Painted the Other Woman. Julia James

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.

      How lonely she still felt, despite the luxury in which she lived.

      Angry at her own self-pity, she turned away sharply, drawing the curtains and lighting one of the elegant table lamps. A cup of tea, something to watch on the huge television set in the corner, and later on she would make herself something to eat and have an early night. She had nothing to complain about—nothing to feel sorry for herself about.

       And I’m used to being lonely …

      Living alone with her mother on the edge of Dartmoor, she had become used to her own company. This last year in Devon, having withdrawn into grief at the loss of her mother, days had passed without her seeing another living soul. It had taken well over a year to come to terms with her mother’s death, even though the end had come almost as a release. Since being knocked down by a car some four years earlier her mother had been confined to a wheelchair, and it had been torment for her. But the accident had weakened her heart, too, and the heart attack that had taken her eighteen months ago had at least ended that torment.

      And though the devastation of her mother’s loss had been total, Marisa knew that it had given her a chance to leave home that her mother’s disability and emotional dependence on her daughter had not allowed her.

      But it had not just been her practical and emotional one needs that had made her mother so fearful about her leaving home. Marisa was all too conscious of the cause of that deeper fear, and before she’d finally set off for the city she’d gone to pay a last anguished visit to her mother’s grave in the parish churchyard.

      ‘I’m going to London, Mum. I know you don’t want me to—know you will worry about me. But I promise you I won’t end up the way you did, with a broken heart and your hopes in ruins. I promise you.’

      Then she’d packed her bag, bought her train ticket, and set off. Having no idea what would befall her.

      Having no idea that Ian would walk into her life.

      Would change it utterly.

      The microwave was beeping in the kitchen, signalling that the Danish pastry was warm. Roused from her drear thoughts, she walked into the kitchen to make her tea. She would not feel sorry for herself. She would remember how short a time ago her life had been so completely different from what it was now. She would have a quiet, comfortable evening in and be totally self-indulgent.

      Clicking the thermostat a degree higher, she revelled in the central heating that kept the flat beautifully warm. Two minutes later she was curled up on the sofa, biting into the soft, fragrant pastry and watching TV. It was a nature programme, set somewhere hot and on the beach, and Marisa gazed at the shallow azure waters as the presenter informed her about its marine life. But it wasn’t the marine life that made her gaze—it was the vista of the beach, a tropical idyll framed by palm trees.

      Imagine being somewhere like that …

       If only Ian …

      She cut short her imagining. Ian could not take her somewhere like that. Could not take a single day’s holiday with her anywhere, period. That was the blunt reality of it. He could rent this flat for her, give her that wonderful diamond necklace, give her the wherewithal to dress beautifully, but what he could not give her was time.

      She reached for her cup of tea, making herself focus on the programme. The presenter wasn’t British. He had some kind of accent. Lilting and attractive. She found herself trying to identify it. French? Spanish? She wasn’t sure. She frowned. Was it the same kind of accent that man who’d asked her to hold the lift had? She shut her eyes to hear it again in her head. The presenter’s accent was stronger, but maybe it was the same type. His appearance in so far as hair colour and skin tone was similar too. Reaching for the remote, she clicked on info for the programme. The presenter’s name was Greek.

      Was that what the man in the corridor was? she found herself pondering. It could be—it fitted his air of foreignness. And the flat he’d come out of had previously been let to a non-Brit. Maybe it was some kind of international corporate let, with one businessman after another passing through.

       I wonder who he is? He’s just so jaw-droppingly good-looking.

      With a rasp of irritation she pushed the question out of her head. What did it matter who he was, why he was there, or what nationality he was? She’d seen him for less than two minutes, if that, and he’d done nothing but nod and say a passing ‘thanks’ at her before disappearing. She’d stared at him gormlessly for the duration, unable to control her reaction to his startling dark good looks. Given the way everyone kept to themselves in the apartment block, she would probably never set eyes on him again.

      And if she did it would be utterly irrelevant to her anyway.

      Clicking on the remote again, she changed channels and finished off the pastry. The evening stretched ahead of her …

      Two hours later there was less of it left to stretch, but she was still feeling bored and restless. She couldn’t decide what to do next—go to bed or watch a movie on TV. It was one she was only marginally interested in, and it did not particularly appeal. On the other hand neither did going to bed at nine o’clock, either. All around her the hushed silence of the flat enveloped her, as if she were the only person for miles.

      She reached for the remote. It was stupid, wasting time watching something she didn’t want to. She would head for bed and read something