Painted the Other Woman Read online

  She didn’t know much about him personally—but then they weren’t really talking about personal things. She was glad. She obviously couldn’t discuss Ian, but she also didn’t want to talk about her life in Devon. It was behind her now—she would not be going back. She felt a little flush go through her. Besides, Athan Teodarkis clearly saw her as a young woman of independent means, who lived in a plush apartment and wore expensive clothes. What would he think of her if he knew she’d been brought up in a run down cottage by an impoverished single mother who’d struggled to keep their heads above water?

  But all that was a universe away from the way she lived now. She looked about her at the beautiful, expensive restaurant serving the most exquisite food, looked at the man she was lunching with, who headed up his own personal international company and casually talked about going to places in private jets and chauffeur-driven cars, and having an army of minions at his disposal. His sunglasses had a famous logo on them and his gold wristwatch was, she knew, a priceless heirloom. Athan Teodarkis had rich written all over him …

  Sleek, assured, cosmopolitan, sophisticated.

  Devastating …

  A little thrill went through her. A susurration of awareness that of all the women in the world he could be choosing to spend his Sunday with it was her.

  This was no one-off, no convenient using up of a theatre ticket. This was, she knew with a flutter of butterflies in her stomach, a genuine invitation to her personally. Because he wanted her company.

  It was the only conclusion she could come to—and she came to the same conclusion over the following week, when he took her to a concert at the Royal Festival Hall and a production of Twelfth Night.

  And invited himself to dinner at her flat.

  She could hardly refuse, since she’d tacitly agreed that it was to be the way she would return all the dining out she’d done with him—not to mention the theatre tickets. Even so, she was very nervous. And not just because she had no idea what to cook that a man like him could possibly want to eat. Her culinary skills were entirely basic.

  She admitted as much to his face, and was relieved when he smiled.

  ‘Actually, I was hoping you might see your way to a traditional English roast,’ he said.

  ‘I think I can stretch to that,’ she said, adding hopefully, ‘How do you feel about apple crumble for pudding?’ Along with roast dinners, pies and pastries were the one thing her mother had taught her.

  ‘Crumble?’ he quizzed.

  ‘Pastry without water!’ she exclaimed. ‘Loads easier!’

  So it proved—and so did the rest of the meal, including the company. She’d done her best to provide a traditional English roast, and he certainly seemed very appreciative of it. For herself, though, her stomach was full of butterflies—and not because she was worried the meal was not up to his standards.

  It was because he was sitting at the dining table in her apartment and there was no one else around. Oh, she could tell herself all she liked that she was behaving with him no differently than if he hadn’t been a drop-dead gorgeous male who raised her heart-rate just by quirking his half-smile at her, but she knew it wasn’t true. Knew that for all her deliberately dressing in a cowl-necked jumper and jeans, with minimal make-up and her hair in a casual ponytail, she was all too aware that Athan Teodarkis was having a powerful impact on her.

  Knew that she was having an increasingly hard time in keeping that awareness at bay, and was wondering just why she had to …

  By strength of will she managed to get through to the end of the meal, keeping up a semblance of unresponsiveness to him, behaving outwardly as if he weren’t having the kind of impact on her that he was. She wasn’t sure just why she felt it was so vital to do so, only knew that it was.

  I can’t lower my guard—I just can’t!

  But it was getting harder—much, much harder.

  Out in the kitchen after the apple crumble—which she’d served with custard and clotted cream and had had the satisfaction of seeing him polish off up, though just where it had gone on his lean, powerful frame she had no idea—he tackled the fearsome coffee machine, calling her over to explain the mechanism to her.

  She was far too close to him. Far too close, his hand was pointing out the controls, his shoulders were almost brushing hers, his hip jutting against hers. His face was far too close as he turned to explain something to her. She jerked away, pulse leaping.

  Had he noticed? Noticed the way she had drawn away and started to gabble something to cover her nerves? Something about how she loved cappuccino but hated espresso. She didn’t think he had—or at any rate, he didn’t show that he had, and that was what was important. That he didn’t think she was getting ideas about him.

  Flustered, she busied herself retrieving coffee cups from one of the cupboards and setting the tray. She carried the tray through and set it down on the coffee table, sat herself squarely on the armchair, leaving the whole expanse of the sofa opposite for him. No way was she going to let him think she wanted him up close and personal beside her.

  Did he smile faintly as he saw where she’d sat herself? She wasn’t sure and didn’t want to think about it. Wanted only, as they drank coffee accompanied by music of her choice—some brisk, scintillating Vivaldi, definitely nothing soft and romantic—to get to a point where she could smother a yawn, thank him for coming and wait for him to take his leave.

  Because that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Of course it was! Anything else was unthinkable—quite unthinkable. Unthinkable to covertly watch him drinking his coffee—rich and fragrant now that it was no longer instant—with one long leg crossed casually over another, his light blue cashmere sweater stretched across his chest so that she could almost discern the outline of his honed pecs and broad shoulders, his sable hair glinting in the lamplight, and the faintest dark shadow along his jawline that made her out of nowhere wonder what it would feel like to ease her fingertips along its chiselled line …

  She blinked, horrified at herself.

  This had to stop, right now! She mustn’t start getting ideas—ideas that involved her and Athan Teodarkis up close and personal. The trouble was, that was exactly what was happening as they sat there, chatting about this and that, with him so obviously relaxed, like a cat that had dined well, and her curled up on the wide armchair opposite, with good red Burgundy coursing slowly through her veins and the low light from the table lamps, and the Vivaldi now changing to something a lot slower, more meditative and soothing …

  Seductive …

  He was looking at her, his dark, opaque eyes resting on her, with a veiled expression in them. Conversation seemed to have died away, desultory as it was, and Marisa tried to make a show of listening to the music.

  Not looking at Athan.

  Not taking in the way the light and shadow played with the planes of his features, the way his broad shoulders were moulding to the deep cushions of the sofa, or the way his long, jeans-clad legs seemed lean and lithe, how his fingers were curled around the coffee cup, shaping it as if they were cupping her face …

  There was a knot inside her. A knot of intense feeling like a physical sensation. As if she couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything except sit there, her hands splayed on the wide arms of the chair, her breathing shallow, her heart tumbling around inside her.

  His eyes held hers, and her own eyes widened—dilated. Something changed in his. Flared with sudden light.

  She jack-knifed to her feet.

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ she exclaimed, her voice slightly too high-pitched. ‘I … I think I left the oven on. I can’t remember turning it off when I took out the apple crumble. What an idiot I am! I’d better go and check—’

  She hurried out to the kitchen. She hadn’t left the oven on. She knew she hadn’t. But she’d had to break the moment. Had to stop what was starting to happen. Because …

  Because—

  Because if he stays …

  But she mustn’t think about what wou
ld happen if he stayed. Must only head back into the sitting room, smile brightly and say how late it was.

  Which she did. And she stayed standing, making it pointedly obvious that she expected Athan to stand likewise. Which he did. But she was all too aware he did so with a kind of suppressed amusement, as if he knew perfectly well why she’d suddenly become so animated and hyper. He strolled towards the door, pausing when he got there. She trotted after him, mouthing politenesses which he replied to with an appropriate murmur. But when he turned back to her she could see, quite disastrously, that glint in his eye.

  ‘Sleep well,’ he said.

  His voice was low, and his accent more pronounced. Or maybe she was just more sensitive to it.

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ Her reply was staccato. More high pitched than her normal voice. She felt wired, with adrenaline coursing through her. Why didn’t he go? Walk out the door?

  Stop looking at her like that.

  For one long, endless moment he seemed to be just letting his gaze rest on her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking—knew only that if it was what she thought he was thinking he could just un-think it. Because—well, just because, that was all.

  She’d think about why afterwards. But not now. Definitely not now when, as if in slow motion, she saw his hand reach out towards her, felt his fingers graze her cheek, so lightly, so incredibly and devastatingly lightly. It was a moment only—scarcely there, hardly enough time to register it. But it made her skin glow, and even after his hand had dropped away it was as if he was still touching her.

  He smiled. A deep, amused smile. Still holding her helpless gaze.

  Almost she went to him—almost she took that tiny fatal half-step towards him. She knew with absolute, searing certainty that he would draw her to him and lower his mouth to hers …

  Almost—

  But not quite.

  Summoning all her failing strength, she stepped away. ‘Goodnight,’ she said.

  Long lashes swept down over his eyes, veiling his regard. The glint was gone. Vanished. ‘Goodnight,’ he answered. His voice was nothing more than polite now—cool, even. Then, with a brief nod of his head, he was gone.

  Outside in the corridor, with her apartment door firmly shut, he strode down towards his own flat. His face was closed. Troubled.

  He wanted her. He knew that. Impossible to deny it. He desired the beautiful, demurely alluring woman who was Marisa Milburne. Desired her whether or not she was anything at all to do with his brother-in-law’s lamentable weakness of character.

  Oh, he’d known from the first moment of seeing her photo that it would be no hardship to him to seduce her for his own purposes. But with every encounter with her, every date, he’d come to know more and more that he was wishing she had never got herself mixed up with Ian. And not just for his sister’s sake.

  It was for his own.

  I want her for myself—with no other complications, no strategy or plots or machinations or ulterior motives.

  Heaviness filled him. It didn’t matter what he wanted for himself, he thought savagely. What he did he did for Eva. That was what he had to remember. That was all he had to remember.

  And time was running out. He would have only a brief window while Ian and Eva were away together in the USA to achieve his aim of seducing Marisa Milburne and taking her away from his brother-in-law.

  Which was why he was now, two days after the Sunday roast in her apartment, sitting here in a restaurant off Holland Park Avenue, waiting for her to open the white envelope he’d proffered.

  Marisa was still gazing down at it. She’d accepted the dinner invitation only with reluctance. She had to stop this. She really did. She was getting in too deep.

  She had managed the previous day, right after her dangerous dinner à deux with Athan Teodarkis in her apartment, finally to meet up with Ian for lunch. His face had told her what she’d dreaded hearing.

  ‘I have to go to San Francisco. I can’t get out of it. There’s no one else that can handle it, and I’ve had my marching orders from the top.’

  Her face had fallen. ‘How long for, do you think?’

  ‘I’m not sure—at least a week, probably more,’ he’d said apologetically. ‘The thing is …’ He took a breath, looked even more apologetic. ‘Eva’s got the idea of turning it into a holiday—flying on from SF to Hawaii. So I could easily be away three weeks or more.’

  Even as he’d said ‘Hawaii’ she’d felt a pang of envy dart through her.

  Hawaii … tropical beaches … palm trees … silver sand …

  But it would not be her there. She was stuck in London—where the weather had turned vicious. The bright but cold sunshine that had filled the Holland Park Orangery had given way to a miserable, dull and biting cold, with a low cloud base and an icy wind. Spring seemed a long way off. Even just getting out of the cab when she and Athan had arrived at the restaurant had set the wind whipping around her stockinged legs. Now she sat with her legs slanted against the radiator against which their table was situated.

  ‘Well?’ prompted Athan, indicating the envelope. There was an expression in his eyes she could not read.

  It looked, she thought curiously, like anticipation.

  She turned her attention back to the envelope he so wanted her to open. Carefully she slit it with a table knife and shook out the contents. As she did so, her eyes widened.

  ‘You said you wanted a tropical beach,’ she heard him murmur.

  But she was gazing, rapt, at the leaflet that was lying there. A palm tree, an azure sea, a silvered beach, and in the background a low-rise, thatch-roofed resort, fronted by a vast swimming pool even more azure than the lapping sea.

  Projecting from the leaflet were two airline tickets.

  ‘Come with me,’ said Athan.

  His voice was soft. Intimate. Persuasive.

  Marisa lifted her head to look at him—and drowned.

  Drowned in what she saw in his eyes, unmasked, unveiled …

  Her lips parted, the breath stilling in her throat.

  Her hand was taken, folded into his. It was the first time he’d touched her so deliberately—only in that first, formal raising of her hand to his lips, that faint, brief grazing of his fingertips against her cheek, had he ever made contact with her. But this—this warm, strong hand-clasp—seemed to envelop her whole being, not just her hand lying there inert, helpless in his grasp.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said again. ‘Be with me.’

  Emotion rushed through her like heady wine in her veins. Like a cloud of butterflies suddenly taking flight inside her. His clasp strengthened and his thumb stroked along the edge of her palm. Intimately. Possessively.

  His eyes poured into hers. So dark, so deep, flecked with gold that glinted in the candlelight, that drowned her, sweeping her away.

  His thumb indented into the soft flesh of her palm. She could feel its pressure, feel the power of his touch—its persuasion.

  ‘Say yes—it’s all I ask.’

  Hadn’t she always known this must happen? Hadn’t she felt it from the moment she’d set eyes on him? Hadn’t her heart skipped and her blood pulsed, her breath caught? Hadn’t she known every time she’d been with him that this was what she wanted—dreamt of—desired?

  He saw her yielding. Saw her features soften, her eyes fill with a lambent lustre that told him everything he wanted to know. Triumph filled him. He had got her—finally. She would not refuse him now. She would not continue to hold him at bay, to treat him as if he were forbidden fruit. Now she would yield to him—taste the fruit he offered her.

  And he—oh, he would do likewise. He would take this time with her and make her his own. Put aside, even if only for a brief few weeks, all his worries about his sister and her troubled marriage, put aside all his fears for her, his doubts about her fickle husband.

  For now—just for now—he would do what every moment with Marisa had confirmed to him. That what he wanted was her—all to himself.

 
Away from everything that cast a damning shadow over her.

  Just the two of them—together.

  Only that.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘WHAT do you think? Worth the long-haul flight?’

  The familiar note of amusement was in Athan’s voice as he posed his question. He knew what the answer would be. Had known it from the moment they’d landed, stepped out into the balmy, tropical heat seven thousand miles south west from bleak, icy London. Knew it now, as they stood side by side on the little wooden veranda of their beachside cabana.

  Marisa turned to gaze at him. ‘How can you ask?’ she breathed. Then she turned back again. Back to look at the scene in front of her.

  It was exactly like the photo in the brochure—but real. And she was here—here in the middle of it all! Like a dream—a wonderful, exotic dream.

  And the Caribbean beach—silver sanded, backed with palms swaying in the gentle calypso breeze that rustled the scarlet hibiscus and the fragrant frangipani blooms—was not the only dream come true.

  So was the man at her side.

  She could feel her breath catch as it had caught over and over again during their journey here, cocooned in first class seats. Her eyes had been wide with the excitement not just of travelling abroad for the first time, or because it was first class, with all the pandering and luxury that came with it, but most of all because of the man sitting beside her.

  She had made the right decision in accepting his invitation to come here. She knew it—felt it. For how could it be otherwise? How could she possibly have resisted what he’d offered her? The question was rhetorical; her answer was a given. It was impossible to resist Athan Teodarkis! Impossible to resist his invitation—both to this wonderful holiday with him and, she thought, with a shiver of quivering awareness, to what else he was inviting.

  There had been, it was true, a momentary pang when she’d thought of Ian—but it had been swiftly quenched. Ian was far away—and if her alternative was to stay languishing in London, without him, what was to hold her there when she might be here … on this palm-fringed tropical beach?