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 of 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.
How could he do that to me? How could I fall for it? How can it hurt so much? How can it matter so much? How could I mind so much?
How, how, how …?
Anguish consumed her. Why had he not simply confronted her and told her she must have nothing more to do with Ian? Been up-front, honest—brutal from the start?
Not at the end. Not after luring her with soft words, false smiles …
False kisses …
And more, far more than kisses.
She lifted her head, staring sightlessly out over the kitchen. Once so familiar to her, now it was like an alien landscape. In front of her was not the cottage with its thick cob walls, its old fashioned cupboards and furniture, the smell of damp and mustiness.
Heat and blazing sun, and the lapping of azure waters, the feel of the sand beneath her feet and her heart full.
She felt her lungs tighten as though they must burst.
How could he do it to me? How?
How was it possible that he should have been able to take her in his arms, make love to her, and all the while it was just some cruel, calculating manoeuvre to get her out of his brother-in-law’s life?
Her tears dried on her cheeks, leaving dampened runnels and her expression like stone.
He deceived me from the very first—fooled me and conned me and lied to me. Lied in word and deed.
Grimly she stared blindly ahead. Lies, lies, lies. Foul, deceiving lies. Smiling while he lied. Kissing her while he lied. Making love to her while he lied.
She jumped to her feet as if to banish all the hot, angry, anguished thoughts from her head. Nothing could change what had happened. It was as if she’d swallowed a snake—a poisonous snake that was now biting at her with its fangs inside, injecting its venom into her blood.
Angrily she strode through the narrow corridor to the front door, seizing up her suitcases, and heading up the creaking stairs to her old bedroom. It was freezing upstairs, and the smell of damp prevailed. But what did she care? What did she care about anything any more?
He can go to hell! Go to hell and stay there!
Hatred seared through her as venomous as the poison in her veins, seeking only one target—Athan Teodarkis. The man who had brought her to this. Taken her to paradise—and then smashed her into the ground.
‘ATHAN—what’s happening? What’s going on?’
Eva’s voice down the phone line from London sounded strained. Athan could
