by Julia James
‘I’m sorry,’ she began, ‘but I don’t know—’
‘I am Constantia Dimistris,’ the woman announced, in accented, haughty tones.
‘Dimistris?’ Vanessa echoed the name. Then, with a shock, she realised that she did, after all, recognise the woman. It had been a fleeting moment, but she was the older of the two women who had walked out of the lift at the hotel where that party had been held. The party where the odious Cosmos Dimistris had accosted her.
Dimistris? Was she something to do with that creep? Was this woman his wife? No, not his wife—she was a generation older—fifty rather than thirty. So—who?
‘I will not mince my words—I see no point in doing so.’
The woman was speaking in a tone that indicated that Vanessa was one of the unwashed masses. She had opened a red lacquer designer handbag and was taking out a piece of paper which she dropped on the coffee table.
‘It is post-dated,’ the woman informed her. ‘I am not unreasonable. I give you two weeks. That should be ample time.’
Vanessa swallowed again. What on earth was going on? Why was this middle-aged woman who might—or might not—be Cosmo Dimistris’s mother here? She picked up the piece of paper.
It was a cheque, made out for twenty-five thousand pounds, the payee name left blank.
‘I don’t understand,’ Vanessa said faintly.
The woman made an irritated noise in her throat.
‘Do not be obtuse. I do not wish to be here any longer than is necessary. You can see quite clearly what the amount on the cheque is, and the date. You will get not a penny more, I assure you, if that is what you are thinking of! That is simple enough to understand, no?’
Vanessa could only stare. This was quite mad. Was it something to do with Cosmo Dimistris’s horrible attentions to her?
‘Mrs Dimistris,’ she began, ‘if this is something to do with…with, um, Cosmo Dimistris—’
The woman’s eyes flashed in outrage.
‘What? Why do you mention my son?’ she demanded. ‘What have you been up to? Importuning him?’
She sounded so indignant that for a moment Vanessa wanted to slap her. So Cosmo was her son—and she had the nerve to think he had been the innocent party!
‘On the contrary,’ she said coldly. ‘Your son—as I take it he is—behaved in a manner that any woman would find despicable. I am sorry to say that, but it is true.’
The woman bridled. ‘How dare someone like you make such an accusation?’
Vanessa’s lips pressed together.
‘Because it was I who was on the receiving end! If you imagine it is pleasant to be invited to become a man’s mistress, to be sent an emerald bracelet as persuasion, then I assure you that you are mistaken!’
The woman’s bosom heaved and her eyes flashed.
‘You refused him?’ she demanded.
‘Of course I did!’ Vanessa retorted. She wanted the woman to go—and go now.
But Constantia Dimistris’s eyes only narrowed speculatively.
‘So you were already holding out for more. I should have known. Well!’ Her head reared up. ‘That cheque is the only money on the table—it will not be increased, whatever your wiles. And do not think that my son will repeat his offer. I happen to know that he has taken a very beautiful model to Mexico only last week!’ She announced this as if it were some kind of triumphant put-down for Vanessa.
A hysterical desire to laugh almost overcame Vanessa. It was like being in the middle of some bizarre farce.
But it was one entirely without humour. Whoever this woman was, whatever the reason she had barged in here, her words, attitude and behaviour were insupportable.
Vanessa held out the cheque.
‘Please take this back. I have no idea why you are trying to give it to me, and I must ask that you leave.’
She spoke in a quiet, dignified fashion. She would not reduce herself to the other woman’s level.
But she might as well have been speaking to herself. Constantia Dimistris’s face hardened, and she made no attempt either to take the cheque or to move.
‘You are insolent! But I did not come here to bandy words. I came here—which I need not have done, be assured!—simply to make your departure easier. To spare you—’ her expression did not match her words ‘—from the necessity of being given your marching orders by Markos Makarios.’
Vanessa’s face bleached.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
A look of cold pleasure showed in the woman’s eyes.
‘So you did not know? He has kept you in complete ignorance.’ The malice in her voice was quite open.
‘About?’ said Vanessa. Her arm, holding out the cheque, dropped to her side.
Constantia Dimistris lifted her chin and looked at her disdainfully, with mock pity in her eyes.
‘Your time is up. Very shortly you will need to seek a new protector. Hence my offer to expedite your departure.’ She nodded at the cheque hanging limply from Vanessa’s nerveless fingers.
Vanessa forced herself to speak. ‘I really have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.’
Malice—and satisfaction—mingled in the woman’s voice and eyes.
‘Allow me to enlighten you, in that case. In a very short space of time Markos Makarios will have no need of a mistress and will dispose of you. You see…’ there was a note of absolute satisfaction and triumph in her voice ‘…he will shortly be marrying my daughter.’
Pain. Grief. Despair. Laced together, like stitches running through a gaping wound in her flesh, with disbelief.
It couldn’t be true. What that horrible, horrible woman had thrown at her—it couldn’t be.
Markos, getting married. To a Greek girl, the daughter of that woman. The last ugly remnants of her visit rang in Vanessa’s ears. She had taken such malicious delight in telling Vanessa, and discovering her ignorance had seemed to elicit a particular relish. She had departed on an openly triumphant note.
‘You can ply your trade elsewhere from now on. The power of a mistress is nothing, nothing compared with the power of a wife! I know your sort.’ Her lip had curled sneeringly. ‘Opening your legs to every man and—’
‘Please leave.’ Vanessa’s voice had been level, but inside she’d been falling. Falling from the greatest height.
She had crossed to the front door and opened it, standing by it pointedly. For a moment the woman had simply stood, eyes flashing with malice and hostility, then she had swept forward, and out into the corridor beyond.
Vanessa had closed the door behind her, her whole body trembling. How she’d made it back to the sofa she did not know.
And all she’d been able to do was collapse on it and sit there, as she was torn apart.
Outside, the rain lashed down with pitiless ferocity.
After a long, long while, as the overcast daylight began to fail, she got slowly, very slowly, to her feet. She made her way into one of the spare bedrooms and opened the closet. Her suitcases were inside.
Lifting them as if they were dead weights, even though they were empty, she made her way to the master bedroom.
It took her a long time to pack.
Markos’s mobile rang. He answered it immediately.
‘Well?’ His voice barked harshly.
‘It wasn’t her, sir.’
‘You’re sure?’
Taki’s voice came over the ether, sounding studiedly neutral.
‘Kyrios Dimistris’s companion is a model by the name of Sylva Ramboulli.’ He paused for a fraction. ‘The agent there took photos of them together, if you wish to see them.’
‘No, damn you! But if she’s not with—’
His voice broke off, then resumed.
‘Keep looking,’ he said tersely. He didn’t wait for an answer, just cut the connection.
He sat at his desk, staring out across his vast office. Every muscle in his body was motionless, tense.
Three days. Three days since he’d
come back that evening to an apartment that had been strangely, eerily silent. Different.
He’d come back before when Vanessa hadn’t yet been back from whatever she did in the daytime. But it had not been the same. Something had been different the moment he’d walked in. He had felt it.
He’d gone into his bedroom to change out of his suit, and then taken a shower. It had been in the en suite bathroom as he was drying himself, that he’d noticed. It had looked—different. He’d gone back out into the bedroom. That had looked different too. For a moment he hadn’t been able to work out what it was, then it had registered. There was nothing on the bedside table on Vanessa’s side of the bed. Usually there was a book, or a tube of handcream. Maybe she’d had a tidying blitz.
He’d gone into the closet to select some clothes to relax in for the evening. He’d wanted a quiet evening in—the jet lag had been catching up with him, and he’d wanted nothing more than to relax and chill out.
Make his peace with Vanessa.
He shouldn’t have spoken to her like that, he knew it. Oh, not the message—the message had had to be got across—but he could have put it more gently. But her challenge to him had come out of the blue, he’d been totally unprepared for it. Hell, it was one he’d never expected Vanessa, of all women, to make! He’d thought he was safe with her—that she was different.
Well, she was different—six months of her had confirmed it. No other woman had ever been as devoted, as adoring as Vanessa. But it was exactly that devotion that had made him think that she would never try anything on with him.
Words had played in his memory. Leo at his schloss, putting his arm around his shoulder one morning, just before they set out on the day’s skiing trip. Speaking to him in a warning tone.
‘You’ve got a mistress in a million, but never forget, little cousin, that naivety can be as dangerous as cunning. Watch yourself with her.’
He’d only laughed. ‘How was your sable beauty last night? As good as she looks?’
Leo had dropped his arm immediately. His expression had been grim and his voice even harsher as he’d said, ‘Leave it.’
Markos had thrown up a hand. ‘OK, OK. You sort your own problems out.’
Leo’s eyes had flashed. ‘You may have some of your own,’ he’d thrown at him, and stalked off, bad mood clearly visible.
Markos had looked after him pityingly. He didn’t have problems, not with Vanessa. That was why he’d kept her so long. Because she never gave him any grief.
As the conversation had replayed itself in his memory, Markos had felt his expression harden. His cousin had been right. Vanessa’s naivety had proved a problem after all.
Because naivety, Markos knew, was what it was. What she’d thrown at him that morning after his return from Australia had not been an attempt at manipulation, an exercise in female cunning. He accepted that now. He hadn’t at the time. He’d gone into knee-jerk reaction, his brain out of kilter from jet lag, and laid into her. But even before he’d reached the office he’d begun regretting his reaction. He should have been easier on her. Spelt it out, yes. But not so brutally.
She was naïve, that was all. He’d hurt her. He’d seen it in her face.
It hadn’t made him feel good.
And he didn’t like not feeling good.
He’d decided he would get his PA to deliver flowers—a lot of flowers—and take that hurt look out of her face.
But he’d never got around to giving the instruction. The moment he’d walked into his office he’d been bombarded with a dozen more urgent things to attend to, and somewhere along the rest of the day he’d forgotten all about it. Instead, as Taki had driven him back to the apartment early that evening, he’d intended to take the hurt look out of her face in person. He’d sit her down, take her hand, and explain—kindly, gently, but firmly—why she must understand that he liked his life just the way it was. That she was the best mistress he’d ever had, that he really appreciated her, and that they would make it to the Caribbean the very first moment he could get away.
But to do all that she’d have had to be there. And she hadn’t. As he’d walked through into his closet to change into casual clothes he’d been on the edge of feeling a flicker of irritation at her. OK, so maybe she was just out buying a new dress, or getting her hair done or whatever—maybe she’d thought that wowing him that night would be the best way to get past the episode that morning—but her timing was bad. Here he was, all prepared to kiss and make up, and she wasn’t around.
He had walked into the closet—and stopped dead.
Definitely different. His eyes had raced round. There had still been a rackful of her clothes hanging on her side but it had looked thinner somehow. His eyes had gone to her vanity unit. It had been cleared of all her stuff. He didn’t know what the stuff was exactly, but it took up a lot of space: bottles and pots and tubes and God knew what. They hadn’t been there. Without realising what he was doing he had pulled open one of her drawers at random.
It had been empty.
He’d opened another one. That had had some designer lingerie in it, the next was empty again. He’d opened her shoe cupboard—again, there had been shoes there, but fewer of them. He’d stared a moment, then something else had registered. The pair of worn house-sandals she loved to wear—and that he always wanted her to throw away because they were so worn out—had gone.
Realisation had dawned through him—and relief. She’d had a clear-out. That was what she’d done. The typical reaction of a woman under stress—defragging her wardrobe so she could restock it.
The tension had ebbed from him, and as it had, he’d realised just how tense he’d been.
Light-hearted again, now that he’d figured what she’d done—of course she was still shopping to replace what she’d chucked out—he had changed into casual clothes and headed out to the lounge to help himself to a beer. He’d felt he needed one.
But by nine that evening he had realised he needed more than beer. He needed Vanessa—and she hadn’t come back yet. Relief had turned to irritation long ago, but now irritation was turning to concern.
By midnight concern had become a deep, gut-wrenching fear.
His entire personal security staff had been on the case by then, checking police and hospitals and taxi firms. The concierge who had summoned a taxi for her mid-afternoon had been grilled repeatedly, but had been able to give no more information. Nor had the taxi driver who’d been traced. He’d dropped Vanessa off in Oxford Street and that was that.
She’d been carrying a suitcase, but that hadn’t bothered Markos. It would simply have contained the clothes she was getting rid of. He already knew that she never threw stuff away—if he told her he’d gone off an outfit, she gave it to a charity shop.
By noon the next day however Markos had known, with a dull, bleak fury that the suitcase had not contained old clothes for charity shops.
Vanessa had run out on him.
When the realisation had finally dawned on him, when no other explanation was possible, despite his best effort to come up with one, his fury had been absolute. What the hell did she think she was playing at? Six months with him and she walked out without a word? Christos, he deserved better than that! OK, so he’d been a bit hard on her that last morning—but what the hell reason was that for flouncing out in a huff, for God’s sake? It was out of all proportion to react that badly!
Unless she’d needed an excuse to leave….
The thought had come like a cold knife-blade in his guts.
Cosmo Dimistris and his offer to take her over and fly her out to Mexico.
No! Every atom in his body had rejected the idea. This was Vanessa, not some ambitious, gold-digging chancer who traded protectors at the drop of her knickers! Nor was she an experienced sophisticate who selected men according to their bank balance and social circle. This was Vanessa. His Vanessa.
Who’d just walked out on him.
The knife had twisted savagely.
Griml
y, he’d ordered Taki to follow through on Cosmo Dimistris. If she had gone off to him, he’d… He didn’t know what he’d do, but it would be savage. As savage as the feelings stabbing through him.
But it wasn’t her with Cosmo in Mexico. The relief he felt as he disconnected was brief. Where the hell was she?
And why the hell had she gone?
His security team had turned up nothing. Nothing at all. He’d cursed them for incompetents, then accepted that they had nothing, after all, to go on. Her last sighting had been in Oxford Street, late afternoon, the day he’d arrived back from Australia.
Since then Vanessa had disappeared off the face of the earth.
Markos had ordered his team to leave no stone unturned, but when he’d been asked for mundane details, like her home address, place of birth, date of birth, he’d realised, with a strange, chill feeling, that he hadn’t the faintest idea. In the early days, in Paris, Vanessa had talked of her background and family circumstances, but she hadn’t, to his best recollection, mentioned the town she’d grown up in, or given her address. His security team had had to start from scratch with her name, tracing it through electoral rolls and registers of births. They’d found an address for her, all right, but it was no longer valid. It hadn’t been since before Christmas. The house had been sold early in December, and though the new owners had given him the name of the conveyancing solicitors, the latter had no address for the seller other than that of the house itself and, ironically, the address of his own Chelsea apartment. Enquiries of neighbours and all other possible avenues had given no information as to where Vanessa might now be.
No one knew.
Least of all him.
He went on staring out over his office.
Keep looking, he’d told Taki. But was there any point? Vanessa had gone because she’d wanted to go, that was all.
She’d had no good reason, but she’d gone all the same.
Gone.
The word went through Markos’s brain again.
Gone.
It was a very final word.