Painted the Other Woman

by Julia James

  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.

  T
hen 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.