Painted the Other Woman

by Julia James

  Faintness drummed at her.

  From somewhere very deep inside her she found words. Each one was pulled from her like knives from wounded flesh. Costing her more than she could pay.

  ‘It was all a set-up?’

  Her eyes were huge, her face stark, skin stretched over bones, white as alabaster.

  It gave her an unearthly beauty …

  Anger rived through him again. Anger that she should look so beautiful.

  It was a beauty he could never possess again … barred to him for ever.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was all a set-up.’ He paused—a fatal pause. ‘Nothing more than that.’

  Nothing more than that …

  The words tolled in his head like a funeral bell. Killing everything.

  She was staring at him, still as a whitened corpse.

  Nausea rose in her throat. ‘Get out—’ Her voice was a breath, a shaking rasp.

  The steel bands bit into him, constricting like a crushing weight around him. He had more he had to say—must force himself to say.

  ‘This is what you will do.’ He spoke tersely, without emotion. Because emotion was far too dangerous. He had to crush it out of him. ‘You will sever entirely all relations with Ian Randall. You will have nothing more to do with him. You will stay out of his life—permanently. Give him whatever reasons you want—but be aware that if you do not part from him—permanently—then I will give him a reason to sever relations.’ He paused—another fatal pause. ‘He will know what you have been to me.’

  She swallowed. She could feel nausea—more than nausea—climbing in her throat. She fought it down—had to fight it down. Had to.

  ‘Do you understand?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Is that clear?’

  She nodded. He would not go, she knew, until he had obtained what he had come for.

  What he had always planned to obtain …

  No! She must not think of that—must not let the realisation of what he’d done to her explode in her brain. Not now—not yet. She stood very still, holding herself together. She was beyond speech, beyond everything.

  He exhaled a sharp breath. He had done what he had set out to do. He had done it and now there was nothing else for him to do. Nothing but to do what she had told him to do—to go.

  ‘I’ll see myself out.’ His voice was clipped, back in control.

  He turned and walked towards the door, seizing up his suitcase from the hall beyond. His hand closed over the handle to the front door. For a moment, the barest moment, he seemed to freeze—as if … as if …

  Then, abruptly, he yanked open the door and was gone.

  Behind him, Marisa went on standing. Staring at where once he had been. Then slowly, very slowly, she sank down upon the sofa.

  Burning with pain.

  Athan strode down the corridor. His face was closed. His mind was closed. Every part of him was closed. Shut down like a nuclear reactor that had gone into meltdown and was now so dangerous only total closure could keep it from devastating all around it.

  He must keep it that way. That was what was important. Essential. Keeping everything closed down.

  As he descended in the lift, walked across the lobby, out into the road, reached for his mobile phone to summon a chauffeured company car to take him back to his own apartment, words went round in his head.

  It’s done.

  That was all he had to remember.

  Not Marisa at his side, his arm wrapped around her shoulder as they walked along the beach at sunset, the coral sand beneath their bare feet, the foaming wavelets washing them as they walked, and the majestic blaze of the sun sinking into the gilded azure sea.

  Not Marisa beneath the stars, her beautiful swan neck stretched as she lifted her starlit face, her hair cascading like silk down her back, as he pointed out constellations to her. Not the sudden tightening in his loins as he framed her face with his hands, cupping her head, lowering his mouth to hers, lowering her body to the waiting sand beneath …

  Not Marisa with her arms around him, her beauteous naked body pressed to his, crying out in ecstasy …

  He wrenched his mind away, his hand around his suitcase handle clenching like steel.

  He went on walking, with the biting winter all around him.

  Inside him.

  Marisa was packing. One suitcase was packed already. She’d packed it on another continent, in another lifetime. The suitcase she was packing now was a new acquisition—one she’d bought that morning, from the nearest shop that sold luggage. Methodically, unthinkingly, she opened drawers, took out clothes, folded them into the suitcase. It didn’t matter what order they went in—any order would do. It mattered only that she went on folding and packing. Folding and packing. Once the drawers were empty she moved on to the closet, performing the same office with its contents.

  There were some other things as well as clothes, but those could follow later. She would box them up and have them sent on. Things like the pretty ornaments she’d acquired during her time in London, souvenirs, books, CDs. Bits and pieces.

  Everything else stayed with the flat—all the kitchen goods, all the furniture, all the bedding. All she was taking were her clothes and her personal effects.

  And memories.

  She couldn’t get rid of those. They were glued inside her head. With a glue that ate like acid into her brain.

  But they were false memories. Every one of them. False because they had never happened. Because the man in the memories was not the man she had thought he was.

  Her throat convulsed. Whatever her wariness over him, over what he wanted of her, she had thought she was at the least a romantic interlude for him—someone to while away a Caribbean idyll with, share a passionate affair with, enjoying their time together however transient. But she hadn’t even been that. Not even that.

  A lie—the whole thing had been a lie. A lie from the moment he’d asked her to keep the lift doors open for him. A set-up. Staged, managed, manipulated. Fake from the very first moment. With no purpose other than to bring her to the point she was now—cast out of Ian’s life.

  Because there was no going back—she knew that. She could never be any part of Ian’s life now. Not even the fragile, insecure part that she had once so briefly been.

  His wife is Athan’s sister … Ian is his brother-in-law …

  She hadn’t known—hadn’t guessed—hadn’t suspected in a million years. And obviously Ian had not thought it necessary for her to know that his wife’s brother was Athan Teodarkis, because it would mean nothing to her—why should it?

  But it didn’t matter, she thought tiredly. It didn’t matter who had known or not known who was what to whom. All that mattered now was that Athan Teodarkis—Ian’s wife’s brother—knew about her—knew what she was to Ian.

  Anguish writhed inside her.

  Why didn’t Athan just confront me straight off? It was all he had to do. If he knew about Ian and me he could just have threatened to expose me. Why did he do what he had gone and done?

  The answer was bleak and brutal. The method Athan Teodarkis had chosen was far more effective. Far more certain.

  He’d been right about that. She was out of Ian’s life now—and she would stay out. Nothing else was possible now. Nothing at all …

  Unthinkingly, methodically, she went on with her packing.

  The intercom on Athan’s desk flashed repeatedly, and his secretary’s voice, when she spoke, sounded flustered and apologetic.

  ‘Kyrios Teodarkis—I am so sorry! It is Kyria Eva’s husband! He insists on seeing you. I told him you had a board meeting in ten minutes, but—’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Athan interrupted her. ‘I’ll see him.’ His voice was grim. So was his expression. He had half expected this. Ian Randall would not lightly give up his intended mistress.

  Who would give up Marisa Milburne? So beautiful, so passionate a woman.

  The familiar guillotine sliced down over his thoughts. It had been much in use these past da
ys. Slicing down ruthlessly on so many thoughts—so many memories. But he would allow himself none of them—not a single one. Their indulgence was forever barred to him. His eyes hardened. He would not allow his feckless, faithless brother-in-law to indulge himself any longer with his forbidden fruit.

  I had to give her up—so must he!

  His expression was still reflecting the savagery of his thoughts as Ian swept in. He looked agitated and launched straight in.

  ‘Athan—what the hell is this about? Neil Mackay says it comes from you, but I don’t understand why. Why do you want me at your HQ?’

  Athan sat back. He appeared unperturbed by the outburst. ‘It’s time you moved on. And up. It’s promotion, Ian—aren’t you pleased?’

  His tone was equable. He would keep this civil—or his sister would get wind of a fracas between him and her husband and get upset.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Ian said disbelievingly. ‘You’ve no call to promote me!’ He paused, eyes narrowing. ‘This is about Eva, isn’t it? You think it will please her to be back in Athens.’

  Athan’s gaze levelled on him. ‘Eva’s happiness is paramount to me.’ He paused. ‘Never forget that.’ He paused again, and when he spoke, it carried the message he intended it to. ‘After all—’ his voice was limpid ‘—it was because it made her happy that I let her marry you.’

  Colour mounted in his brother in law’s face. ‘And you’ve never forgiven me for marrying her, have you?’

  Athan’s gaze never dropped. ‘Providing you don’t hurt her, or upset her, I … tolerate you.’

  He watched glacially as the colour flared out across his brother-in-law’s handsome face. The face of a man who helped himself to whatever he wanted in life—smiling, charming, selfish, self-indulgent. He’d charmed Eva, wooed her, and ended up persuading her to marry him.

  And proved himself faithless within two years of their wedding.

  Silently Athan cursed his unwanted brother-in-law. Cursed the life-long intimacy between their families—Sheila Randall’s all-but-adoption of his then teenaged sister. He cursed Sheila’s son for getting anywhere near the impressionable, vulnerable Eva so disastrously eager to fall in love with his golden looks and easy charm.

  Cursed him for having used those same golden looks and easy charm to work their damage on yet another woman—on Marisa …

  ‘You … tolerate me?’ Ian’s voice cut through his litany of inner curses.

  ‘That’s very good of you, Athan. Very … generous. But maybe—’ now there was something different in his voice that made Athan’s eyes narrow ‘—maybe I’m tired of your tolerance. Tired of your generosity. Tired of it being known that as Athan Teodarkis’s brother-in-law no wonder I’m a board director, no wonder I get sent off on plush secondments to the West Coast, with instructions to take holidays in Hawaii to keep my wife happy—my boss’s sister.’ He took a step forward. ‘Maybe it’s time to tell you I can live without your tolerance, your generosity!’

  Athan’s gaze skewered him. ‘And maybe—’ his voice cracked like a whip, all civility gone now ‘—you’ll do exactly what I say you will. Or would you rather—’ he bit out each word ‘—I tell Eva about Marisa Milburne.’

  Ian Randall froze. Before Athan’s eyes the other man’s face paled. ‘How the hell do you know about Marisa?’ he demanded.

  Athan spread his hands out on his desk. ‘Don’t take me for an idiot. You installed her in a flat in Holland Park.’

  ‘You bastard,’ Ian breathed. ‘You spied on me.’

  ‘Like I said—don’t take me for an idiot.’ Athan’s voice was caustic.

  ‘And you would actually be prepared to tell Eva about her?’ Ian said in a hollow tone.

  Athan’s lasering gaze never left his brother-in-law’s face. ‘I won’t have to. Marisa Milburne is no longer in your flat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. She’s gone. Cleared out.’ He paused. ‘Presumably,’ he said deliberately, his eyes like slate, ‘she’s selected another wealthy lover to beguile …?’

  He saw Ian’s face freeze again. But this time there was something in his frozen gaze that Athan could not identify. Then slowly, as if the ice was thawing, his brother-in-law turned and headed for the door. As he reached it, he turned. His face was like marble.

  ‘You’ll have my letter of resignation on your desk tomorrow morning.’

  Then he was gone.

  Almost, Athan charged after him. Charged after him to seize his shoulders and shake him like the rat he was. But he wouldn’t soil himself on the man. As for his threatened resignation—he’d never do it. The position he had was far too cushy a number. And if he tried to go it alone, escape from Athan’s scrutiny—necessary scrutiny, as he’d amply demonstrated—Eva would kick up. She wouldn’t want any bad feeling between her husband and her brother.

  Grimly, Athan made himself sit back in his chair, his face like thunder. Let Ian rush out and vent his spleen! Do whatever the hell he wanted. Anger bit through him. Damn the man—damn him and double damn him!

  Angrily, he swung in his chair, his eyes stormy, unforgiving. If Eva’s philandering husband had had the slightest moral backbone Marisa Milburne would never now be plaguing him the way she was.

  Never haunting him the way she was.

  Filling his memory. Tormenting him.

  Tormenting him with wanting her. That was the damnation of it—the thing he was trying to crush out of his mind, his memory. Because what was the point of letting it torment him? There was nothing he could do about it—nothing. He had to accept that. He’d decided on his strategy to ensure that his wretched, faithless brother-in-law would be severed from the woman who had beguiled him, and now he had to abide by the consequences of that strategy.

  But I didn’t think it would be like this.

  That was the devil of it. He’d never for a moment imagined that he’d be left feeling like this.

  Cheated. That was the word. The emotion. Cheated of a woman who’d turned out to be someone not just easy to seduce but … memorable. Memorable in so many ways. All of them incredible.

  Cheated … The word twisted in his head again. He knew it was a pointless word—a pointless emotion for him to feel. He’d gone into this with his eyes open, his mind made up, his strategy planned and flawlessly executed. He had succeeded completely, achieved his aim, finished his mission. It should be the end of the story. It was—for her and Ian. But not for him.

  I still want her. I want her, and I don’t want it to be the end. I want to have her back again

  I can’t. It’s as simple as that—and as brutal. I seduced her to take her away from Ian—not for myself. It was never about her, it was only about Eva.

  Moodily, he stared ahead of him, seeing not his plush office but the silver sand beach, the swaying palms, the turquoise sea. And Marisa.

  Always Marisa.

  Tormenting him.

  Slowly, Marisa climbed out of the taxi and handed the driver the fare. It was a horribly large amount, and in her pre-Ian days she would never have dreamt of taking a taxi from the railway station some twenty miles away. She would have waited for the local bus, which ran four times a day and no more, and then got out at the village and walked the remaining mile up to the cottage. But now she could afford the luxury of a taxi from the station—all thanks to Ian.

  But she mustn’t think about Ian. Not now. Ian belonged to a world she had never been part of—not even on the fringes, where she had clung. Athan Teodarkis had prised her from where she had been so hopelessly clinging. She should be glad of it—glad that he had shown her with callous brutality just how much she was not any part of that world.

  She looked about her as the taxi turned around and headed back down the narrow lane, out of sight. She shivered. Winter still clutched the land, making the air clammy with cold, and the bare trees shivered in the chill wind that blew off the moor. It was dank and drear, and the late afternoon was losing its light, closing down the day. In front o
f her the cottage looked forlorn and ramshackle. A slate had come loose, she could see, and water dripped from a leaf-blocked gutter. The garden looked sodden, with the remnants of last autumn’s leaves turned a mushy brown on the pathway to the front door.

  With a heavy sigh and a heavier heart she heaved up her suitcases and the bag of groceries she’d bought and opened the creaking wooden gate. She walked up to the front door. As it opened to her key the smell of damp assailed her. Inside was colder than outside. She gave another shiver, set down her cases, and went through to the kitchen with the carrier bag. The ancient range was stone-cold, not lit since the day she had left for London months before. The cob walls and small windows made it darker than ever, and she turned on the electric light—which only showed up the dust on the kitchen table, illuminated the dead flies on the windowsill.

  Depression closed around her like a cold, tight blanket. Numbly, she went about the tasks required to make the cottage habitable: turning on the fridge and putting the fresh food away in it, relighting the range, wiping down the dusty surfaces, trying to keep her mind on the mundane tasks, not on anything else. Not on the empty dreariness of the cottage, on the bleakness in her heart.

  The cottage was so empty—so absolutely and totally empty. Grief filled her—grief for the mother no longer there, her absence palpable. Grief for Ian, whose life she could no longer be even the barest part of.

  And grief for something else—something that she dared not allow lest it consume her.

  Overwhelmed, she felt her throat tightening, the emotion welling up inside her, and she sank down on one of the kitchen chairs, her head sinking on her folded arms. Hot, shaking sobs filled her. She cried out all her loneliness, all her grief. And one more emotion too. Fiercer, sharper—like a needle flashing in and out of her, over and over again, weaving through her in a thousand piercings. Questions, accusations—self-accusations—tumbled about in her. Jumbled and jostled and fought for air.