Kitabı oku: «Painted the Other Woman»
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
MILLS & BOON
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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.
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