have an email your stooge sent us, and Europol are indeed looking into this.’
‘You won’t tell anyone about me,’ pleads Bernard.
Grazia looks down her nose at him.
‘This is why we need a divorce, Bernard,’ she says crisply. ‘You are more upset at the thought of me telling people about your bondage women or that you’re a common blackmailer than you are at the idea of a divorce. I see where I stand in your life now.’
‘I’m sorry!’ Bernard moves towards her but Grazia holds up a palm.
‘I want a fair and decent divorce,’ she says. ‘I would like your word in front of these people.’
‘Nobody’s filming it, are they?’ cries Bernard.
The group laugh.
‘I definitely am,’ says Keera, a small grin threatening to emerge. She waggles her phone at him.
‘Me too,’ says Christos. ‘It’s insurance.’
Rose wants to speak.
‘I try not to judge,’ says Rose. ‘I have met many people in my life and I try to understand what drives them, what they have gone through. You found out about my past and used it to terrify me and my family. I do not know what drives you to behave like that and I no longer care. We will be watching you, Bernard.’
