to know a hell of a lot more …
She walked up to him. She had nerve, he gave her that. Or perhaps it was her lover’s presence that was giving her confidence. Not that there was any sign of Ian, or his car.
His voice, harsh and rough, cut through the chilly air.
‘Where is he?’ It was a curt demand, and he wanted an answer.
She stopped dead. Absently, Athan wondered at her appearance. She looked totally different from the way he was used to seeing her. She had a baggy pair of trousers on, mud-spattered boots, and a voluminous anorak that was as unflattering as it was obscuring of her figure. Her hair was sopping wet, and dragged back off her head with a clip. She looked a sodden mess.
But her face—her face was as breathtaking as ever. Her eyes, flashing with anger, were luminous, her mouth kissed by the rain …
‘He’s gone.’ Her voice was as curt as his. She knew exactly who Athan meant. Knew exactly why he was here. Anger spiked in her, because it was obvious that the only way Athan Teodarkis could have known where his brother-in-law had gone was if he’d had him tailed.
‘Didn’t your spies spot him heading back to London?’ she threw at him caustically.
Athan’s face tightened. No, they hadn’t—or at least he hadn’t had a report to that effect. He’d told them to keep a discreet distance—presumably it had been too discreet. But even so the point was clear. Despite everything he’d said to Ian, the man had still come chasing after his mistress like a dog on heat …
He strode towards her.
She flinched, but held her ground. Shock waves were detonating through her, but she had to ignore them. Had to ignore more than just the shock of seeing Athan Teodarkis, tall, forbidding and grim-visaged, here outside her home. The juxtaposition was jarring. Athan Teodarkis didn’t belong here in this rural backwater, in this bleak, stark landscape dripping with the dregs of winter. But, however jarring, it was not that which was consuming her self-control.
Emotions were hurtling through her—tumbling and overwhelming her.
Athan! Athan here—now! Right in front of her! So close … his presence overpowering her senses.
She almost reeled from the impact of it.
I didn’t think I would ever see him again!
But he was here, and she could feel her treacherous blood leaping in her veins, emotion pouring through her …
She had to subdue it—had to make herself realise that he was here for one reason and one reason only. Because Ian had come to her. That was all. That was why he was here—angry. Accusing.
But this time her conscience was clear. His accusations could reach no target—none.
‘So whatever you think you’re doing here—you can clear off!’ she said. ‘He isn’t here.’
His eyes narrowed—eyes that had once looked at her with hot, melting desire … now filled only with cold anger.
‘But he came here all the same.’
Her chin lifted. ‘And now he’s gone—for good.’
Athan stilled. ‘Did you tell him about us?’
Marisa’s lip curled in scorn. ‘Of course I didn’t.’
No, thought Athan, of course you didn’t. You wouldn’t want him to know how easily I seduced you … took you away from him.
He smiled in grim satisfaction. His anger was ebbing now. Anger fuelled by much more than fury at his philandering brother in law. Fuelled by a far more powerful impulse. The impulse that had brought him here, powering down the motorway relentlessly, as driven as the car bringing him here. Driven by a force he could no longer suppress—no longer wanted to suppress.
He nodded at the cottage. ‘I need to talk to you—and not out here.’ He stamped his feet. His Italian leather handmade shoes were fine for the city. Not fine for a cold evening in the wilds.
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’ Marisa’s voice was still curt. Shock was still detonating through her.
He looked at her. In the dusk his expression was saturnine. ‘But I,’ he told her, ‘have something to say to you.’ His expression changed slightly. ‘You look frozen,’ he said.
For a moment the breath caught in her throat. There had been concern in his voice—caring.
The way he’d once sounded when he spoke to her …
Brutal truth sliced down, forcing open her throat. He’d lied to her from the beginning—lied with every caring, affectionate, casual word. That was what she must remember.
Not the way he used to look at her—the way his mouth would quirk with that half smile of his, the way his dark, lambent eyes used to rest on her …
She cut off the memory again. No, not that way at all.
She shivered under the anorak. He was right—she felt frozen. Stiffly she went up to the front door and opened it with the key taken from the map pocket in her anorak. He followed her in. Immediately the small cottage felt smaller. She didn’t want to let him in—didn’t want him here. Didn’t want him anywhere near her within a thousand miles.
Liar! Liar—liar—liar!
The words in her head accused her, betrayed her. Again she had to call on the cold, emotionless self-control she’d faced him with outside the cottage. It didn’t matter where he was—he was nothing to her. The same nothing to her that she was to him.
She would let him say whatever it was he had to say—another reinforcement about her staying out of Ian’s life was all it could be—and then she would send him packing. He could find his own way back to the village, his own way back to the motorway. What did she care? Nothing—that was what she cared. All that was left of her feelings for him …
Nothing.
She went into the kitchen, feeling relief at the warmth from the wood range enveloping her. Shrugging off her wet anorak, she draped it around one of the chairs at the scrubbed wooden kitchen table and opened the door to the range, restacking it with wood. Then she filled the kettle and set it on one of the rings to boil. Familiar tasks that gave her hands and brain something to do while she tried to assimilate the fact—jolting, bizarre, impossible—that Athan Teodarkis had sat himself down at the kitchen table in a tiny cob-walled cottage that had been a haven for her mother after the ruination of her happiness.
Her gaze went to the man sitting at her kitchen table who could reach out with a single finger and with a single touch melt her like honey. Who could quirk a slanting smile at her and weaken her bones. Who could wind his hand around the nape of her neck and lower his mouth to hers, and take her to a paradise she had never dreamt of …
A man who had never—not once until that bitter, scathing denouement—said an honest word to her.
She took a breath. ‘You said you had something to say—so say
