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
