Painted the Other Woman
Painted the Other Woman
Julia James
Stripped of her glittering façade…Athan Teodarkis knows her type well: women for whom designer dresses and priceless jewellery are paid for only in kind. But he’s never been distracted by one – until now. Suspecting his sister’s husband of having an affair with the dangerously beautiful Marisa Milburne, Athan determines to put a stop to it!Confident the Teodarkis millions will easily divert this gold-digger’s attentions, Athan has a simple plan: seduce, then discard. But, contrary to what the cynical Athan believes, shy Marisa is no home-wrecker, and her innocence is powerless to resist his vengeful seduction…‘A simmering tension which drew me in right from the start – another excellent novel from Julia James.’ – Victoria, Retired, Belfast
What the hell am I going to do about this?
The question hung in Athan’s head like a dead weight. He had to do something. That was inescapable. He had a responsibility to do so.
His thoughts circled back, homing in with his customary focus on identifying solutions to problems he’d ruthlessly analysed. Removing the woman who had so distracted his brother-in-law seemed the obvious move to make right now.
But what if—and now Athan could feel an idea start to germinate in his mind—a rival emerged for her attentions? Lured her away from his brother-in-law?
Dispassionately he made himself study the photo in front of him. As before, he felt his senses stirred by her heart-stopping loveliness.
Resolution filled him. Oh, yes, he could do it.
For one long moment Athan went on staring down at the image on his desk. Then, decisively, he flicked the folder shut. His mind had just made itself up.
It was a very simple, very obvious solution. And as the mental image of her lovely features flickered in his mind’s eye he knew it would be very enjoyable.
About the Author
JULIA JAMES lives in England with her family. Harlequin Mills & Boon
were the first ‘grown-up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—’The most perfect landscape after England!’—and considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!
Recent titles by the same author:
THE DARK SIDE OF DESIRE
FROM DIRT TO DIAMONDS
FORBIDDEN OR FOR BEDDING?
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Painted the Other Woman
Julia James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE
MARISA gave a soft gasp as the man opposite her opened the slim case he’d just taken out of his jacket pocket.
‘For you,’ the man said. There was a fond look in his eyes as he slid the case towards her. ‘I want you to have it.’
Marisa gazed at him, open pleasure in her expression.
She ran a finger lightly over the stones, which sparkled in the light from the candle on the table. ‘It’s beautiful!’ she breathed. Then a more troubled expression showed in her eyes. ‘But are you sure …?’
The man gave a decisive nod of his head. ‘Yes, quite sure.’
Marisa picked up the case, reluctantly shutting the lid, gazing across at the man who had given her such a wonderful token of what she meant to him. She dropped the jewellery case into her handbag—the beautiful, soft leather handbag with a designer logo that was yet another such token. Then she lifted her eyes to the man again. She had eyes only for him! Certainly not for the middle-aged man dining alone, a few tables away, engrossed in texting on his mobile phone, his face in shadow.
Now Ian was in her life Marisa had neither eyes nor thoughts for anyone else. From their first meeting to this precious moment he had transformed her life beyond all recognition, and the wonder of it still amazed her. She had had no idea—none at all—when she’d come to London those short months ago how totally her life would change. Oh, she’d had hopes, it was true, and ambitions and purpose—but that they had actually come about was still wonderful to her. And it was all embodied in the startlingly handsome man sitting opposite her, gazing at her with such devotion.
She bit her lip slightly. If only she didn’t have to hide in the corners of Ian’s life, be hidden away from a censorious world like a shameful secret. Yet that, she knew, was what she would be seen as. Someone who had to be hidden away, never acknowledged in public, to the world. That was why they could only meet like this, in places Ian did not usually frequent, where he was not known or recognised, where he could be sure he would not bump into someone who would question her dining with him—someone who knew both him and Eva.
Eva …
The name echoed in Marisa’s head, haunting her like a ghost that could not be exorcised. Emotion darted in her eyes. Oh, she thought in anguish, if only Eva were not who she was. The emotion deepened, and she gazed helplessly across the table at the handsome, smiling face opposite. If only Eva were not the woman who was Ian’s wife …
CHAPTER ONE
ATHAN Teodarkis’s eyes moved over the photographs spread out on his desk. His sculpted mouth tightened to a tight line like a whip, and anger speared him.
So it had started! Just what he’d feared right from the beginning. From the moment his sister Eva had told him who she was in love with …
He felt the anger stab at him again, and with deliberate control made himself release the tension steeling his shoulders, his spine. He contoured his back against the leather moulding of the executive chair he was sitting in behind the mahogany desk in his office. Across the wide expanse of expensive carpet the vista of the City, over which the lavish London HQ of Teodarkis International had a panoramic view, went unattended.
His hard gaze went on studying the photos. Though taken by a camera phone, and from half a dozen metres’ distance, their evidence was indisputable. They showed Ian Randall, his boyishly handsome face gazing devotedly, eagerly, at the woman opposite him.
With part of his mind Athan could see why.
She was blonde, like Ian, fair-skinned and heart-stoppingly lovely. Her pale hair fell like a waterfall either side of her face. Perfect features—full parted lips, delicate nose and luminous blue eyes—all made her a total peach of a female. No wonder she’d captivated the fool sitting opposite her.
It had been entirely predictable. Right from the start Athan had feared that Ian Randall was weak, self-indulgent, and born to be a philanderer.
Just like his father.
Martin Randall had been notorious—notorious for womanising, notorious for succumbing to every tempting female who passed in front of him. He had indulged his incontinent desire for her until the next one floated by. Then he’d dropped the present incumbent and gone after a new one.
Time and time again.
Disgust and contempt twisted Athan’s mouth. If that was what Martin’s son was going to be like, then—
Then I damn well should have stopped Eva marrying him! Whatever it took, I should have stopped it!
But he hadn’t—he had given the son the benefit of the doubt, even though it had gone against all his instincts to do so. His mouth set. And now he’d been proved right all along. Ian was no better than his father.
Philanderer. Womaniser. Libertine.
Adulterer.
With an angry impulse Athan got to his feet, picking up the innocuous-looking buff folder that contained enough dynamite to blow apart Ian’s marriage. Could it yet be saved?
Athan speculated. How far had his adultery progressed? Certainly his inamorata had been installed in a fancy apartment by Ian, and judging by her designer outfit and freshly styled hair—not to mention the diamond necklace she’d been presented with—she was clearly benefiting from his largesse already. His mouth thinned. But had she paid the bill for that largesse yet?
The expression on Ian’s face caught by the camera phone was—no other word for it—besotted. It wasn’t the expression of a lascivious lecher—it was the expression of a man caught in the toils of a woman he could not bring himself to resist. A woman he was showering his wealth upon. But not, as yet, very much of his time. That was the one cause for optimism Athan could see in this whole sordid business.
The surveillance reports had found no evidence that Ian Randall visited the girl in her fancy apartment—not yet, at any rate—and nor did he take her to hotels. So far the only time he spent with her was in restaurants, clearly chosen for their out-of-the-way locations, and his only visible adultery was his besotted expression.
Can I stop this in its tracks? Can I stop it in time?
That was the question in the forefront of Athan’s brain. Ian Randall was, it seemed, playing it pretty cautiously—in that, at least, he was unlike his father, who had been totally blatant about his affairs. But if that look of slavish devotion on his face was anything to go by he would soon throw caution to the winds and make the girl his mistress in fact as well as intention.
It was inevitable.
He set the folder back on the desk with a sense of angry frustration.
What the hell am I going to do about this?
The question hung in his head like a dead weight. He had to do something—that was inescapable. He had a responsibility to do so. If he had done from the outset what he’d wanted to do—put his foot down and objected to Eva’s marriage to Ian Randall—then he wouldn’t be facing this infernal situation now. He should have gone with his instincts, stopped the marriage. Whatever it had taken to do so. Oh, Eva would have been heartbroken, he knew, but what was she going to be once she found out what Ian had done?
Athan’s expression shadowed. He knew exactly what she was going to be—going to become—if her husband followed the same damnable path his father had so heedlessly and selfishly taken. She would end up just like Ian’s unhappy, tormented mother.
Athan had grown up knowing all about just how unhappy Sheila Randall was in her marriage to Martin Randall, Ian’s father. Sheila had been his mother’s best friend since finishing school in Switzerland, and once Sheila’s eyes had been painfully opened to her husband’s ways she had poured out her unhappiness into his mother’s ears.
‘Poor Sheila’ had become a permanent fixture in their lives during his youth, as his mother did her best to comfort and console her friend—whether by phone or on mutually exchanged visits between London and Athens. Athan’s mother had spent, so it seemed to him, an interminable amount of time trying to mop up Sheila Randall’s tears, but despite his own sense that the best course of action would have been to divorce Martin Randall and be done with him, Sheila, it seemed, was of a romantic disposition.
Despite all the evidence she’d gone on hoping that her husband would one day realise that his wife was the only woman who truly loved him and his adulterous lifestyle would be finally abandoned. In this unlikely hope she had been supported by Athan’s mother, who had been equally romantically disposed—a disposition also shared by her daughter, Eva.
This was the crux of his concern for his sister. His expression darkened. His mother had discovered the full depths of Martin Randall’s irredeemability in a manner that had very nearly proved disastrous to her own marriage—and to her friendship with Sheila. For Martin Randall had been unable to resist the temptation of stooping so low as to target the best friend of his wife with his pernicious attentions. His attempt at seduction during one of her visits to his wife had, Athan remembered, caused an unholy row in both families. His mother had had to do everything in her power to convince her husband that Martin Randall’s assiduously insistent advances were neither invited nor welcome, and it had taken almost as much persuasion to convince Sheila Randall as well.
A hard, brooding emotion filled him. Men like Martin Randall caused misery and torment and trouble all round. He had very nearly succeeded in breaking up his parents’ marriage. If his son were anything like him he would wreak the same kind of devastation all around him.
But there was no way—no way—he was going to let Ian do that kind of damage. No way Ian was going to repeat his father’s misdeeds. Athan would stop him in his tracks.
Whatever it took.
An angry rasp escaped him. If only Eva weren’t married to Martin Randall’s son! If only she could see through him the way he could himself. But Ian Randall’s dangerously easy charm had fooled Eva just as it had fooled his own mother—Sheila.
Ian Randall had grown up the apple of his mother’s eye, indulged and petted—especially after his father’s early death. And with his good looks and his supreme confidence in his own ability to attract females he’d cut a swathe through the population as a teenager and a young man.
Yet again Athan’s expression darkened. Had he had the slightest idea of just how dangerously indulged and doted upon Ian Randall was by his mother, he would never have let Eva get anywhere near him. But when his mother had so tragically died, when his sister was only just eighteen, Sheila Randall’s heartfelt invitation for Eva to go and live with her in London had seemed a godsend.
Having already lost her father to a heart attack only two years earlier, this second blow had been grievous indeed to Eva. Athan, who had had to take up the full running of his late father’s business enterprise, had been worked off his feet, and his bachelor apartment in Athens was scarcely suitable for a teenage girl to make a home in. Nor could Eva be left alone in the family mansion, with none but the household staff to live with.
Moving to London, living with her beloved mother’s best friend and changing her college to one of the London universities instead, had been a far, far better choice for Eva. In Sheila Eva had gained a surrogate mother who’d taken her under her wing, and in Eva, the now-widowed Sheila had gained a surrogate daughter to lavish her attention upon.
She had also, so it had proved, gained a daughter-in-law.
Eva had fallen head over heels in love with Sheila Randall’s handsome, indulged son, and had set her sights on him.
Just why Ian Randall, with his predilection for playing the field, had responded to Eva’s open ardour with a proposal of marriage Athan didn’t know—but his suspicions were dark. Had Ian not been able to bed Eva without a marriage proposal? Had the prospect of marrying into the fabulously wealthy Teodarkis family been too overwhelming a lure for him?
Athan, however, was the only one to have such suspicions, he knew. Neither Eva, with romantic stars in her eyes, nor Sheila Randall, with her doting maternal devotion to her son, shared them. So in the face of his sister’s ecstatic happiness Athan had, with deep reluctance, given the marriage his sanction, if not his blessing. He’d also provided Ian Randall with a plum post in the Teodarkis organisation. Partly to satisfy Eva, but mostly to ensure that whatever frailties lurked in Ian’s make-up he, Athan, could keep a very, very close eye on his brother-in-law.
For two years, however, Ian seemed to have toed the line, giving every appearance of being a devoted husband. Now, it seemed, his true nature was coming to the fore. The evidence against his brother-in-law was damming. Ian was consorting, in secret, with a beautiful blonde whom he’d set up in a lavish luxury pad and upon whom he was bestowing diamonds. His next move would inevitably be starting to visit her in her love-nest … ?.the long-feared adultery would begin in earnest.
Restlessly, Athan twisted in his leather chair. He would not—would not—see his beloved sister reduced to the sobbing wreck that his mother’s best friend had become during her marriage, hoping and hoping that the man she so unwisely loved would mend his ways. He would not see that happen! Somehow he had to stop Ian in his tracks. But how? That was the devil of it!
Oh, he could confront the wretched man with the evidence against him, but Ian would probably try and wriggle out of it—after all, no adultery had been committed as yet, and he would probably find some weasel way of explaining away the blonde’s existence. And if Athan took the photos to Eva that would achieve the very thing he dreaded most—breaking her heart with proof of her husband’s betrayal. He couldn’t do that to her—not if he could help it.
That might have to happen—but not yet. Surely not yet?
Besides, shouldn’t he at least give Ian a chance—one chance!—not to go the way of his father? If he could manage to nip this incipient affair in the bud, find a way of deflecting Ian from it, maybe—just maybe—Ian Randall would prove himself a worthy husband for Eva.
I can give him a chance—and if he falls a second time then I shall be merciless.
The question was how to give him that chance and prevent him succumbing to what had every indication of turning into a full-blown adulterous affair with the delectable blonde he was lining up for himself?
The brooding look returned to Athan’s stormy expression. This required strategy—cold, logical strategy.
A hard light darkened in his eyes. Icy logic sliced down through his synapses. OK, so Ian wanted to start an affair with this blonde—and the blonde, from the photographic evidence, looked every bit as keen as he did. Whatever was motivating her—Ian’s obvious wealth and generosity, or his golden-boy looks and seductive charm—she was clearly very, very responsive to him. It would surely take little more effort on Ian’s part to get her into bed.
Unless …
Thoughts moved across Athan’s mind. Dark, ruthless thoughts.
When it came to adultery it took two to tango. The adulterer and a willing mistress.
His thoughts coiled and uncoiled like a serpent in his mind. But what if the willing mistress were no longer so willing? What if Ian Randall were not the only good-looking, wealthy admirer in her orbit? What if a rival arrived on the scene?
Cut Ian out …?
Slowly Athan felt his taut muscles finally relax, for the first time since he’d ripped open the envelope and the damning photos had spilt out in front of him.
His mind raced ahead, trying to assess whether what had crossed his mind could work. The answer came through loud and clear.
Yes! Because it simply replaces Ian with someone else. Someone else who can take his place. Someone else who is rich and has a track record of successfully wooing beautiful women …
For a moment he hesitated. Was this really something he could go ahead with? For all he knew the girl was genuinely in love with Ian Randall—she certainly had a sufficiently devoted expression on her face.
He pushed aside his doubt.
Well, if she is, then I will be doing her a kindness in removing him, in providing her with a rival to him. What possible long-term happiness could she find loving a married man?
He gave a tight smile. If his plan worked, then Eva would not be the only woman spared unnecessary pain.
His eyes went back to the photo in front of him. He let his eyes wash over it. She really was very, very lovely …
Could he do it? Could he really do it?
Could he really seduce a woman—have an affair with her—for no other reason than to achieve his aim of parting her from a married man’s attentions? He had had many affairs in his time, but never for such a purpose! Was it not just too, too cold-blooded to consider?
His thoughts circled in his head, seeking justification for his actions.
I don’t intend her to be hurt or devastated by such an affair. I don’t intend her harm. I only intend to get her away from Ian, with whom she cannot have an affair.
The logic was clear—irrefutable—yet still his expression was troubled. Sitting here, at his desk, it was easy enough to set in progress plots and machinations to try and save his sister’s marriage—at least for now. But what would he feel like when he actually had to put his strategy into action?
Once more his eyes washed over the perfect oval face, the celestial blue of her wide eyes, the perfect curve of her tender mouth …
As before, he felt his senses stirred by her heart-stopping loveliness.
Resolution filled him. Oh, yes, he could do it. He most definitely could do it …
For one long moment Athan went on staring down at the image on his desk. The beautiful, blonde face gazed ingenously at the camera, all unknowing of its presence. Then another image formed in his mind. Female too, but dark brunette, with deep, doe-like eyes—eyes filled with love for her husband, whose attention was all taken by the blonde in the photo.
I will protect my sister whatever I have to do.
He had reached his decision. Now he simply had to do it. Neither flinching, nor hesitating, nor doubting.
Decisively, he flicked the folder shut. Opening a locked drawer in his desk, he slid the incriminating folder into its depths, making sure he locked it again. Then he picked up his phone. He needed to make a phone call to an interior designer. His London apartment was very comfortable, very luxurious, and its décor suited him perfectly. But right now he knew it was time to have it redecorated. And while that was being done—well, he would need a temporary place to live.
And he knew exactly where it was going to be …
Marisa headed home through the chilly gathering dusk of a winter’s day, walking along the wide pavement briskly, but with a lightness to her step that echoed the lightness in her heart. Although busy with traffic heading both east and west, Holland Park Road was such an affluent part of London that she didn’t mind. In comparison with where she’d lived when she’d first got here it was a different world. A cramped, poky bedsit, with a cracked sink in the corner and a grimy, shared bathroom down an uncarpeted corridor, had been all she could afford on her meagre wages. London was so expensive! She’d known it would be, but the reality of it had hit harder than she’d anticipated.
The money she’d set aside to make the journey from Devon and tide her over had all gone, but she’d blithely—and completely wrongly—assumed that getting some kind of decently paid job would not be hard. Certainly a lot easier than it had been in Devon, where even if she had commuted—lengthily—into Plymouth, jobs were scarce and hourly rates poor in comparison. But she’d discovered, to her dismay, that living expenses in London were punitive—especially accommodation. She’d never had to pay for accommodation before. The cottage she’d grown up in might be tiny, and dreadfully ramshackle, but at least there was nothing to pay there except council tax and utility bills. London rents, even for really grim accommodation in run-down areas were terrifyingly high. It meant that even after she had found a day job she’d still been forced to take a second job in the evenings to make ends meet.
All that had changed completely now, though. Her life couldn’t have become more different. And it was all thanks to Ian!
Meeting him had been amazing. And the transformation he’d wrought in her life had been total. A glow filled her as she thought about him. The moment he’d realised what a dump she lived in, he’d waved his magic wand over her and the next thing she knew he’d organised for her to move into a flat in a de luxe building in Holland Park, paying her rent and all her expenses.
And the flat wasn’t the only thing he was paying for.
The manicured fingers of her left hand stroked the soft dark tan leather of her handbag as she walked, and she glanced down at the beautiful matching boots she was wearing, feeling deliciously svelte in the faux fur-trimmed jacket keeping her warm against the chill February air. The weather here in the east of the country was certainly colder and crisper than it was in the west, but in Devon—especially on the edges of Dartmoor, where the cottage nestled into the side of the moorland—midwinter Atlantic gales could lift the tiles off roofs and rip the stunted trees off their rocky perches. Lashing rain could penetrate the rotting window frames and spatter down the chimney onto the wood fires that were the only source of heating in the cottage.
Wood fires might seem romantic to holidaymakers, but they’d never have to forage for kindling in all weathers, or lug basketloads of logs in through the rain from outdoor sheds, let alone clean out the ashes morning after morning.
Not that holidaymakers would ever want to step foot into a cottage like hers. It was no chi-chi romantic rural getaway, thoughtfully fitted out with all mod-cons for city folk used to comfortable living. The cob-walled cottage was the real thing—a farm-worker’s dwelling that had never been modernised other than being supplied with mains electricity. It still had the original stone sink in the kitchen lean-to, and although her mother had painted the cupboards and papered the walls, done her best to make the cottage homely and cosy, Marisa had always considered it old-fashioned and shabby.
Her mother hadn’t minded, though. She’d been grateful. Grateful to have a place of her own—even a run-down one. Marisa had always known how tight money had been as she grew up. Her mother had had no one to look after her …
Unlike her daughter.
Again Marisa felt a lightness, a glow inside her. Ian was looking after her—so, so lavishly! She was overwhelmed by it all. Overwhelmed by his insistence on providing such a wonderful apartment for her to live in. Overwhelmed by his giving her money to put in the bank for her to spend on herself, telling her to go and get her hair done, her nails done, any number of pampering beauty treatments, and to go shopping for clothes—lots and lots of clothes. Beautiful, gorgeous clothes, the likes of which she’d only ever seen in fashion magazines, that had been bliss to buy and which now filled the wardrobe in her new apartment.
And overwhelmed, above all, by his insistence that she must be in his life from now on—he would hear of nothing else, as he had said over dinner the week before, when he’d given her that wonderful necklace that had taken her breath away.
Her eyes darkened. For all Ian’s care of her, she could only exist on the periphery of his life. Could never be taken fully into his life—never be acknowledged or recognised or accepted.
Her throat tightened. She must always remain what she was now to Ian. Nothing more than that.
A secret never to be told …
Athan glanced at the laptop set on the coffee table in front of him. His mind was only half on the report displayed on the screen. The other half was on the mobile phone lying beside the laptop. Any moment now it would ring, he knew. The security operative deployed to track his target’s movements had already reported her progress towards the apartment block. The next call would be to inform his employer that she had gone inside the lobby was heading for the lift.
Logging off, he closed the laptop lid with a snap, sliding it into its leather monogrammed carrier case and picking it up as he got to his feet. His car, he knew, was already hovering at the kerb.
He would have to get the timing exactly right. He headed for the front door, holding his mobile, waiting for the ring tone. He paused by the unopened door. Two minutes later the phone rang. The terse, disembodied voice spoke briefly.
‘The target has just entered the building and the lift doors are opening. Ascent to her floor will be complete in nineteen seconds.’
Athan gave his acknowledgement of the message and hung up, counting down the seconds. At zero, he opened his apartment door. Exactly as he did so, the lift doors at the far end of the landing slid open.
Ian Randall’s intended mistress walked out.
Involuntarily, Athan felt his stomach clench. Damn—in the flesh she was even more lovely than she’d looked in the covert photos. Slender, graceful, luminous skin, beautiful eyes, hair like silk—a breathtaking vision.
No wonder Ian can’t resist her!
No man could.
Even as the thought formed in his head he felt its corollary shaping itself—ineluctable, inescapable.
And I don’t have to. In fact not resisting her is exactly what I am here to do … ?.
He could feel masculine reaction creaming through him. Up to now he’d had repeated slivers of doubt as to whether he should actually go through with the course he’d planned—his swift, ruthless method of cutting the Gordian knot of Ian’s disastrous dalliance. Oh, his head might tell him it was the most effective, time-efficient and all round painless way of separating her from Ian, but what was the rest of his body telling him? Could he really go through with what he was planning?
But now, seeing her in the flesh, he felt relief flood through him. Yes, he could do this—there was no reason not to, and every reason to do so.
More than reason …
No—that was something he needed to block right now. He had a task in hand—essential, critical—and that was what he had to focus on. Most definitely not on what his own desires might be. His desires—whatever they were—must be the servant of his purpose. That was what he must not allow himself to forget.
He walked forward, his pace businesslike and decisive, simply heading towards the lift. She’d stopped right there, in front of the doors which were now closing behind her. She seemed momentarily transfixed, and Athan could swear he saw her eyes widen as she watched him walking towards her.
She was reacting to him … reacting just the way he’d hoped she would. Without vanity, he knew it was the reaction he’d expected. The reaction he usually got from women. It would be hypocritical of him not to acknowledge it—not to accept that what women saw was six foot of lean male, with sable hair, and features which, as an accident of genetics—nothing more, and certainly no credit to him—got a resounding female thumbs up. Oh, he didn’t have the kind of blond, boyish looks that Ian Randall had, with his blue eyes and ready smile, but he knew that his own strong, darkly planed features had an impact on women that got him the kind of reaction he was getting now. Just as he wanted …
OK, time to stop assessing the situation and make his next move.
‘Could you hold the lift for me?’
His voice carried the short distance to where she was still standing, apparently immobilised. As he spoke she seemed to come to, and automatically her hand lifted as she half turned to press the call button. Athan continued to close the distance to her, and as the lift doors obediently slid open again he dropped her a slanting smile of appreciation for her courtesy.
‘Thanks,’ he murmured, letting his eyes wash swiftly over her.
Not that there was much ‘letting’ about it. He’d have done it automatically, he knew. Any man would. This close, she was even more stunning. Her wide-set eyes were gazing at him, and her lips were parted as though she were slightly breathless. A light, heady scent of perfume wafted from her, just as enticing as she was …
He stepped through into the lift, pressing the ground floor button. A moment later the doors had closed, shutting her from his field of vision. He felt the lift descend, and just for an instant he experienced a sense of regret.
Regret that he was heading in the opposite direction from her.
Or was it regret for something quite different? The thought flickered through his mind, as he stepped out of the lift and strode across the lobby to his car waiting at the kerb.
Why does she have to be mixed up with Ian Randall …?
The question, just like the image of her standing there so tantalisingly lovely, hovered like an unwelcome intruder. Ruthlessly he banished it, bestowing on his driver, holding open the passenger door of the sleek black saloon car, a brief nod and sliding himself into the leather seat, setting his laptop case down beside him. Such thoughts were pointless and irrelevant. The girl had to be removed from Ian’s orbit, and the threat she presented to his sister liquidated. As swiftly as possible. That was all.
His mouth tightening, he extracted his laptop and resumed his work. He was a busy man—a very busy man. The multinational company he’d inherited from his father, which was one of the major plutocratic mercantile dynasties in Greece, allowed precious little time for R&R. Especially in the current economic climate.
But for all that, he knew he would have to make adequate time to accomplish his mission to save his sister’s marriage—at least for the moment.
For just a moment, no more, he felt that repeated flicker of doubt skitter across his mind. It was one thing to plan such a cold-blooded strategy when gazing at a photograph. Another to execute it.
Impatiently, he banished his doubts. It had to be done, and that was that. Marisa Milburne would come to no harm by his seduction of her. She would have an enjoyable interlude in her life, as luxurious as the one Ian Randall was offering her, and she would be none the worse at the end of it. He had nothing at all to reproach himself with.
Besides, playing around with men who were married was always a dangerous business. If she learnt nothing else from the experience she was about to have, that would be enough. She should never have let herself get as deep as she had with Ian—even if nothing had happened between them yet.
I’ll be doing her a favour, getting her away from Ian—and in a way she can enjoy …
And now that he had seen her in the flesh, knew that she was as lovely as her photo had told him, he knew he would too …
Again burning onto his retinas came the image of the way she’d stood there by the elevator doors, a vision of fair-haired, feature-perfect beauty. For a moment longer he held the image in his mind’s eye, savouring it. Then, as the words of the document he’d loaded came up on the screen, he sliced it from his mind and got to work again.
Marisa let herself into her flat, her mind a daze. It had taken only moments—sliding open the lift doors, stepping out—and there he’d been, instantly in her vision. Walking towards her.
Or rather towards the lift. A swift, purposeful stride that went totally with the image forming itself in her consciousness. Making its impact felt instantly.
Tall, dark and just jaw-droppingly handsome …
But not in the way that Ian was handsome. Ian was fair-haired, like her, with light blue eyes, like her, and his features were boyish, with a smiling, inviting charm to them that had drawn her in immediately.
This man striding towards her had been completely different. A head taller than Ian easily, and far more powerfully built. But lean, not broad, with long legs. And much darker skin. European, yes, but with a clear Mediterranean stamp that went with the sable hair.
And the eyes.
Oh, yes, the eyes …
Dark as obsidian—not brilliant blue like Ian’s—and dark-browed. They had seemed, just for a moment, to be spearing her.
Then he had spoken—only a few words—she’d felt the timbre resonate through her. Accented—she hadn’t been able to tell what accent—yet obviously fluent in English. Asking her to hold the lift for him. Nodding and saying a brief thanks to her as he passed by and stepped into the lift, the closing doors shutting him from her sight.
It had taken moments—only moments—for the whole incident to play out, but now, standing inside her flat, she felt it replay in slow motion inside her head.
She made her way into her bedroom, dropping her bag down on the bed, taking off her jacket and mechanically shaking it out and hanging it in the capacious closet. She still seemed to be in a daze.
Who is he?
The question formed in her head, wanting to be answered. There were only three apartments on her floor, and one was occupied by a sprightly elderly couple who seemed to use it only as a London pied-à-terre. She’d talked briefly to them once as they’d come in from a night out, nothing more than mild social chit-chat, and they’d given her, she’d been slightly amused to note, a swift once-over in assessment.
They’d seemed reassured by her, when she’d made polite noises and said something about having come back from the theatre. The woman had disclosed that they had as well, which had led to a brief exchange over what each had seen and some anodyne views thereon. They’d seemed obviously well-heeled, and had spoken in the kind of accent that people of their background did, mentioning that they were mostly based in Hampshire, but came up to London regularly for theatre visits.
The other flat on her floor was occupied by a Far Eastern gentleman whom she’d seen only once, and that had been over a fortnight ago. He’d bowed politely to her, she’d nodded her head in return, and that had been that. Since then she’d heard and seen nothing of him or anyone else.
But the man she’d just seen now had clearly emerged from that flat.
Visitor? Guest? New tenant? She had no idea.
And it doesn’t matter anyway! she reprimanded herself, shaking out of her daze. People around here aren’t exactly gossiping over the fences. Everyone keeps themselves to themselves, and even if he is a new tenant that’s probably the only time you’re going to see him.
Into her head, hard on the heels of the reprimand, came a lingering response.
What a pity.
Impatiently she sat down on the bed and tugged off her boots, exchanging them for a pair of pumps more suited to being indoors. Time to stop mooning over a tall, dark stranger she’d seen for all of ninety seconds—if that—and remind herself that she was here for Ian’s sake, not anything else. Ian was the sole focus of her life and she had better remember that. She had so little time with him as it was, and every stolen moment together was precious. Speaking of which …
She checked the voicemail on the landline phone beside her bed. To her pleasure it was indicating a new message. She pressed ‘play’ eagerly, but as she listened to the message her face fell.
‘Marisa, I’m so, so sorry! I can’t make tonight. I’m really gutted. But a pile of work’s come my way—some deal that has to be signed off by ten tomorrow morning—and that means I’m going to have to burn the midnight oil, checking through everything. If all goes smoothly maybe—maybe—I can make lunch. I’ll text you late morning—’
Ian’s voice cut out, and she stared disconsolately at the handset. She hadn’t seen Ian for three days, and she’d been so hoping that tonight would be on. She’d filled the three days as she filled all her days now—’doing’ London. But what had seemed an exciting prospect when she’d first moved into this fabulous apartment a month ago was, she knew, beginning to pall.
She felt bad that she should feel that way. Up till a month ago, in her pre-Ian existence, she’d worked non-stop just to earn enough to stay in London. All the sights and entertainments of the capital had been far beyond her. Now, with the magic wand that Ian had waved over her life, she had both time and a lavish amount of money to see and do everything that London had to offer. For a girl raised in the wilds of Devon it was a cornucopia of wonders. Things she’d only ever seen on TV or read about were suddenly available to her.
At first it had been bliss. Armed with a miraculously full wallet—thanks to Ian’s generous largesse—she’d been able to wander delightedly around top department stores and fashion shops, putting together a wardrobe the like of which had only previously ever been in her fantasies. Ian had been delighted, and warmly encouraging, and she’d read approval in his eyes whenever they were able to meet.
It wasn’t only shopping that had beguiled her. London held so much more than shops, and she’d been able to do all the famous sights, take in the capital’s great cultural and historical heritage, immerse herself in its wonders—from a breathtaking trip on the London Eye to a wide-eyed tour of Buckingham Palace and everything in between. In the evenings she’d sampled London’s glittering theatre life, with tickets to musicals and plays, live performances with famous stars on stage, sitting not in the cheapest seats up in the gods but in plush, top-price seats in the stalls and dress circle, coming back to the flat afterwards not on crowded buses or tube trains but in comfortable taxis.
It had all been absolutely, totally wonderful!
But she had always been on her own …
Ian had never come with her. Never.
He’d felt bad, as had she. She knew that. He’d said so repeatedly.
‘I just wish I could take you out and about, but I can’t—I just can’t.’
His voice always sounded strained when he said it, and Marisa knew how much he wished it were otherwise. But it was impossible for them to be seen out together. It was risky enough just meeting as they did, and she knew she could not ask for more.
I mustn’t be greedy about him. I have to be glad for what I do have of him. He’s been so wonderful to me—and I’m so incredibly glad that we met.
She reprimanded herself sternly as she got up off the bed and headed towards the kitchen. She must not be doleful and depressed when he had to cancel their rare times of getting together. And as for feeling sorry for herself because she was so alone—well, that was just totally inexcusable.
Look at where I live now—what my life is now. How easy, how luxurious. And it’s all thanks to Ian!
Yet for all her adjuration to herself as she set the kettle to boil and popped the Danish pastry she’d bought into the microwave to warm, making herself appreciate for the millionth time how blissful it was to have a spanking new luxury kitchen to herself instead of the sparse, tatty kitchenette in her bedsit, or even the kitchen in the cottage, with its ancient stone sink and rickety wooden cupboards, she could feel bleakness edging around her insides.
Determined to shake it, she went through to the living room, made herself look around at the pale grey three-piece suite, the darker grey deep pile woollen carpet, the rich silvery drapes framing the window that looked out over the roadway. She gazed down over the scene two storeys below. The road was quiet, lined with trees that would bear blossom in the spring but which now were bare.
Cars—expensive ones, for this was, as her luxury apartment testified, an expensive part of London, where only the rich and highly affluent could afford to live—lined the kerbs. She was grateful that Ian had chosen a flat in such a quiet location, and so near to Holland Park itself, for despite the charms of London she was used to the quietness of deep countryside. The winter’s dusk was deepening, and few people were out and about. There was a chilly bleakness in the vista that seemed to reach tendrils around her.
She knew no one in London. Only Ian. The other women she’d worked with briefly had all been from abroad, and she had been an obvious outsider though they’d been perfectly pleasant to her. She’d known London was going to be a big, busy place, and that she would know no one to begin with, but she hadn’t realised just how big and busy a place it was. How incredibly alone one could feel in a crowd.
How lonely she still felt, despite the luxury in which she lived.
Angry at her own self-pity, she turned away sharply, drawing the curtains and lighting one of the elegant table lamps. A cup of tea, something to watch on the huge television set in the corner, and later on she would make herself something to eat and have an early night. She had nothing to complain about—nothing to feel sorry for herself about.
And I’m used to being lonely …
Living alone with her mother on the edge of Dartmoor, she had become used to her own company. This last year in Devon, having withdrawn into grief at the loss of her mother, days had passed without her seeing another living soul. It had taken well over a year to come to terms with her mother’s death, even though the end had come almost as a release. Since being knocked down by a car some four years earlier her mother had been confined to a wheelchair, and it had been torment for her. But the accident had weakened her heart, too, and the heart attack that had taken her eighteen months ago had at least ended that torment.
And though the devastation of her mother’s loss had been total, Marisa knew that it had given her a chance to leave home that her mother’s disability and emotional dependence on her daughter had not allowed her.
But it had not just been her practical and emotional one needs that had made her mother so fearful about her leaving home. Marisa was all too conscious of the cause of that deeper fear, and before she’d finally set off for the city she’d gone to pay a last anguished visit to her mother’s grave in the parish churchyard.
‘I’m going to London, Mum. I know you don’t want me to—know you will worry about me. But I promise you I won’t end up the way you did, with a broken heart and your hopes in ruins. I promise you.’
Then she’d packed her bag, bought her train ticket, and set off. Having no idea what would befall her.
Having no idea that Ian would walk into her life.
Would change it utterly.
The microwave was beeping in the kitchen, signalling that the Danish pastry was warm. Roused from her drear thoughts, she walked into the kitchen to make her tea. She would not feel sorry for herself. She would remember how short a time ago her life had been so completely different from what it was now. She would have a quiet, comfortable evening in and be totally self-indulgent.
Clicking the thermostat a degree higher, she revelled in the central heating that kept the flat beautifully warm. Two minutes later she was curled up on the sofa, biting into the soft, fragrant pastry and watching TV. It was a nature programme, set somewhere hot and on the beach, and Marisa gazed at the shallow azure waters as the presenter informed her about its marine life. But it wasn’t the marine life that made her gaze—it was the vista of the beach, a tropical idyll framed by palm trees.
Imagine being somewhere like that …
If only Ian …
She cut short her imagining. Ian could not take her somewhere like that. Could not take a single day’s holiday with her anywhere, period. That was the blunt reality of it. He could rent this flat for her, give her that wonderful diamond necklace, give her the wherewithal to dress beautifully, but what he could not give her was time.
She reached for her cup of tea, making herself focus on the programme. The presenter wasn’t British. He had some kind of accent. Lilting and attractive. She found herself trying to identify it. French? Spanish? She wasn’t sure. She frowned. Was it the same kind of accent that man who’d asked her to hold the lift had? She shut her eyes to hear it again in her head. The presenter’s accent was stronger, but maybe it was the same type. His appearance in so far as hair colour and skin tone was similar too. Reaching for the remote, she clicked on info for the programme. The presenter’s name was Greek.
Was that what the man in the corridor was? she found herself pondering. It could be—it fitted his air of foreignness. And the flat he’d come out of had previously been let to a non-Brit. Maybe it was some kind of international corporate let, with one businessman after another passing through.
I wonder who he is? He’s just so jaw-droppingly good-looking.
With a rasp of irritation she pushed the question out of her head. What did it matter who he was, why he was there, or what nationality he was? She’d seen him for less than two minutes, if that, and he’d done nothing but nod and say a passing ‘thanks’ at her before disappearing. She’d stared at him gormlessly for the duration, unable to control her reaction to his startling dark good looks. Given the way everyone kept to themselves in the apartment block, she would probably never set eyes on him again.
And if she did it would be utterly irrelevant to her anyway.
Clicking on the remote again, she changed channels and finished off the pastry. The evening stretched ahead of her …
Two hours later there was less of it left to stretch, but she was still feeling bored and restless. She couldn’t decide what to do next—go to bed or watch a movie on TV. It was one she was only marginally interested in, and it did not particularly appeal. On the other hand neither did going to bed at nine o’clock, either. All around her the hushed silence of the flat enveloped her, as if she were the only person for miles.
She reached for the remote. It was stupid, wasting time watching something she didn’t want to. She would head for bed and read something useful—like the newly published hardback history of London she’d splashed out on last week. Buying new hardbacks was such a previously unknown luxury she should make the most of it. Besides, since leaving college she’d hardly used her brain at all—which was a waste.
And you really don’t want to come across as some kind of country bumpkin to Ian, either. Even if he’s not a raging intellectual, he obviously knows business, and current affairs and so on.
She clicked off the TV and gathered herself to get to her feet. But even as she did so, she froze. A sound she had never heard had penetrated from the hallway. The doorbell.
Who on earth …? Puzzled and apprehensive, she made her way to the little entrance hall. The door was on a security chain, and there was a spyhole too. She peered through it, but could only take in a distorted impression of a dark suit. Nothing else. Well, it didn’t look like a burglar paying a call, at any rate.
Cautiously, she open the door on the chain, which restricted it to a couple of inches, bracing herself ready to flatten herself against it if someone put an intruding foot through.
Instead a voice spoke. A deep, accented voice that had the timbre of familiarity.
‘I’m extremely sorry to disturb you … ‘
Without volition, she felt her insides give a little flutter.
‘Just a moment.’ She slid the security chain off and opened the door wider.
It was the man who’d asked her to hold the lift for him earlier.
‘I do apologise,’ he said, ‘but I wonder if I might ask you a favour.’
There was a faint smile on his face, a slightly quizzical look. Marisa found it did strange things to her. Things that made her lips part and her eyes rest as if helplessly on his face. She tried to gather her composure.
‘Of … of course,’ she answered, trying to sound polite but cool.
The faint smile deepened. So did the sensation of fluttering inside her. Her hand tightened on the doorframe.
‘I’ve just moved into the apartment next to you, and I’ve only just realised that I’ve made no arrangements for any groceries to be delivered. This may sound the most stupid request you’ve heard, but if you could possibly let me have some milk and a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee I would be in your debt.’
Dark eyes—ludicrously long-lashed, she realised as her brain spun idiotically in her head—rested on her, their quizzical expression at odds with the formidable air of command about him. Whoever he was, he was most definitely not one of life’s minions.
He’s the guy that gives the orders … others do his bidding. Snap to his command …
And respond to his faintly smiling requests as if he’s turned a key in their backs.
Especially if they were female …
The fluttering inside her, the tightness of her hand on the doorframe, intensified.
She swallowed, managed to speak. ‘Yes—yes, of course. No problem.’ Her voice sounded husky, as if her throat had constricted.
The faint smile deepened, indenting lines around his mouth. Marisa’s throat constricted again. Oh, good grief, when they’d been handing it out this guy got a double helping.
‘It’s really very good of you,’ the deep, accented voice responded, its timbre doing things to her she could not prevent. Didn’t have the slightest interest in preventing …
Jerkily, she pulled the door wider and turned away. ‘I’ll just—um—go and fetch them,’ she managed to say.
She headed for the kitchen. Her feet felt clumsy, and she was sure she bumped into the corner of the sofa as she made her way through the living room to the kitchen beyond. She felt like an idiot, bumping into her own furniture. In the kitchen she fumbled with the fridge door, yanking it open and grabbing a pint of milk. It was semi-skimmed. She hoped he’d be OK with that. She hoped he’d be OK with her brand of instant coffee, as well. Not that he looked like an instant coffee type of man. Her eyes went to the terrifyingly complicated coffee machine that stood completely unused by the microwave. She’d bought coffee beans, hoping to try it out, but one glance at the instruction booklet had quashed her ambition instantly.
Oh, stop dithering, girl—just give him the milk and the coffee jar.
She hurried out of the kitchen, carefully avoiding bumping into the furniture. He’d stepped inside the hall, though the front door was still ajar.
‘Here you are,’ she said breathlessly, holding out the requested items.
‘It’s very good of you,’ he said.
That faint smile was still doing its work. His height was making the small hallway even smaller. So was his dark suit and black cashmere overcoat. His presence seemed overpowering suddenly.
A thought struck her. ‘I’ve got coffee beans, if you prefer. The packet’s unopened. I can’t operate my machine.’
Oh, hell, she was burbling inanely. What did he care whether she could operate the machine or not. Yet it seemed he did—a dark eyebrow had quirked.
‘Would you like me to show you how? They can be fiendishly difficult.’
Immediately she stiffened. ‘Oh, no, thank you. That’s fine. I wouldn’t dream of troubling you.’
His lashes dipped over his eyes. ‘It would be no trouble, I promise you.’
His voice had changed. She didn’t know how, but it had. And suddenly, with a piercing light, she knew why it had …
Knew it from the sudden glint in his eyes—his dark, deep eyes …
She took a breath—a steadying one that she needed. Needed in order to remind herself that a complete stranger—however much of an impact he was making on her—was standing inside her flat and signalling that he liked what he was seeing. Her brain seemed to split in two. One half—the half that was reducing her to a wittering idiot—reeled with the realisation. The other half was shouting a loud, strident warning to her. Time to pay heed to it.
She shook her head. A small but decisive gesture.
‘Thank you, but no.’ She held the milk and the coffee jar closer to him. Her smile was polite, but nothing more, her voice composed.
For just a second longer he kept that half-shut gaze on her, then abruptly reached out to relieve her of the proffered items, managing to take them both in a single hand. The other was holding a laptop case.
‘Once again, thank you,’ he said.
His voice had lost whatever it had so briefly held. So had his expression. He turned away, going back out into the corridor, pausing only to half turn his head towards her, standing ready to close the door.
‘Goodnight,’ he said.
She kept her face composed. ‘Goodnight,’ she answered back. Then closed the door.
Outside, Athan stood a moment, his eyes faintly narrowed. Interesting, he thought. She had responded to him—no doubt about that. Years of experience had taught him exactly when a woman found him attractive. But she had quite definitely drawn the line when he’d made his second gambit, offering to show her how to use the coffee machine.
And if she hadn’t? If she’d let me into her flat, let me make fresh coffee—shared it with me. Let me move on to mythird gambit—suggesting I order dinner to be delivered so we could dine together?
If she had, what would he have done?
Would I have stayed the night with her if she’d let me?
For one vivid instant, an image filled his head.
Pale golden hair spread loose across a white pillow. A slender, naked body offered to him. A lovely face alight with pleasure … pleasure that he could give her.
Abruptly, he started to walk to his apartment door, juggling with the damn milk and coffee that threatened to tumble to the ground in order to extract his keys. As he stepped inside he felt another stab of hunger. But this time for the more mundane fare of food. Well, he’d make coffee—even if only instant—and consult the internet to get some food delivered. There must be a catering company around that would oblige.
It was a nuisance, he mused, that the apartment block had no concierge who could take care of that sort of thing for him. But on the other hand a concierge was the last thing he needed—they were the kind of individuals who swiftly discovered too much about their tenants. And if there was one overriding necessity right now it was that his beautiful blonde fellow tenant should not have any source of information about him that he did not care to impart to her.
Least of all that he knew about her relationship with Ian Randall.
And why he was going to end it.
Marisa didn’t sleep well. She tossed and turned restlessly. She might wish it was because she was disappointed not to have met up with Ian last night but she knew it wasn’t because of that.
It was because of that man—that tall, dark, ludicrously handsome man—who had appeared at her door that evening.
With the corniest chat-up line in the book! That’s what I’ve got to remember!
Good grief, couldn’t he have come up with something more original than borrowing a pint of milk? And coffee, she reminded herself waspishly. The problem was, try as she might to be derisive about it and label it nothing more than a transparent ploy, another thought kept intruding.
That any man with those devastating looks wouldn’t even have to crook his little finger to have every female for miles around come running.
Pick up lines, let alone corny ones, wouldn’t even be in his ball park. He’d never be reduced to resorting to something so clichéd. Besides, she reasoned, he’d seen her come out of the lift and might well have assumed she had a flat on this floor, but for all he’d have known she might have had the flat the elderly couple occupied. As a new tenant he wouldn’t know, would he? Which meant that his ring on her doorbell and his request had been genuine, and not a pick-up routine.
Anyway, what did it matter?
But he did do that bit offering to show me how the coffee machine worked.
No, that didn’t prove anything except that he was a man and men thought it inexplicable that women found machinery complicated. He’d probably thought he was being polite in offering—that the reason she’d mentioned she couldn’t get it to work was a ploy in order to get him to offer help.
Oh, help, maybe he thought I was trying to pick him up! Trying to inveigle him to come in …
She squirmed with embarrassment at the thought. Still, at least she’d immediately said no, which was something to be grateful for. He couldn’t possibly think she was giving him the come on, could he?
You behaved like a gormless idiot, though, don’t forget—stammering and staring bug-eyed at him.
Yes, well, he was doubtless used to that kind of reaction from women. A man with looks like his would be.
And it wasn’t just his looks, was it? Nor that to-die-for foreign accent of his. If she were brutally honest—and she had better be at this time of night—it was the whole package that made such an impact. The looks, the cashmere overcoat, the bespoke suit, the whole Mr Rich thing definitely contributed.
And more than that there had been a kind of aura around him. That was the only word she could come up with. A kind of self-assurance, an air of being someone who gave orders, moved in the corridors of power, made things happen that he wanted to happen.
It was curious, she found herself musing. Ian was wealthy, and he sported the trappings of wealth from flash pad to gold watch. But he didn’t possess that aura of power, that sense of being someone not to mess with.
A little shiver went down her spine. Disturbing. Disquieting. For a moment longer she gazed into the darkness of her bedroom. She shouldn’t think about the incident tonight. Should put it out of her mind.
Should go to sleep.
But her dreams, when they came, were filled with the same disquiet.
And a strange, disturbing sense of anticipation …
Athan left for his office early. He always did, finding the first couple of hours of the morning the most productive before his heavy schedule of meetings started. This morning, however, he found his usual high level of productivity diminished. It annoyed him. Annoyed him to realise that he was finding himself replaying the little scene he’d created last night. Letting his memory toy with recalled images—images of the way her long hair had framed her face, tumbling down over her shoulders, the way she’d gazed at him, wide-eyed, the way her voice had been breathy and husky. The way she’d walked away from him towards the kitchen on long, slender legs, the fall of her hair waving down her back.
She really was very, very lovely.
Yes, well, he knew that—had already acknowledged that—and other than her beauty making it easier for him to carry out his plan there wasn’t any point in dwelling on it. He had a mountain of work to get through, and it wasn’t going to go away of its accord.
He also had to decide on a pretext for getting Ian Randall out of the country. The upcoming West Coast contract would fit the bill well. He could say it required input from the UK. He could even—his eyes narrowed in speculation—mention the trip to Eva. Suggest it would be an ideal opportunity to go with Ian, and then to take a holiday afterwards—fly on to Hawaii, for instance. Eva would snap at it, he was sure.
That would ensure he kept Ian well away from London for a couple of weeks, if not longer.
That’s all the time I need with Marisa Milburne.
He had no doubts about his ability to achieve his goal. It was experience, not vanity, that told him women didn’t say no to him, and there was no reason to suppose this one would be different.
Especially after last night. Any speculation that her attachment to Ian was based on love had been set aside. No woman devotedly in love with another man would have reacted the way she had to him when he’d paid her attention. No woman would have started the way she had, gazed at him the way she had, displaying that telltale dilating of the pupils.
Yet she was not giving him the come-on, either. That was clear too.
His brows drew together. How would she react to his next move? he wondered. He clicked on to the internet and made a rapid search, made a purchase online, clicking on ‘deliver before noon’. Then, job done, he cleared the screen and put his mind into work mode. There was a lot to get done if he wanted to be free by the evening.
Marisa was hand-washing one of her beautiful new sweaters when the intercom rang. Frowning, she picked up the phone.
‘Delivery for Ms Milburne,’ said a disembodied voice.
Puzzled, she went downstairs. As she walked out into the lobby and saw a man standing on the pavement with a bouquet of white lilies she smiled. Oh, Ian, she thought fondly, how sweet. Just because you couldn’t meet me last night.
But when she took the beautiful bouquet into her kitchen to find a suitable receptacle for it, and opened the small gilt-edged envelope attached to the wrapping, the card inside held an unexpected message.
Thank you for the milk and coffee—it was much appreciated.
It was simply signed ‘Your grateful neighbour.’
For a moment she stared. As a token of gratitude a bouquet of lilies that must have cost at least thirty pounds, if not more, was a bit overdone. On the other hand … well, since being with Ian she had come to realise that the rich really were different. Anyone who could afford the rents on these apartments could definitely afford to drop thirty pounds on a bunch of flowers without even noticing.
Yet for all her rationalising, as she arranged the glorious blooms with their intense, heady fragrance in a huge glass vase she’d found in a cupboard, she could not help wishing they had been from Ian.
Not some stranger who meant absolutely nothing to her.
However much of an impact he’d made on her.
She’d been doing her best to put the incident last night out of her head. Dwelling on it was stupid. So was moping. She’d definitely started to mope yesterday, and it was time to nip that in the bud. Of course Ian found it hard to meet her—she knew why and accepted it, even if she wished it otherwise. Well, it wasn’t otherwise, and that was that. And if she were feeling lonely without him—well, considering the luxury of her life now, it was ungrateful and spoilt to be anything other than blissful.
Doing the hand-washing helped improve her mood, and so did a resolve to go for a brisk walk in Holland Park. The weather wasn’t attractive—mizzling with rain today—but that wasn’t the point. She should get out, breathe fresh air—even if London air could never really be fresh—and get some exercise.
I ought to find a gym, or take some dance classes of some kind.
That would definitely be a good idea. She would ask in some of the shops on Holland Park Road when she went to buy groceries. If she did start exercise classes it might be a way of meeting people—other women she could chat to, have coffee with. Make friends with, maybe.
She wasn’t very good at making friends, she knew. It was because she’d always felt different, felt out of things. Though she and her mother had lived in their small village off Dartmoor they hadn’t really belonged—they’d always been incomers. Outsiders. And her mother’s introverted temperament, and circumstance of being a single mother, had added to their social isolation. Even as school Marisa had always felt remote from her peer group, finding it difficult to make friends, get on with others. She felt a little glow start up inside her. That was why it was so lovely being with Ian. They got on so well. His charm, his sense of humour, his liveliness—all drew her out of herself, made her feel relaxed and confident for the first time in her life.
It made it all the more frustrating that she had to be a secret part of his life.
If only he could acknowledge me openly—not keep me tucked away here …
Yes, well, that was impossible. No point going over it again. No point starting to mope.
Grabbing her jacket, and slipping a waterproof around her, she picked up her keys and set off for a walk. She’d find a café and have some lunch, then pick up some shopping. That would pass the time.
Guilt plucked at her. Pass the time. Was that what she was doing with her life now? Finding things to do to while away the hours?
As she walked along the park’s pathways, heading vaguely towards the remains of Holland House and the beautiful glass Orangery, she started to think critically. Wonderful as it was to live in so beautiful a flat, with no money worries and a life of luxury that she’d never dreamt of, she could not live her life like that.
She should find another job, she knew—but doing what? Ian had insisted she give up the low-paid cleaning jobs she’d been doing when she’d met him. A thought struck her, and she stopped and stared at a leafless bush dripping water droplets along its branches. Why not take up some kind of charity work? Since Ian was insisting on paying her bills, why not take advantage of not having to earn a living by doing something to help others? What, precisely, she had no idea, but she could make a start, surely, by finding one of the many charity shops and volunteering her time—sorting out donated goods or working at the till. The charity shop could probably show her other pieces that needed volunteers, and she could take it from there.
Resolution filled her, and she could feel her spirits lift. Her mind ran on, wondering where the nearest charity shops were likely to be. Somewhere up at Notting Hill, probably, or down on Kensington High Street. And there would definitely be some around Shepherds Bush Green, surely?
She would start checking after lunch. She’d use her new laptop and the apartment’s built-in broadband to search, and then start phoning round to see what was available. With a reviving sense of enthusiasm she headed back to her flat. As she walked in she was hit by an exotic fragrance—it was the bouquet of lilies, giving off their wonderful scent, filling the living room with it. As it caught her nostrils she had a vivid recollection of the man who’d sent them.
He really was extraordinarily good-looking …
When the doorbell sounded just after six she jumped. She’d been doing a web search of charities, had got immersed in reading about the work done by them, and the time had flown by. Reading about just how terrible some people’s lives were had been a timely, sobering reminder. Yes, her life had had its challenges, no doubt about that, and every day she missed her mother, but what they’d been through had been nothing compared with the sufferings of so many in the world. It had certainly served to squash any resumption of her moping and self-pity because she could see so little of Ian.
The doorbell sounded again. With a mix of slight apprehension, slight irritation at being disturbed, and slight curiosity as to who it might be, she went to open the door.
‘Did the flowers arrive?’
The deep, accented voice did exactly to her insides what it had done the night before. So did the six-foot frame and the incredible looks and the way his dark eyes were resting on her …
She took a breath. It seemed very slightly strangulated, much to her annoyance.
‘Yes. Thank you. Though they were completely unnecessary.’ Her voice sounded staccato. Even brusque. She didn’t want to appear rude, but on the other hand there was no way she was going to be all over him for his over-the-top gesture of thanks for her very slight gesture of neighbourliness.
He seemed unrebuffed by her response.
‘Not at all,’ he contradicted her.
That faint smile was quirking at his mouth and doing, just as his voice and his looks had, what it had done to her yesterday.
‘The kindness of strangers should never go unappreciated.’ His eyes glinted with a hint of humour in their dark, gold-flecked depths. ‘You’ve no idea how badly I needed some coffee. It just never dawned on me that although these apartments come furnished there wouldn’t actually be any provisions in stock unless they’d been ordered beforehand.’ He paused. ‘Tell me,’ he went on, and now there was a quizzical enquiry in his voice, ‘have you succeeded in getting your coffee machine to obey you yet?’
Marisa swallowed. She knew exactly what she should do. She should say, No, and it doesn’t matter, thank you very much. Thank you for the flowers, but they really were quite unnecessary, I promise you. And then, politely but firmly, she should wish him good evening and close the door.
That was definitely what she should do. Anything else was madness. Asking for trouble. For complications. For something that she could do without and what was more to the point should do without.
I don’t need a tall, dark, handsome stranger in my life! And certainly not this one!
A little chill went through her. Besides, he could be anyone. Just because he wore a cashmere overcoat and a bespoke suit and Italian shoes, and lived in a luxury apartment, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t a serial killer …
Yet even as she entertained the possibility she knew it must surely be impossible. Whatever serial killers looked like, it was not someone who quite obviously spent most of his day ordering minions around and doubtless cutting deals with a string of zeroes in them.
Had he read the disquiet in her eyes? Interpreted her momentary hesitation as understandable reluctance to engage in conversation on her doorstep with a man she didn’t know? He must have, because before she could answer him he started speaking again.
‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I’m being intrusive, and presuming on far too slight an acquaintance.’
If he hadn’t apologised she might well have made the answer to him that as she’d intended—she really might, she thought distractedly. But there was something about the open apology, the air of quizzical ruefulness, the slight backing off and withdrawal she sensed in his body language, that stopped her. Or was it, she thought with a kind of hollowing inside her stomach, the way those gold-flecked eyes were resting on her? As if they could reach deep inside her, hold her mesmerised until she gazed back at him.
‘No, not at all,’ she said awkwardly. She sounded very English, very stilted, she knew. ‘It was kind of you to offer to help with the coffee machine. But instant coffee is absolutely fine, and anyway I drink tea mostly.’
Oh, Lord, she thought, why on earth had she said that? Why had she spoken at all? Why hadn’t she just smiled and shut the door. Why—?
‘Quite right. Just what an English rose should drink,’ he replied.
And now, completely openly, there was amusement in his voice. It did even more to her than his accent did.
‘We Greeks, however,’ he went on, ‘drink our coffee like mud. A legacy from our Turkish overlords.’
‘So you are Greek!’
The words fell from her lips before she could stop them.
The glint came again. ‘Is that good or bad?’ he said, humour clear in his voice.
‘I don’t know,’ she said candidly. ‘I don’t know anyone who is Greek, and I’ve never been to Greece.’
His eyes glinted again. ‘Well, I hope I will put you off neither my compatriots, nor my country,’ he responded, with humour still in his voice, that smile in his eyes.
Marisa swallowed. No, whoever this guy was, he definitely did not put her off either Greeks or Greece …
He was speaking again, she realised with a start, and made herself pay attention.
‘Having asked one favour of you already,’ he was saying, and his eyes were washing over her again, to the same devastating effect, ‘I am going to push my luck and ask another.’ He paused and looked down at her, a look of speculative questioning in his expression. ‘Are you at all interested in the theatre? I’ve come into possession of two tickets for a preview performance tonight of the Chekov that’s opening next week. Can I persuade you to keep me company?’
He was taking a gamble here. Athan knew that. Chekov might be the last thing to persuade her. But his surveillance records indicated that she had spent numerous evenings at the theatre, and that included any number of high brow plays. Tickets for the upcoming Chekov were like gold dust, and might be sufficient temptation for her.
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Julia James
Stripped of her glittering façade…Athan Teodarkis knows her type well: women for whom designer dresses and priceless jewellery are paid for only in kind. But he’s never been distracted by one – until now. Suspecting his sister’s husband of having an affair with the dangerously beautiful Marisa Milburne, Athan determines to put a stop to it!Confident the Teodarkis millions will easily divert this gold-digger’s attentions, Athan has a simple plan: seduce, then discard. But, contrary to what the cynical Athan believes, shy Marisa is no home-wrecker, and her innocence is powerless to resist his vengeful seduction…‘A simmering tension which drew me in right from the start – another excellent novel from Julia James.’ – Victoria, Retired, Belfast
What the hell am I going to do about this?
The question hung in Athan’s head like a dead weight. He had to do something. That was inescapable. He had a responsibility to do so.
His thoughts circled back, homing in with his customary focus on identifying solutions to problems he’d ruthlessly analysed. Removing the woman who had so distracted his brother-in-law seemed the obvious move to make right now.
But what if—and now Athan could feel an idea start to germinate in his mind—a rival emerged for her attentions? Lured her away from his brother-in-law?
Dispassionately he made himself study the photo in front of him. As before, he felt his senses stirred by her heart-stopping loveliness.
Resolution filled him. Oh, yes, he could do it.
For one long moment Athan went on staring down at the image on his desk. Then, decisively, he flicked the folder shut. His mind had just made itself up.
It was a very simple, very obvious solution. And as the mental image of her lovely features flickered in his mind’s eye he knew it would be very enjoyable.
About the Author
JULIA JAMES lives in England with her family. Harlequin Mills & Boon
were the first ‘grown-up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—’The most perfect landscape after England!’—and considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!
Recent titles by the same author:
THE DARK SIDE OF DESIRE
FROM DIRT TO DIAMONDS
FORBIDDEN OR FOR BEDDING?
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Painted the Other Woman
Julia James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE
MARISA gave a soft gasp as the man opposite her opened the slim case he’d just taken out of his jacket pocket.
‘For you,’ the man said. There was a fond look in his eyes as he slid the case towards her. ‘I want you to have it.’
Marisa gazed at him, open pleasure in her expression.
She ran a finger lightly over the stones, which sparkled in the light from the candle on the table. ‘It’s beautiful!’ she breathed. Then a more troubled expression showed in her eyes. ‘But are you sure …?’
The man gave a decisive nod of his head. ‘Yes, quite sure.’
Marisa picked up the case, reluctantly shutting the lid, gazing across at the man who had given her such a wonderful token of what she meant to him. She dropped the jewellery case into her handbag—the beautiful, soft leather handbag with a designer logo that was yet another such token. Then she lifted her eyes to the man again. She had eyes only for him! Certainly not for the middle-aged man dining alone, a few tables away, engrossed in texting on his mobile phone, his face in shadow.
Now Ian was in her life Marisa had neither eyes nor thoughts for anyone else. From their first meeting to this precious moment he had transformed her life beyond all recognition, and the wonder of it still amazed her. She had had no idea—none at all—when she’d come to London those short months ago how totally her life would change. Oh, she’d had hopes, it was true, and ambitions and purpose—but that they had actually come about was still wonderful to her. And it was all embodied in the startlingly handsome man sitting opposite her, gazing at her with such devotion.
She bit her lip slightly. If only she didn’t have to hide in the corners of Ian’s life, be hidden away from a censorious world like a shameful secret. Yet that, she knew, was what she would be seen as. Someone who had to be hidden away, never acknowledged in public, to the world. That was why they could only meet like this, in places Ian did not usually frequent, where he was not known or recognised, where he could be sure he would not bump into someone who would question her dining with him—someone who knew both him and Eva.
Eva …
The name echoed in Marisa’s head, haunting her like a ghost that could not be exorcised. Emotion darted in her eyes. Oh, she thought in anguish, if only Eva were not who she was. The emotion deepened, and she gazed helplessly across the table at the handsome, smiling face opposite. If only Eva were not the woman who was Ian’s wife …
CHAPTER ONE
ATHAN Teodarkis’s eyes moved over the photographs spread out on his desk. His sculpted mouth tightened to a tight line like a whip, and anger speared him.
So it had started! Just what he’d feared right from the beginning. From the moment his sister Eva had told him who she was in love with …
He felt the anger stab at him again, and with deliberate control made himself release the tension steeling his shoulders, his spine. He contoured his back against the leather moulding of the executive chair he was sitting in behind the mahogany desk in his office. Across the wide expanse of expensive carpet the vista of the City, over which the lavish London HQ of Teodarkis International had a panoramic view, went unattended.
His hard gaze went on studying the photos. Though taken by a camera phone, and from half a dozen metres’ distance, their evidence was indisputable. They showed Ian Randall, his boyishly handsome face gazing devotedly, eagerly, at the woman opposite him.
With part of his mind Athan could see why.
She was blonde, like Ian, fair-skinned and heart-stoppingly lovely. Her pale hair fell like a waterfall either side of her face. Perfect features—full parted lips, delicate nose and luminous blue eyes—all made her a total peach of a female. No wonder she’d captivated the fool sitting opposite her.
It had been entirely predictable. Right from the start Athan had feared that Ian Randall was weak, self-indulgent, and born to be a philanderer.
Just like his father.
Martin Randall had been notorious—notorious for womanising, notorious for succumbing to every tempting female who passed in front of him. He had indulged his incontinent desire for her until the next one floated by. Then he’d dropped the present incumbent and gone after a new one.
Time and time again.
Disgust and contempt twisted Athan’s mouth. If that was what Martin’s son was going to be like, then—
Then I damn well should have stopped Eva marrying him! Whatever it took, I should have stopped it!
But he hadn’t—he had given the son the benefit of the doubt, even though it had gone against all his instincts to do so. His mouth set. And now he’d been proved right all along. Ian was no better than his father.
Philanderer. Womaniser. Libertine.
Adulterer.
With an angry impulse Athan got to his feet, picking up the innocuous-looking buff folder that contained enough dynamite to blow apart Ian’s marriage. Could it yet be saved?
Athan speculated. How far had his adultery progressed? Certainly his inamorata had been installed in a fancy apartment by Ian, and judging by her designer outfit and freshly styled hair—not to mention the diamond necklace she’d been presented with—she was clearly benefiting from his largesse already. His mouth thinned. But had she paid the bill for that largesse yet?
The expression on Ian’s face caught by the camera phone was—no other word for it—besotted. It wasn’t the expression of a lascivious lecher—it was the expression of a man caught in the toils of a woman he could not bring himself to resist. A woman he was showering his wealth upon. But not, as yet, very much of his time. That was the one cause for optimism Athan could see in this whole sordid business.
The surveillance reports had found no evidence that Ian Randall visited the girl in her fancy apartment—not yet, at any rate—and nor did he take her to hotels. So far the only time he spent with her was in restaurants, clearly chosen for their out-of-the-way locations, and his only visible adultery was his besotted expression.
Can I stop this in its tracks? Can I stop it in time?
That was the question in the forefront of Athan’s brain. Ian Randall was, it seemed, playing it pretty cautiously—in that, at least, he was unlike his father, who had been totally blatant about his affairs. But if that look of slavish devotion on his face was anything to go by he would soon throw caution to the winds and make the girl his mistress in fact as well as intention.
It was inevitable.
He set the folder back on the desk with a sense of angry frustration.
What the hell am I going to do about this?
The question hung in his head like a dead weight. He had to do something—that was inescapable. He had a responsibility to do so. If he had done from the outset what he’d wanted to do—put his foot down and objected to Eva’s marriage to Ian Randall—then he wouldn’t be facing this infernal situation now. He should have gone with his instincts, stopped the marriage. Whatever it had taken to do so. Oh, Eva would have been heartbroken, he knew, but what was she going to be once she found out what Ian had done?
Athan’s expression shadowed. He knew exactly what she was going to be—going to become—if her husband followed the same damnable path his father had so heedlessly and selfishly taken. She would end up just like Ian’s unhappy, tormented mother.
Athan had grown up knowing all about just how unhappy Sheila Randall was in her marriage to Martin Randall, Ian’s father. Sheila had been his mother’s best friend since finishing school in Switzerland, and once Sheila’s eyes had been painfully opened to her husband’s ways she had poured out her unhappiness into his mother’s ears.
‘Poor Sheila’ had become a permanent fixture in their lives during his youth, as his mother did her best to comfort and console her friend—whether by phone or on mutually exchanged visits between London and Athens. Athan’s mother had spent, so it seemed to him, an interminable amount of time trying to mop up Sheila Randall’s tears, but despite his own sense that the best course of action would have been to divorce Martin Randall and be done with him, Sheila, it seemed, was of a romantic disposition.
Despite all the evidence she’d gone on hoping that her husband would one day realise that his wife was the only woman who truly loved him and his adulterous lifestyle would be finally abandoned. In this unlikely hope she had been supported by Athan’s mother, who had been equally romantically disposed—a disposition also shared by her daughter, Eva.
This was the crux of his concern for his sister. His expression darkened. His mother had discovered the full depths of Martin Randall’s irredeemability in a manner that had very nearly proved disastrous to her own marriage—and to her friendship with Sheila. For Martin Randall had been unable to resist the temptation of stooping so low as to target the best friend of his wife with his pernicious attentions. His attempt at seduction during one of her visits to his wife had, Athan remembered, caused an unholy row in both families. His mother had had to do everything in her power to convince her husband that Martin Randall’s assiduously insistent advances were neither invited nor welcome, and it had taken almost as much persuasion to convince Sheila Randall as well.
A hard, brooding emotion filled him. Men like Martin Randall caused misery and torment and trouble all round. He had very nearly succeeded in breaking up his parents’ marriage. If his son were anything like him he would wreak the same kind of devastation all around him.
But there was no way—no way—he was going to let Ian do that kind of damage. No way Ian was going to repeat his father’s misdeeds. Athan would stop him in his tracks.
Whatever it took.
An angry rasp escaped him. If only Eva weren’t married to Martin Randall’s son! If only she could see through him the way he could himself. But Ian Randall’s dangerously easy charm had fooled Eva just as it had fooled his own mother—Sheila.
Ian Randall had grown up the apple of his mother’s eye, indulged and petted—especially after his father’s early death. And with his good looks and his supreme confidence in his own ability to attract females he’d cut a swathe through the population as a teenager and a young man.
Yet again Athan’s expression darkened. Had he had the slightest idea of just how dangerously indulged and doted upon Ian Randall was by his mother, he would never have let Eva get anywhere near him. But when his mother had so tragically died, when his sister was only just eighteen, Sheila Randall’s heartfelt invitation for Eva to go and live with her in London had seemed a godsend.
Having already lost her father to a heart attack only two years earlier, this second blow had been grievous indeed to Eva. Athan, who had had to take up the full running of his late father’s business enterprise, had been worked off his feet, and his bachelor apartment in Athens was scarcely suitable for a teenage girl to make a home in. Nor could Eva be left alone in the family mansion, with none but the household staff to live with.
Moving to London, living with her beloved mother’s best friend and changing her college to one of the London universities instead, had been a far, far better choice for Eva. In Sheila Eva had gained a surrogate mother who’d taken her under her wing, and in Eva, the now-widowed Sheila had gained a surrogate daughter to lavish her attention upon.
She had also, so it had proved, gained a daughter-in-law.
Eva had fallen head over heels in love with Sheila Randall’s handsome, indulged son, and had set her sights on him.
Just why Ian Randall, with his predilection for playing the field, had responded to Eva’s open ardour with a proposal of marriage Athan didn’t know—but his suspicions were dark. Had Ian not been able to bed Eva without a marriage proposal? Had the prospect of marrying into the fabulously wealthy Teodarkis family been too overwhelming a lure for him?
Athan, however, was the only one to have such suspicions, he knew. Neither Eva, with romantic stars in her eyes, nor Sheila Randall, with her doting maternal devotion to her son, shared them. So in the face of his sister’s ecstatic happiness Athan had, with deep reluctance, given the marriage his sanction, if not his blessing. He’d also provided Ian Randall with a plum post in the Teodarkis organisation. Partly to satisfy Eva, but mostly to ensure that whatever frailties lurked in Ian’s make-up he, Athan, could keep a very, very close eye on his brother-in-law.
For two years, however, Ian seemed to have toed the line, giving every appearance of being a devoted husband. Now, it seemed, his true nature was coming to the fore. The evidence against his brother-in-law was damming. Ian was consorting, in secret, with a beautiful blonde whom he’d set up in a lavish luxury pad and upon whom he was bestowing diamonds. His next move would inevitably be starting to visit her in her love-nest … ?.the long-feared adultery would begin in earnest.
Restlessly, Athan twisted in his leather chair. He would not—would not—see his beloved sister reduced to the sobbing wreck that his mother’s best friend had become during her marriage, hoping and hoping that the man she so unwisely loved would mend his ways. He would not see that happen! Somehow he had to stop Ian in his tracks. But how? That was the devil of it!
Oh, he could confront the wretched man with the evidence against him, but Ian would probably try and wriggle out of it—after all, no adultery had been committed as yet, and he would probably find some weasel way of explaining away the blonde’s existence. And if Athan took the photos to Eva that would achieve the very thing he dreaded most—breaking her heart with proof of her husband’s betrayal. He couldn’t do that to her—not if he could help it.
That might have to happen—but not yet. Surely not yet?
Besides, shouldn’t he at least give Ian a chance—one chance!—not to go the way of his father? If he could manage to nip this incipient affair in the bud, find a way of deflecting Ian from it, maybe—just maybe—Ian Randall would prove himself a worthy husband for Eva.
I can give him a chance—and if he falls a second time then I shall be merciless.
The question was how to give him that chance and prevent him succumbing to what had every indication of turning into a full-blown adulterous affair with the delectable blonde he was lining up for himself?
The brooding look returned to Athan’s stormy expression. This required strategy—cold, logical strategy.
A hard light darkened in his eyes. Icy logic sliced down through his synapses. OK, so Ian wanted to start an affair with this blonde—and the blonde, from the photographic evidence, looked every bit as keen as he did. Whatever was motivating her—Ian’s obvious wealth and generosity, or his golden-boy looks and seductive charm—she was clearly very, very responsive to him. It would surely take little more effort on Ian’s part to get her into bed.
Unless …
Thoughts moved across Athan’s mind. Dark, ruthless thoughts.
When it came to adultery it took two to tango. The adulterer and a willing mistress.
His thoughts coiled and uncoiled like a serpent in his mind. But what if the willing mistress were no longer so willing? What if Ian Randall were not the only good-looking, wealthy admirer in her orbit? What if a rival arrived on the scene?
Cut Ian out …?
Slowly Athan felt his taut muscles finally relax, for the first time since he’d ripped open the envelope and the damning photos had spilt out in front of him.
His mind raced ahead, trying to assess whether what had crossed his mind could work. The answer came through loud and clear.
Yes! Because it simply replaces Ian with someone else. Someone else who can take his place. Someone else who is rich and has a track record of successfully wooing beautiful women …
For a moment he hesitated. Was this really something he could go ahead with? For all he knew the girl was genuinely in love with Ian Randall—she certainly had a sufficiently devoted expression on her face.
He pushed aside his doubt.
Well, if she is, then I will be doing her a kindness in removing him, in providing her with a rival to him. What possible long-term happiness could she find loving a married man?
He gave a tight smile. If his plan worked, then Eva would not be the only woman spared unnecessary pain.
His eyes went back to the photo in front of him. He let his eyes wash over it. She really was very, very lovely …
Could he do it? Could he really do it?
Could he really seduce a woman—have an affair with her—for no other reason than to achieve his aim of parting her from a married man’s attentions? He had had many affairs in his time, but never for such a purpose! Was it not just too, too cold-blooded to consider?
His thoughts circled in his head, seeking justification for his actions.
I don’t intend her to be hurt or devastated by such an affair. I don’t intend her harm. I only intend to get her away from Ian, with whom she cannot have an affair.
The logic was clear—irrefutable—yet still his expression was troubled. Sitting here, at his desk, it was easy enough to set in progress plots and machinations to try and save his sister’s marriage—at least for now. But what would he feel like when he actually had to put his strategy into action?
Once more his eyes washed over the perfect oval face, the celestial blue of her wide eyes, the perfect curve of her tender mouth …
As before, he felt his senses stirred by her heart-stopping loveliness.
Resolution filled him. Oh, yes, he could do it. He most definitely could do it …
For one long moment Athan went on staring down at the image on his desk. The beautiful, blonde face gazed ingenously at the camera, all unknowing of its presence. Then another image formed in his mind. Female too, but dark brunette, with deep, doe-like eyes—eyes filled with love for her husband, whose attention was all taken by the blonde in the photo.
I will protect my sister whatever I have to do.
He had reached his decision. Now he simply had to do it. Neither flinching, nor hesitating, nor doubting.
Decisively, he flicked the folder shut. Opening a locked drawer in his desk, he slid the incriminating folder into its depths, making sure he locked it again. Then he picked up his phone. He needed to make a phone call to an interior designer. His London apartment was very comfortable, very luxurious, and its décor suited him perfectly. But right now he knew it was time to have it redecorated. And while that was being done—well, he would need a temporary place to live.
And he knew exactly where it was going to be …
Marisa headed home through the chilly gathering dusk of a winter’s day, walking along the wide pavement briskly, but with a lightness to her step that echoed the lightness in her heart. Although busy with traffic heading both east and west, Holland Park Road was such an affluent part of London that she didn’t mind. In comparison with where she’d lived when she’d first got here it was a different world. A cramped, poky bedsit, with a cracked sink in the corner and a grimy, shared bathroom down an uncarpeted corridor, had been all she could afford on her meagre wages. London was so expensive! She’d known it would be, but the reality of it had hit harder than she’d anticipated.
The money she’d set aside to make the journey from Devon and tide her over had all gone, but she’d blithely—and completely wrongly—assumed that getting some kind of decently paid job would not be hard. Certainly a lot easier than it had been in Devon, where even if she had commuted—lengthily—into Plymouth, jobs were scarce and hourly rates poor in comparison. But she’d discovered, to her dismay, that living expenses in London were punitive—especially accommodation. She’d never had to pay for accommodation before. The cottage she’d grown up in might be tiny, and dreadfully ramshackle, but at least there was nothing to pay there except council tax and utility bills. London rents, even for really grim accommodation in run-down areas were terrifyingly high. It meant that even after she had found a day job she’d still been forced to take a second job in the evenings to make ends meet.
All that had changed completely now, though. Her life couldn’t have become more different. And it was all thanks to Ian!
Meeting him had been amazing. And the transformation he’d wrought in her life had been total. A glow filled her as she thought about him. The moment he’d realised what a dump she lived in, he’d waved his magic wand over her and the next thing she knew he’d organised for her to move into a flat in a de luxe building in Holland Park, paying her rent and all her expenses.
And the flat wasn’t the only thing he was paying for.
The manicured fingers of her left hand stroked the soft dark tan leather of her handbag as she walked, and she glanced down at the beautiful matching boots she was wearing, feeling deliciously svelte in the faux fur-trimmed jacket keeping her warm against the chill February air. The weather here in the east of the country was certainly colder and crisper than it was in the west, but in Devon—especially on the edges of Dartmoor, where the cottage nestled into the side of the moorland—midwinter Atlantic gales could lift the tiles off roofs and rip the stunted trees off their rocky perches. Lashing rain could penetrate the rotting window frames and spatter down the chimney onto the wood fires that were the only source of heating in the cottage.
Wood fires might seem romantic to holidaymakers, but they’d never have to forage for kindling in all weathers, or lug basketloads of logs in through the rain from outdoor sheds, let alone clean out the ashes morning after morning.
Not that holidaymakers would ever want to step foot into a cottage like hers. It was no chi-chi romantic rural getaway, thoughtfully fitted out with all mod-cons for city folk used to comfortable living. The cob-walled cottage was the real thing—a farm-worker’s dwelling that had never been modernised other than being supplied with mains electricity. It still had the original stone sink in the kitchen lean-to, and although her mother had painted the cupboards and papered the walls, done her best to make the cottage homely and cosy, Marisa had always considered it old-fashioned and shabby.
Her mother hadn’t minded, though. She’d been grateful. Grateful to have a place of her own—even a run-down one. Marisa had always known how tight money had been as she grew up. Her mother had had no one to look after her …
Unlike her daughter.
Again Marisa felt a lightness, a glow inside her. Ian was looking after her—so, so lavishly! She was overwhelmed by it all. Overwhelmed by his insistence on providing such a wonderful apartment for her to live in. Overwhelmed by his giving her money to put in the bank for her to spend on herself, telling her to go and get her hair done, her nails done, any number of pampering beauty treatments, and to go shopping for clothes—lots and lots of clothes. Beautiful, gorgeous clothes, the likes of which she’d only ever seen in fashion magazines, that had been bliss to buy and which now filled the wardrobe in her new apartment.
And overwhelmed, above all, by his insistence that she must be in his life from now on—he would hear of nothing else, as he had said over dinner the week before, when he’d given her that wonderful necklace that had taken her breath away.
Her eyes darkened. For all Ian’s care of her, she could only exist on the periphery of his life. Could never be taken fully into his life—never be acknowledged or recognised or accepted.
Her throat tightened. She must always remain what she was now to Ian. Nothing more than that.
A secret never to be told …
Athan glanced at the laptop set on the coffee table in front of him. His mind was only half on the report displayed on the screen. The other half was on the mobile phone lying beside the laptop. Any moment now it would ring, he knew. The security operative deployed to track his target’s movements had already reported her progress towards the apartment block. The next call would be to inform his employer that she had gone inside the lobby was heading for the lift.
Logging off, he closed the laptop lid with a snap, sliding it into its leather monogrammed carrier case and picking it up as he got to his feet. His car, he knew, was already hovering at the kerb.
He would have to get the timing exactly right. He headed for the front door, holding his mobile, waiting for the ring tone. He paused by the unopened door. Two minutes later the phone rang. The terse, disembodied voice spoke briefly.
‘The target has just entered the building and the lift doors are opening. Ascent to her floor will be complete in nineteen seconds.’
Athan gave his acknowledgement of the message and hung up, counting down the seconds. At zero, he opened his apartment door. Exactly as he did so, the lift doors at the far end of the landing slid open.
Ian Randall’s intended mistress walked out.
Involuntarily, Athan felt his stomach clench. Damn—in the flesh she was even more lovely than she’d looked in the covert photos. Slender, graceful, luminous skin, beautiful eyes, hair like silk—a breathtaking vision.
No wonder Ian can’t resist her!
No man could.
Even as the thought formed in his head he felt its corollary shaping itself—ineluctable, inescapable.
And I don’t have to. In fact not resisting her is exactly what I am here to do … ?.
He could feel masculine reaction creaming through him. Up to now he’d had repeated slivers of doubt as to whether he should actually go through with the course he’d planned—his swift, ruthless method of cutting the Gordian knot of Ian’s disastrous dalliance. Oh, his head might tell him it was the most effective, time-efficient and all round painless way of separating her from Ian, but what was the rest of his body telling him? Could he really go through with what he was planning?
But now, seeing her in the flesh, he felt relief flood through him. Yes, he could do this—there was no reason not to, and every reason to do so.
More than reason …
No—that was something he needed to block right now. He had a task in hand—essential, critical—and that was what he had to focus on. Most definitely not on what his own desires might be. His desires—whatever they were—must be the servant of his purpose. That was what he must not allow himself to forget.
He walked forward, his pace businesslike and decisive, simply heading towards the lift. She’d stopped right there, in front of the doors which were now closing behind her. She seemed momentarily transfixed, and Athan could swear he saw her eyes widen as she watched him walking towards her.
She was reacting to him … reacting just the way he’d hoped she would. Without vanity, he knew it was the reaction he’d expected. The reaction he usually got from women. It would be hypocritical of him not to acknowledge it—not to accept that what women saw was six foot of lean male, with sable hair, and features which, as an accident of genetics—nothing more, and certainly no credit to him—got a resounding female thumbs up. Oh, he didn’t have the kind of blond, boyish looks that Ian Randall had, with his blue eyes and ready smile, but he knew that his own strong, darkly planed features had an impact on women that got him the kind of reaction he was getting now. Just as he wanted …
OK, time to stop assessing the situation and make his next move.
‘Could you hold the lift for me?’
His voice carried the short distance to where she was still standing, apparently immobilised. As he spoke she seemed to come to, and automatically her hand lifted as she half turned to press the call button. Athan continued to close the distance to her, and as the lift doors obediently slid open again he dropped her a slanting smile of appreciation for her courtesy.
‘Thanks,’ he murmured, letting his eyes wash swiftly over her.
Not that there was much ‘letting’ about it. He’d have done it automatically, he knew. Any man would. This close, she was even more stunning. Her wide-set eyes were gazing at him, and her lips were parted as though she were slightly breathless. A light, heady scent of perfume wafted from her, just as enticing as she was …
He stepped through into the lift, pressing the ground floor button. A moment later the doors had closed, shutting her from his field of vision. He felt the lift descend, and just for an instant he experienced a sense of regret.
Regret that he was heading in the opposite direction from her.
Or was it regret for something quite different? The thought flickered through his mind, as he stepped out of the lift and strode across the lobby to his car waiting at the kerb.
Why does she have to be mixed up with Ian Randall …?
The question, just like the image of her standing there so tantalisingly lovely, hovered like an unwelcome intruder. Ruthlessly he banished it, bestowing on his driver, holding open the passenger door of the sleek black saloon car, a brief nod and sliding himself into the leather seat, setting his laptop case down beside him. Such thoughts were pointless and irrelevant. The girl had to be removed from Ian’s orbit, and the threat she presented to his sister liquidated. As swiftly as possible. That was all.
His mouth tightening, he extracted his laptop and resumed his work. He was a busy man—a very busy man. The multinational company he’d inherited from his father, which was one of the major plutocratic mercantile dynasties in Greece, allowed precious little time for R&R. Especially in the current economic climate.
But for all that, he knew he would have to make adequate time to accomplish his mission to save his sister’s marriage—at least for the moment.
For just a moment, no more, he felt that repeated flicker of doubt skitter across his mind. It was one thing to plan such a cold-blooded strategy when gazing at a photograph. Another to execute it.
Impatiently, he banished his doubts. It had to be done, and that was that. Marisa Milburne would come to no harm by his seduction of her. She would have an enjoyable interlude in her life, as luxurious as the one Ian Randall was offering her, and she would be none the worse at the end of it. He had nothing at all to reproach himself with.
Besides, playing around with men who were married was always a dangerous business. If she learnt nothing else from the experience she was about to have, that would be enough. She should never have let herself get as deep as she had with Ian—even if nothing had happened between them yet.
I’ll be doing her a favour, getting her away from Ian—and in a way she can enjoy …
And now that he had seen her in the flesh, knew that she was as lovely as her photo had told him, he knew he would too …
Again burning onto his retinas came the image of the way she’d stood there by the elevator doors, a vision of fair-haired, feature-perfect beauty. For a moment longer he held the image in his mind’s eye, savouring it. Then, as the words of the document he’d loaded came up on the screen, he sliced it from his mind and got to work again.
Marisa let herself into her flat, her mind a daze. It had taken only moments—sliding open the lift doors, stepping out—and there he’d been, instantly in her vision. Walking towards her.
Or rather towards the lift. A swift, purposeful stride that went totally with the image forming itself in her consciousness. Making its impact felt instantly.
Tall, dark and just jaw-droppingly handsome …
But not in the way that Ian was handsome. Ian was fair-haired, like her, with light blue eyes, like her, and his features were boyish, with a smiling, inviting charm to them that had drawn her in immediately.
This man striding towards her had been completely different. A head taller than Ian easily, and far more powerfully built. But lean, not broad, with long legs. And much darker skin. European, yes, but with a clear Mediterranean stamp that went with the sable hair.
And the eyes.
Oh, yes, the eyes …
Dark as obsidian—not brilliant blue like Ian’s—and dark-browed. They had seemed, just for a moment, to be spearing her.
Then he had spoken—only a few words—she’d felt the timbre resonate through her. Accented—she hadn’t been able to tell what accent—yet obviously fluent in English. Asking her to hold the lift for him. Nodding and saying a brief thanks to her as he passed by and stepped into the lift, the closing doors shutting him from her sight.
It had taken moments—only moments—for the whole incident to play out, but now, standing inside her flat, she felt it replay in slow motion inside her head.
She made her way into her bedroom, dropping her bag down on the bed, taking off her jacket and mechanically shaking it out and hanging it in the capacious closet. She still seemed to be in a daze.
Who is he?
The question formed in her head, wanting to be answered. There were only three apartments on her floor, and one was occupied by a sprightly elderly couple who seemed to use it only as a London pied-à-terre. She’d talked briefly to them once as they’d come in from a night out, nothing more than mild social chit-chat, and they’d given her, she’d been slightly amused to note, a swift once-over in assessment.
They’d seemed reassured by her, when she’d made polite noises and said something about having come back from the theatre. The woman had disclosed that they had as well, which had led to a brief exchange over what each had seen and some anodyne views thereon. They’d seemed obviously well-heeled, and had spoken in the kind of accent that people of their background did, mentioning that they were mostly based in Hampshire, but came up to London regularly for theatre visits.
The other flat on her floor was occupied by a Far Eastern gentleman whom she’d seen only once, and that had been over a fortnight ago. He’d bowed politely to her, she’d nodded her head in return, and that had been that. Since then she’d heard and seen nothing of him or anyone else.
But the man she’d just seen now had clearly emerged from that flat.
Visitor? Guest? New tenant? She had no idea.
And it doesn’t matter anyway! she reprimanded herself, shaking out of her daze. People around here aren’t exactly gossiping over the fences. Everyone keeps themselves to themselves, and even if he is a new tenant that’s probably the only time you’re going to see him.
Into her head, hard on the heels of the reprimand, came a lingering response.
What a pity.
Impatiently she sat down on the bed and tugged off her boots, exchanging them for a pair of pumps more suited to being indoors. Time to stop mooning over a tall, dark stranger she’d seen for all of ninety seconds—if that—and remind herself that she was here for Ian’s sake, not anything else. Ian was the sole focus of her life and she had better remember that. She had so little time with him as it was, and every stolen moment together was precious. Speaking of which …
She checked the voicemail on the landline phone beside her bed. To her pleasure it was indicating a new message. She pressed ‘play’ eagerly, but as she listened to the message her face fell.
‘Marisa, I’m so, so sorry! I can’t make tonight. I’m really gutted. But a pile of work’s come my way—some deal that has to be signed off by ten tomorrow morning—and that means I’m going to have to burn the midnight oil, checking through everything. If all goes smoothly maybe—maybe—I can make lunch. I’ll text you late morning—’
Ian’s voice cut out, and she stared disconsolately at the handset. She hadn’t seen Ian for three days, and she’d been so hoping that tonight would be on. She’d filled the three days as she filled all her days now—’doing’ London. But what had seemed an exciting prospect when she’d first moved into this fabulous apartment a month ago was, she knew, beginning to pall.
She felt bad that she should feel that way. Up till a month ago, in her pre-Ian existence, she’d worked non-stop just to earn enough to stay in London. All the sights and entertainments of the capital had been far beyond her. Now, with the magic wand that Ian had waved over her life, she had both time and a lavish amount of money to see and do everything that London had to offer. For a girl raised in the wilds of Devon it was a cornucopia of wonders. Things she’d only ever seen on TV or read about were suddenly available to her.
At first it had been bliss. Armed with a miraculously full wallet—thanks to Ian’s generous largesse—she’d been able to wander delightedly around top department stores and fashion shops, putting together a wardrobe the like of which had only previously ever been in her fantasies. Ian had been delighted, and warmly encouraging, and she’d read approval in his eyes whenever they were able to meet.
It wasn’t only shopping that had beguiled her. London held so much more than shops, and she’d been able to do all the famous sights, take in the capital’s great cultural and historical heritage, immerse herself in its wonders—from a breathtaking trip on the London Eye to a wide-eyed tour of Buckingham Palace and everything in between. In the evenings she’d sampled London’s glittering theatre life, with tickets to musicals and plays, live performances with famous stars on stage, sitting not in the cheapest seats up in the gods but in plush, top-price seats in the stalls and dress circle, coming back to the flat afterwards not on crowded buses or tube trains but in comfortable taxis.
It had all been absolutely, totally wonderful!
But she had always been on her own …
Ian had never come with her. Never.
He’d felt bad, as had she. She knew that. He’d said so repeatedly.
‘I just wish I could take you out and about, but I can’t—I just can’t.’
His voice always sounded strained when he said it, and Marisa knew how much he wished it were otherwise. But it was impossible for them to be seen out together. It was risky enough just meeting as they did, and she knew she could not ask for more.
I mustn’t be greedy about him. I have to be glad for what I do have of him. He’s been so wonderful to me—and I’m so incredibly glad that we met.
She reprimanded herself sternly as she got up off the bed and headed towards the kitchen. She must not be doleful and depressed when he had to cancel their rare times of getting together. And as for feeling sorry for herself because she was so alone—well, that was just totally inexcusable.
Look at where I live now—what my life is now. How easy, how luxurious. And it’s all thanks to Ian!
Yet for all her adjuration to herself as she set the kettle to boil and popped the Danish pastry she’d bought into the microwave to warm, making herself appreciate for the millionth time how blissful it was to have a spanking new luxury kitchen to herself instead of the sparse, tatty kitchenette in her bedsit, or even the kitchen in the cottage, with its ancient stone sink and rickety wooden cupboards, she could feel bleakness edging around her insides.
Determined to shake it, she went through to the living room, made herself look around at the pale grey three-piece suite, the darker grey deep pile woollen carpet, the rich silvery drapes framing the window that looked out over the roadway. She gazed down over the scene two storeys below. The road was quiet, lined with trees that would bear blossom in the spring but which now were bare.
Cars—expensive ones, for this was, as her luxury apartment testified, an expensive part of London, where only the rich and highly affluent could afford to live—lined the kerbs. She was grateful that Ian had chosen a flat in such a quiet location, and so near to Holland Park itself, for despite the charms of London she was used to the quietness of deep countryside. The winter’s dusk was deepening, and few people were out and about. There was a chilly bleakness in the vista that seemed to reach tendrils around her.
She knew no one in London. Only Ian. The other women she’d worked with briefly had all been from abroad, and she had been an obvious outsider though they’d been perfectly pleasant to her. She’d known London was going to be a big, busy place, and that she would know no one to begin with, but she hadn’t realised just how big and busy a place it was. How incredibly alone one could feel in a crowd.
How lonely she still felt, despite the luxury in which she lived.
Angry at her own self-pity, she turned away sharply, drawing the curtains and lighting one of the elegant table lamps. A cup of tea, something to watch on the huge television set in the corner, and later on she would make herself something to eat and have an early night. She had nothing to complain about—nothing to feel sorry for herself about.
And I’m used to being lonely …
Living alone with her mother on the edge of Dartmoor, she had become used to her own company. This last year in Devon, having withdrawn into grief at the loss of her mother, days had passed without her seeing another living soul. It had taken well over a year to come to terms with her mother’s death, even though the end had come almost as a release. Since being knocked down by a car some four years earlier her mother had been confined to a wheelchair, and it had been torment for her. But the accident had weakened her heart, too, and the heart attack that had taken her eighteen months ago had at least ended that torment.
And though the devastation of her mother’s loss had been total, Marisa knew that it had given her a chance to leave home that her mother’s disability and emotional dependence on her daughter had not allowed her.
But it had not just been her practical and emotional one needs that had made her mother so fearful about her leaving home. Marisa was all too conscious of the cause of that deeper fear, and before she’d finally set off for the city she’d gone to pay a last anguished visit to her mother’s grave in the parish churchyard.
‘I’m going to London, Mum. I know you don’t want me to—know you will worry about me. But I promise you I won’t end up the way you did, with a broken heart and your hopes in ruins. I promise you.’
Then she’d packed her bag, bought her train ticket, and set off. Having no idea what would befall her.
Having no idea that Ian would walk into her life.
Would change it utterly.
The microwave was beeping in the kitchen, signalling that the Danish pastry was warm. Roused from her drear thoughts, she walked into the kitchen to make her tea. She would not feel sorry for herself. She would remember how short a time ago her life had been so completely different from what it was now. She would have a quiet, comfortable evening in and be totally self-indulgent.
Clicking the thermostat a degree higher, she revelled in the central heating that kept the flat beautifully warm. Two minutes later she was curled up on the sofa, biting into the soft, fragrant pastry and watching TV. It was a nature programme, set somewhere hot and on the beach, and Marisa gazed at the shallow azure waters as the presenter informed her about its marine life. But it wasn’t the marine life that made her gaze—it was the vista of the beach, a tropical idyll framed by palm trees.
Imagine being somewhere like that …
If only Ian …
She cut short her imagining. Ian could not take her somewhere like that. Could not take a single day’s holiday with her anywhere, period. That was the blunt reality of it. He could rent this flat for her, give her that wonderful diamond necklace, give her the wherewithal to dress beautifully, but what he could not give her was time.
She reached for her cup of tea, making herself focus on the programme. The presenter wasn’t British. He had some kind of accent. Lilting and attractive. She found herself trying to identify it. French? Spanish? She wasn’t sure. She frowned. Was it the same kind of accent that man who’d asked her to hold the lift had? She shut her eyes to hear it again in her head. The presenter’s accent was stronger, but maybe it was the same type. His appearance in so far as hair colour and skin tone was similar too. Reaching for the remote, she clicked on info for the programme. The presenter’s name was Greek.
Was that what the man in the corridor was? she found herself pondering. It could be—it fitted his air of foreignness. And the flat he’d come out of had previously been let to a non-Brit. Maybe it was some kind of international corporate let, with one businessman after another passing through.
I wonder who he is? He’s just so jaw-droppingly good-looking.
With a rasp of irritation she pushed the question out of her head. What did it matter who he was, why he was there, or what nationality he was? She’d seen him for less than two minutes, if that, and he’d done nothing but nod and say a passing ‘thanks’ at her before disappearing. She’d stared at him gormlessly for the duration, unable to control her reaction to his startling dark good looks. Given the way everyone kept to themselves in the apartment block, she would probably never set eyes on him again.
And if she did it would be utterly irrelevant to her anyway.
Clicking on the remote again, she changed channels and finished off the pastry. The evening stretched ahead of her …
Two hours later there was less of it left to stretch, but she was still feeling bored and restless. She couldn’t decide what to do next—go to bed or watch a movie on TV. It was one she was only marginally interested in, and it did not particularly appeal. On the other hand neither did going to bed at nine o’clock, either. All around her the hushed silence of the flat enveloped her, as if she were the only person for miles.
She reached for the remote. It was stupid, wasting time watching something she didn’t want to. She would head for bed and read something useful—like the newly published hardback history of London she’d splashed out on last week. Buying new hardbacks was such a previously unknown luxury she should make the most of it. Besides, since leaving college she’d hardly used her brain at all—which was a waste.
And you really don’t want to come across as some kind of country bumpkin to Ian, either. Even if he’s not a raging intellectual, he obviously knows business, and current affairs and so on.
She clicked off the TV and gathered herself to get to her feet. But even as she did so, she froze. A sound she had never heard had penetrated from the hallway. The doorbell.
Who on earth …? Puzzled and apprehensive, she made her way to the little entrance hall. The door was on a security chain, and there was a spyhole too. She peered through it, but could only take in a distorted impression of a dark suit. Nothing else. Well, it didn’t look like a burglar paying a call, at any rate.
Cautiously, she open the door on the chain, which restricted it to a couple of inches, bracing herself ready to flatten herself against it if someone put an intruding foot through.
Instead a voice spoke. A deep, accented voice that had the timbre of familiarity.
‘I’m extremely sorry to disturb you … ‘
Without volition, she felt her insides give a little flutter.
‘Just a moment.’ She slid the security chain off and opened the door wider.
It was the man who’d asked her to hold the lift for him earlier.
‘I do apologise,’ he said, ‘but I wonder if I might ask you a favour.’
There was a faint smile on his face, a slightly quizzical look. Marisa found it did strange things to her. Things that made her lips part and her eyes rest as if helplessly on his face. She tried to gather her composure.
‘Of … of course,’ she answered, trying to sound polite but cool.
The faint smile deepened. So did the sensation of fluttering inside her. Her hand tightened on the doorframe.
‘I’ve just moved into the apartment next to you, and I’ve only just realised that I’ve made no arrangements for any groceries to be delivered. This may sound the most stupid request you’ve heard, but if you could possibly let me have some milk and a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee I would be in your debt.’
Dark eyes—ludicrously long-lashed, she realised as her brain spun idiotically in her head—rested on her, their quizzical expression at odds with the formidable air of command about him. Whoever he was, he was most definitely not one of life’s minions.
He’s the guy that gives the orders … others do his bidding. Snap to his command …
And respond to his faintly smiling requests as if he’s turned a key in their backs.
Especially if they were female …
The fluttering inside her, the tightness of her hand on the doorframe, intensified.
She swallowed, managed to speak. ‘Yes—yes, of course. No problem.’ Her voice sounded husky, as if her throat had constricted.
The faint smile deepened, indenting lines around his mouth. Marisa’s throat constricted again. Oh, good grief, when they’d been handing it out this guy got a double helping.
‘It’s really very good of you,’ the deep, accented voice responded, its timbre doing things to her she could not prevent. Didn’t have the slightest interest in preventing …
Jerkily, she pulled the door wider and turned away. ‘I’ll just—um—go and fetch them,’ she managed to say.
She headed for the kitchen. Her feet felt clumsy, and she was sure she bumped into the corner of the sofa as she made her way through the living room to the kitchen beyond. She felt like an idiot, bumping into her own furniture. In the kitchen she fumbled with the fridge door, yanking it open and grabbing a pint of milk. It was semi-skimmed. She hoped he’d be OK with that. She hoped he’d be OK with her brand of instant coffee, as well. Not that he looked like an instant coffee type of man. Her eyes went to the terrifyingly complicated coffee machine that stood completely unused by the microwave. She’d bought coffee beans, hoping to try it out, but one glance at the instruction booklet had quashed her ambition instantly.
Oh, stop dithering, girl—just give him the milk and the coffee jar.
She hurried out of the kitchen, carefully avoiding bumping into the furniture. He’d stepped inside the hall, though the front door was still ajar.
‘Here you are,’ she said breathlessly, holding out the requested items.
‘It’s very good of you,’ he said.
That faint smile was still doing its work. His height was making the small hallway even smaller. So was his dark suit and black cashmere overcoat. His presence seemed overpowering suddenly.
A thought struck her. ‘I’ve got coffee beans, if you prefer. The packet’s unopened. I can’t operate my machine.’
Oh, hell, she was burbling inanely. What did he care whether she could operate the machine or not. Yet it seemed he did—a dark eyebrow had quirked.
‘Would you like me to show you how? They can be fiendishly difficult.’
Immediately she stiffened. ‘Oh, no, thank you. That’s fine. I wouldn’t dream of troubling you.’
His lashes dipped over his eyes. ‘It would be no trouble, I promise you.’
His voice had changed. She didn’t know how, but it had. And suddenly, with a piercing light, she knew why it had …
Knew it from the sudden glint in his eyes—his dark, deep eyes …
She took a breath—a steadying one that she needed. Needed in order to remind herself that a complete stranger—however much of an impact he was making on her—was standing inside her flat and signalling that he liked what he was seeing. Her brain seemed to split in two. One half—the half that was reducing her to a wittering idiot—reeled with the realisation. The other half was shouting a loud, strident warning to her. Time to pay heed to it.
She shook her head. A small but decisive gesture.
‘Thank you, but no.’ She held the milk and the coffee jar closer to him. Her smile was polite, but nothing more, her voice composed.
For just a second longer he kept that half-shut gaze on her, then abruptly reached out to relieve her of the proffered items, managing to take them both in a single hand. The other was holding a laptop case.
‘Once again, thank you,’ he said.
His voice had lost whatever it had so briefly held. So had his expression. He turned away, going back out into the corridor, pausing only to half turn his head towards her, standing ready to close the door.
‘Goodnight,’ he said.
She kept her face composed. ‘Goodnight,’ she answered back. Then closed the door.
Outside, Athan stood a moment, his eyes faintly narrowed. Interesting, he thought. She had responded to him—no doubt about that. Years of experience had taught him exactly when a woman found him attractive. But she had quite definitely drawn the line when he’d made his second gambit, offering to show her how to use the coffee machine.
And if she hadn’t? If she’d let me into her flat, let me make fresh coffee—shared it with me. Let me move on to mythird gambit—suggesting I order dinner to be delivered so we could dine together?
If she had, what would he have done?
Would I have stayed the night with her if she’d let me?
For one vivid instant, an image filled his head.
Pale golden hair spread loose across a white pillow. A slender, naked body offered to him. A lovely face alight with pleasure … pleasure that he could give her.
Abruptly, he started to walk to his apartment door, juggling with the damn milk and coffee that threatened to tumble to the ground in order to extract his keys. As he stepped inside he felt another stab of hunger. But this time for the more mundane fare of food. Well, he’d make coffee—even if only instant—and consult the internet to get some food delivered. There must be a catering company around that would oblige.
It was a nuisance, he mused, that the apartment block had no concierge who could take care of that sort of thing for him. But on the other hand a concierge was the last thing he needed—they were the kind of individuals who swiftly discovered too much about their tenants. And if there was one overriding necessity right now it was that his beautiful blonde fellow tenant should not have any source of information about him that he did not care to impart to her.
Least of all that he knew about her relationship with Ian Randall.
And why he was going to end it.
Marisa didn’t sleep well. She tossed and turned restlessly. She might wish it was because she was disappointed not to have met up with Ian last night but she knew it wasn’t because of that.
It was because of that man—that tall, dark, ludicrously handsome man—who had appeared at her door that evening.
With the corniest chat-up line in the book! That’s what I’ve got to remember!
Good grief, couldn’t he have come up with something more original than borrowing a pint of milk? And coffee, she reminded herself waspishly. The problem was, try as she might to be derisive about it and label it nothing more than a transparent ploy, another thought kept intruding.
That any man with those devastating looks wouldn’t even have to crook his little finger to have every female for miles around come running.
Pick up lines, let alone corny ones, wouldn’t even be in his ball park. He’d never be reduced to resorting to something so clichéd. Besides, she reasoned, he’d seen her come out of the lift and might well have assumed she had a flat on this floor, but for all he’d have known she might have had the flat the elderly couple occupied. As a new tenant he wouldn’t know, would he? Which meant that his ring on her doorbell and his request had been genuine, and not a pick-up routine.
Anyway, what did it matter?
But he did do that bit offering to show me how the coffee machine worked.
No, that didn’t prove anything except that he was a man and men thought it inexplicable that women found machinery complicated. He’d probably thought he was being polite in offering—that the reason she’d mentioned she couldn’t get it to work was a ploy in order to get him to offer help.
Oh, help, maybe he thought I was trying to pick him up! Trying to inveigle him to come in …
She squirmed with embarrassment at the thought. Still, at least she’d immediately said no, which was something to be grateful for. He couldn’t possibly think she was giving him the come on, could he?
You behaved like a gormless idiot, though, don’t forget—stammering and staring bug-eyed at him.
Yes, well, he was doubtless used to that kind of reaction from women. A man with looks like his would be.
And it wasn’t just his looks, was it? Nor that to-die-for foreign accent of his. If she were brutally honest—and she had better be at this time of night—it was the whole package that made such an impact. The looks, the cashmere overcoat, the bespoke suit, the whole Mr Rich thing definitely contributed.
And more than that there had been a kind of aura around him. That was the only word she could come up with. A kind of self-assurance, an air of being someone who gave orders, moved in the corridors of power, made things happen that he wanted to happen.
It was curious, she found herself musing. Ian was wealthy, and he sported the trappings of wealth from flash pad to gold watch. But he didn’t possess that aura of power, that sense of being someone not to mess with.
A little shiver went down her spine. Disturbing. Disquieting. For a moment longer she gazed into the darkness of her bedroom. She shouldn’t think about the incident tonight. Should put it out of her mind.
Should go to sleep.
But her dreams, when they came, were filled with the same disquiet.
And a strange, disturbing sense of anticipation …
Athan left for his office early. He always did, finding the first couple of hours of the morning the most productive before his heavy schedule of meetings started. This morning, however, he found his usual high level of productivity diminished. It annoyed him. Annoyed him to realise that he was finding himself replaying the little scene he’d created last night. Letting his memory toy with recalled images—images of the way her long hair had framed her face, tumbling down over her shoulders, the way she’d gazed at him, wide-eyed, the way her voice had been breathy and husky. The way she’d walked away from him towards the kitchen on long, slender legs, the fall of her hair waving down her back.
She really was very, very lovely.
Yes, well, he knew that—had already acknowledged that—and other than her beauty making it easier for him to carry out his plan there wasn’t any point in dwelling on it. He had a mountain of work to get through, and it wasn’t going to go away of its accord.
He also had to decide on a pretext for getting Ian Randall out of the country. The upcoming West Coast contract would fit the bill well. He could say it required input from the UK. He could even—his eyes narrowed in speculation—mention the trip to Eva. Suggest it would be an ideal opportunity to go with Ian, and then to take a holiday afterwards—fly on to Hawaii, for instance. Eva would snap at it, he was sure.
That would ensure he kept Ian well away from London for a couple of weeks, if not longer.
That’s all the time I need with Marisa Milburne.
He had no doubts about his ability to achieve his goal. It was experience, not vanity, that told him women didn’t say no to him, and there was no reason to suppose this one would be different.
Especially after last night. Any speculation that her attachment to Ian was based on love had been set aside. No woman devotedly in love with another man would have reacted the way she had to him when he’d paid her attention. No woman would have started the way she had, gazed at him the way she had, displaying that telltale dilating of the pupils.
Yet she was not giving him the come-on, either. That was clear too.
His brows drew together. How would she react to his next move? he wondered. He clicked on to the internet and made a rapid search, made a purchase online, clicking on ‘deliver before noon’. Then, job done, he cleared the screen and put his mind into work mode. There was a lot to get done if he wanted to be free by the evening.
Marisa was hand-washing one of her beautiful new sweaters when the intercom rang. Frowning, she picked up the phone.
‘Delivery for Ms Milburne,’ said a disembodied voice.
Puzzled, she went downstairs. As she walked out into the lobby and saw a man standing on the pavement with a bouquet of white lilies she smiled. Oh, Ian, she thought fondly, how sweet. Just because you couldn’t meet me last night.
But when she took the beautiful bouquet into her kitchen to find a suitable receptacle for it, and opened the small gilt-edged envelope attached to the wrapping, the card inside held an unexpected message.
Thank you for the milk and coffee—it was much appreciated.
It was simply signed ‘Your grateful neighbour.’
For a moment she stared. As a token of gratitude a bouquet of lilies that must have cost at least thirty pounds, if not more, was a bit overdone. On the other hand … well, since being with Ian she had come to realise that the rich really were different. Anyone who could afford the rents on these apartments could definitely afford to drop thirty pounds on a bunch of flowers without even noticing.
Yet for all her rationalising, as she arranged the glorious blooms with their intense, heady fragrance in a huge glass vase she’d found in a cupboard, she could not help wishing they had been from Ian.
Not some stranger who meant absolutely nothing to her.
However much of an impact he’d made on her.
She’d been doing her best to put the incident last night out of her head. Dwelling on it was stupid. So was moping. She’d definitely started to mope yesterday, and it was time to nip that in the bud. Of course Ian found it hard to meet her—she knew why and accepted it, even if she wished it otherwise. Well, it wasn’t otherwise, and that was that. And if she were feeling lonely without him—well, considering the luxury of her life now, it was ungrateful and spoilt to be anything other than blissful.
Doing the hand-washing helped improve her mood, and so did a resolve to go for a brisk walk in Holland Park. The weather wasn’t attractive—mizzling with rain today—but that wasn’t the point. She should get out, breathe fresh air—even if London air could never really be fresh—and get some exercise.
I ought to find a gym, or take some dance classes of some kind.
That would definitely be a good idea. She would ask in some of the shops on Holland Park Road when she went to buy groceries. If she did start exercise classes it might be a way of meeting people—other women she could chat to, have coffee with. Make friends with, maybe.
She wasn’t very good at making friends, she knew. It was because she’d always felt different, felt out of things. Though she and her mother had lived in their small village off Dartmoor they hadn’t really belonged—they’d always been incomers. Outsiders. And her mother’s introverted temperament, and circumstance of being a single mother, had added to their social isolation. Even as school Marisa had always felt remote from her peer group, finding it difficult to make friends, get on with others. She felt a little glow start up inside her. That was why it was so lovely being with Ian. They got on so well. His charm, his sense of humour, his liveliness—all drew her out of herself, made her feel relaxed and confident for the first time in her life.
It made it all the more frustrating that she had to be a secret part of his life.
If only he could acknowledge me openly—not keep me tucked away here …
Yes, well, that was impossible. No point going over it again. No point starting to mope.
Grabbing her jacket, and slipping a waterproof around her, she picked up her keys and set off for a walk. She’d find a café and have some lunch, then pick up some shopping. That would pass the time.
Guilt plucked at her. Pass the time. Was that what she was doing with her life now? Finding things to do to while away the hours?
As she walked along the park’s pathways, heading vaguely towards the remains of Holland House and the beautiful glass Orangery, she started to think critically. Wonderful as it was to live in so beautiful a flat, with no money worries and a life of luxury that she’d never dreamt of, she could not live her life like that.
She should find another job, she knew—but doing what? Ian had insisted she give up the low-paid cleaning jobs she’d been doing when she’d met him. A thought struck her, and she stopped and stared at a leafless bush dripping water droplets along its branches. Why not take up some kind of charity work? Since Ian was insisting on paying her bills, why not take advantage of not having to earn a living by doing something to help others? What, precisely, she had no idea, but she could make a start, surely, by finding one of the many charity shops and volunteering her time—sorting out donated goods or working at the till. The charity shop could probably show her other pieces that needed volunteers, and she could take it from there.
Resolution filled her, and she could feel her spirits lift. Her mind ran on, wondering where the nearest charity shops were likely to be. Somewhere up at Notting Hill, probably, or down on Kensington High Street. And there would definitely be some around Shepherds Bush Green, surely?
She would start checking after lunch. She’d use her new laptop and the apartment’s built-in broadband to search, and then start phoning round to see what was available. With a reviving sense of enthusiasm she headed back to her flat. As she walked in she was hit by an exotic fragrance—it was the bouquet of lilies, giving off their wonderful scent, filling the living room with it. As it caught her nostrils she had a vivid recollection of the man who’d sent them.
He really was extraordinarily good-looking …
When the doorbell sounded just after six she jumped. She’d been doing a web search of charities, had got immersed in reading about the work done by them, and the time had flown by. Reading about just how terrible some people’s lives were had been a timely, sobering reminder. Yes, her life had had its challenges, no doubt about that, and every day she missed her mother, but what they’d been through had been nothing compared with the sufferings of so many in the world. It had certainly served to squash any resumption of her moping and self-pity because she could see so little of Ian.
The doorbell sounded again. With a mix of slight apprehension, slight irritation at being disturbed, and slight curiosity as to who it might be, she went to open the door.
‘Did the flowers arrive?’
The deep, accented voice did exactly to her insides what it had done the night before. So did the six-foot frame and the incredible looks and the way his dark eyes were resting on her …
She took a breath. It seemed very slightly strangulated, much to her annoyance.
‘Yes. Thank you. Though they were completely unnecessary.’ Her voice sounded staccato. Even brusque. She didn’t want to appear rude, but on the other hand there was no way she was going to be all over him for his over-the-top gesture of thanks for her very slight gesture of neighbourliness.
He seemed unrebuffed by her response.
‘Not at all,’ he contradicted her.
That faint smile was quirking at his mouth and doing, just as his voice and his looks had, what it had done to her yesterday.
‘The kindness of strangers should never go unappreciated.’ His eyes glinted with a hint of humour in their dark, gold-flecked depths. ‘You’ve no idea how badly I needed some coffee. It just never dawned on me that although these apartments come furnished there wouldn’t actually be any provisions in stock unless they’d been ordered beforehand.’ He paused. ‘Tell me,’ he went on, and now there was a quizzical enquiry in his voice, ‘have you succeeded in getting your coffee machine to obey you yet?’
Marisa swallowed. She knew exactly what she should do. She should say, No, and it doesn’t matter, thank you very much. Thank you for the flowers, but they really were quite unnecessary, I promise you. And then, politely but firmly, she should wish him good evening and close the door.
That was definitely what she should do. Anything else was madness. Asking for trouble. For complications. For something that she could do without and what was more to the point should do without.
I don’t need a tall, dark, handsome stranger in my life! And certainly not this one!
A little chill went through her. Besides, he could be anyone. Just because he wore a cashmere overcoat and a bespoke suit and Italian shoes, and lived in a luxury apartment, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t a serial killer …
Yet even as she entertained the possibility she knew it must surely be impossible. Whatever serial killers looked like, it was not someone who quite obviously spent most of his day ordering minions around and doubtless cutting deals with a string of zeroes in them.
Had he read the disquiet in her eyes? Interpreted her momentary hesitation as understandable reluctance to engage in conversation on her doorstep with a man she didn’t know? He must have, because before she could answer him he started speaking again.
‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I’m being intrusive, and presuming on far too slight an acquaintance.’
If he hadn’t apologised she might well have made the answer to him that as she’d intended—she really might, she thought distractedly. But there was something about the open apology, the air of quizzical ruefulness, the slight backing off and withdrawal she sensed in his body language, that stopped her. Or was it, she thought with a kind of hollowing inside her stomach, the way those gold-flecked eyes were resting on her? As if they could reach deep inside her, hold her mesmerised until she gazed back at him.
‘No, not at all,’ she said awkwardly. She sounded very English, very stilted, she knew. ‘It was kind of you to offer to help with the coffee machine. But instant coffee is absolutely fine, and anyway I drink tea mostly.’
Oh, Lord, she thought, why on earth had she said that? Why had she spoken at all? Why hadn’t she just smiled and shut the door. Why—?
‘Quite right. Just what an English rose should drink,’ he replied.
And now, completely openly, there was amusement in his voice. It did even more to her than his accent did.
‘We Greeks, however,’ he went on, ‘drink our coffee like mud. A legacy from our Turkish overlords.’
‘So you are Greek!’
The words fell from her lips before she could stop them.
The glint came again. ‘Is that good or bad?’ he said, humour clear in his voice.
‘I don’t know,’ she said candidly. ‘I don’t know anyone who is Greek, and I’ve never been to Greece.’
His eyes glinted again. ‘Well, I hope I will put you off neither my compatriots, nor my country,’ he responded, with humour still in his voice, that smile in his eyes.
Marisa swallowed. No, whoever this guy was, he definitely did not put her off either Greeks or Greece …
He was speaking again, she realised with a start, and made herself pay attention.
‘Having asked one favour of you already,’ he was saying, and his eyes were washing over her again, to the same devastating effect, ‘I am going to push my luck and ask another.’ He paused and looked down at her, a look of speculative questioning in his expression. ‘Are you at all interested in the theatre? I’ve come into possession of two tickets for a preview performance tonight of the Chekov that’s opening next week. Can I persuade you to keep me company?’
He was taking a gamble here. Athan knew that. Chekov might be the last thing to persuade her. But his surveillance records indicated that she had spent numerous evenings at the theatre, and that included any number of high brow plays. Tickets for the upcoming Chekov were like gold dust, and might be sufficient temptation for her.
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Julia James
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Stripped of her glittering façade…Athan Teodarkis knows her type well: women for whom designer dresses and priceless jewellery are paid for only in kind. But he’s never been distracted by one – until now. Suspecting his sister’s husband of having an affair with the dangerously beautiful Marisa Milburne, Athan determines to put a stop to it!Confident the Teodarkis millions will easily divert this gold-digger’s attentions, Athan has a simple plan: seduce, then discard. But, contrary to what the cynical Athan believes, shy Marisa is no home-wrecker, and her innocence is powerless to resist his vengeful seduction…‘A simmering tension which drew me in right from the start – another excellent novel from Julia James.’ – Victoria, Retired, Belfast