Painted the Other Woman

Why does she have to be mixed up with Ian Randall …?

The question, just like the image of her standing there so tantalisingly lovely, hovered like an unwelcome intruder. Ruthlessly he banished it, bestowing on his driver, holding open the passenger door of the sleek black saloon car, a brief nod and sliding himself into the leather seat, setting his laptop case down beside him. Such thoughts were pointless and irrelevant. The girl had to be removed from Ian’s orbit, and the threat she presented to his sister liquidated. As swiftly as possible. That was all.

His mouth tightening, he extracted his laptop and resumed his work. He was a busy man—a very busy man. The multinational company he’d inherited from his father, which was one of the major plutocratic mercantile dynasties in Greece, allowed precious little time for R&R. Especially in the current economic climate.

But for all that, he knew he would have to make adequate time to accomplish his mission to save his sister’s marriage—at least for the moment.

For just a moment, no more, he felt that repeated flicker of doubt skitter across his mind. It was one thing to plan such a cold-blooded strategy when gazing at a photograph. Another to execute it.

Impatiently, he banished his doubts. It had to be done, and that was that. Marisa Milburne would come to no harm by his seduction of her. She would have an enjoyable interlude in her life, as luxurious as the one Ian Randall was offering her, and she would be none the worse at the end of it. He had nothing at all to reproach himself with.

Besides, playing around with men who were married was always a dangerous business. If she learnt nothing else from the experience she was about to have, that would be enough. She should never have let herself get as deep as she had with Ian—even if nothing had happened between them yet.

I’ll be doing her a favour, getting her away from Ian—and in a way she can enjoy …

And now that he had seen her in the flesh, knew that she was as lovely as her photo had told him, he knew he would too …

Again burning onto his retinas came the image of the way she’d stood there by the elevator doors, a vision of fair-haired, feature-perfect beauty. For a moment longer he held the image in his mind’s eye, savouring it. Then, as the words of the document he’d loaded came up on the screen, he sliced it from his mind and got to work again.

Marisa let herself into her flat, her mind a daze. It had taken only moments—sliding open the lift doors, stepping out—and there he’d been, instantly in her vision. Walking towards her.

Or rather towards the lift. A swift, purposeful stride that went totally with the image forming itself in her consciousness. Making its impact felt instantly.

Tall, dark and just jaw-droppingly handsome …

But not in the way that Ian was handsome. Ian was fair-haired, like her, with light blue eyes, like her, and his features were boyish, with a smiling, inviting charm to them that had drawn her in immediately.

This man striding towards her had been completely different. A head taller than Ian easily, and far more powerfully built. But lean, not broad, with long legs. And much darker skin. European, yes, but with a clear Mediterranean stamp that went with the sable hair.

And the eyes.

Oh, yes, the eyes …

Dark as obsidian—not brilliant blue like Ian’s—and dark-browed. They had seemed, just for a moment, to be spearing her.

Then he had spoken—only a few words—she’d felt the timbre resonate through her. Accented—she hadn’t been able to tell what accent—yet obviously fluent in English. Asking her to hold the lift for him. Nodding and saying a brief thanks to her as he passed by and stepped into the lift, the closing doors shutting him from her sight.

It had taken moments—only moments—for the whole incident to play out, but now, standing inside her flat, she felt it replay in slow motion inside her head.

She made her way into her bedroom, dropping her bag down on the bed, taking off her jacket and mechanically shaking it out and hanging it in the capacious closet. She still seemed to be in a daze.

Who is he?

The question formed in her head, wanting to be answered. There were only three apartments on her floor, and one was occupied by a sprightly elderly couple who seemed to use it only as a London pied-à-terre. She’d talked briefly to them once as they’d come in from a night out, nothing more than mild social chit-chat, and they’d given her, she’d been slightly amused to note, a swift once-over in assessment.

They’d seemed reassured by her, when she’d made polite noises and said something about having come back from the theatre. The woman had disclosed that they had as well, which had led to a brief exchange over what each had seen and some anodyne views thereon. They’d seemed obviously well-heeled, and had spoken in the kind of accent that people of their background did, mentioning that they were mostly based in Hampshire, but came up to London regularly for theatre visits.

The other flat on her floor was occupied by a Far Eastern gentleman whom she’d seen only once, and that had been over a fortnight ago. He’d bowed politely to her, she’d nodded her head in return, and that had been that. Since then she’d heard and seen nothing of him or anyone else.

But the man she’d just seen now had clearly emerged from that flat.

Visitor? Guest? New tenant? She had no idea.

And it doesn’t matter anyway! she reprimanded herself, shaking out of her daze. People around here aren’t exactly gossiping over the fences. Everyone keeps themselves to themselves, and even if he is a new tenant that’s probably the only time you’re going to see him.

Into her head, hard on the heels of the reprimand, came a lingering response.

What a pity.

Impatiently she sat down on the bed and tugged off her boots, exchanging them for a pair of pumps more suited to being indoors. Time to stop mooning over a tall, dark stranger she’d seen for all of ninety seconds—if that—and remind herself that she was here for Ian’s sake, not anything else. Ian was the sole focus of her life and she had better remember that. She had so little time with him as it was, and every stolen moment together was precious. Speaking of which …

She checked the voicemail on the landline phone beside her bed. To her pleasure it was indicating a new message. She pressed ‘play’ eagerly, but as she listened to the message her face fell.

‘Marisa, I’m so, so sorry! I can’t make tonight. I’m really gutted. But a pile of work’s come my way—some deal that has to be signed off by ten tomorrow morning—and that means I’m going to have to burn the midnight oil, checking through everything. If all goes smoothly maybe—maybe—I can make lunch. I’ll text you late morning—’

Ian’s voice cut out, and she stared disconsolately at the handset. She hadn’t seen Ian for three days, and she’d been so hoping that tonight would be on. She’d filled the three days as she filled all her days now—’doing’ London. But what had seemed an exciting prospect when she’d first moved into this fabulous apartment a month ago was, she knew, beginning to pall.

She felt bad that she should feel that way. Up till a month ago, in her pre-Ian existence, she’d worked non-stop just to earn enough to stay in London. All the sights and entertainments of the capital had been far beyond her. Now, with the magic wand that Ian had waved over her life, she had both time and a lavish amount of money to see and do everything that London had to offer. For a girl raised in the wilds of Devon it was a cornucopia of wonders. Things she’d only ever seen on TV or read about were suddenly available to her.

At first it had been bliss. Armed with a miraculously full wallet—thanks to Ian’s generous largesse—she’d been able to wander delightedly around top department stores and fashion shops, putting together a wardrobe the like of which had only previously ever been in her fantasies. Ian had been delighted, and warmly encouraging, and she’d read approval in his eyes whenever they were able to meet.

It wasn’t only shopping that had beguiled her. London held so much more than shops, and she’d been able to do all the famous sights, take in the capital’s great cultural and historical heritage, immerse herself in its wonders—from a breathtaking trip on the London Eye to a wide-eyed tour of Buckingham Palace and everything in between. In the evenings she’d sampled London’s glittering theatre life, with tickets to musicals and plays, live performances with famous stars on stage, sitting not in the cheapest seats up in the gods but in plush, top-price seats in the stalls and dress circle, coming back to the flat afterwards not on crowded buses or tube trains but in comfortable taxis.

It had all been absolutely, totally wonderful!

But she had always been on her own …

Ian had never come with her. Never.

He’d felt bad, as had she. She knew that. He’d said so repeatedly.

‘I just wish I could take you out and about, but I can’t—I just can’t.’

His voice always sounded strained when he said it, and Marisa knew how much he wished it were otherwise. But it was impossible for them to be seen out together. It was risky enough just meeting as they did, and she knew she could not ask for more.

I mustn’t be greedy about him. I have to be glad for what I do have of him. He’s been so wonderful to me—and I’m so incredibly glad that we met.

She reprimanded herself sternly as she got up off the bed and headed towards the kitchen. She must not be doleful and depressed when he had to cancel their rare times of getting together. And as for feeling sorry for herself because she was so alone—well, that was just totally inexcusable.

Look at where I live now—what my life is now. How easy, how luxurious. And it’s all thanks to Ian!

Yet for all her adjuration to herself as she set the kettle to boil and popped the Danish pastry she’d bought into the microwave to warm, making herself appreciate for the millionth time how blissful it was to have a spanking new luxury kitchen to herself instead of the sparse, tatty kitchenette in her bedsit, or even the kitchen in the cottage, with its ancient stone sink and rickety wooden cupboards, she could feel bleakness edging around her insides.

Determined to shake it, she went through to the living room, made herself look around at the pale grey three-piece suite, the darker grey deep pile woollen carpet, the rich silvery drapes framing the window that looked out over the roadway. She gazed down over the scene two storeys below. The road was quiet, lined with trees that would bear blossom in the spring but which now were bare.

Cars—expensive ones, for this was, as her luxury apartment testified, an expensive part of London, where only the rich and highly affluent could afford to live—lined the kerbs. She was grateful that Ian had chosen a flat in such a quiet location, and so near to Holland Park itself, for despite the charms of London she was used to the quietness of deep countryside. The winter’s dusk was deepening, and few people were out and about. There was a chilly bleakness in the vista that seemed to reach tendrils around her.

She knew no one in London. Only Ian. The other women she’d worked with briefly had all been from abroad, and she had been an obvious outsider though they’d been perfectly pleasant to her. She’d known London was going to be a big, busy place, and that she would know no one to begin with, but she hadn’t realised just how big and busy a place it was. How incredibly alone one could feel in a crowd.