Irresistible Greeks Collection. Кэрол Мортимер
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muscles tensed. It was as if he had suddenly put on a suit of steel, banded tightly around him, keeping him motionless, immobile.
Because if he didn’t—if he didn’t keep his body leashed in steel—then he would surge forward, clip his arms around her, draw her to him, hold her close against him tightly, so tightly—
Marisa’s expression worked—as if she were trying to cling to something, anything, that might make sense. Sense in a tidal wave of unreality …
‘You have? But Ian doesn’t work for you … ‘
It was a pointless thing to say—the least relevant—but the words fell from her lips all the same. Shock was ricocheting around inside her.
How does he know about Ian?
She heard him give a brief, hard laugh. There was no humour in it. Then it cut out abruptly.
‘Of course he works for me.’
‘No! He’s marketing director of a company—’
‘One of my subsidiaries.’
Her mouth opened, then closed. She had to make sense of this—somehow she had to make sense of this. She seized on the biggest thing she could not understand—out of all that she could not understand. Her mind was reeling.
‘But why do you care about Ian and me? What does it matter to you, even if you do employ him indirectly? What harm is it to you?’
The questions tumbled from her—bewildered—accusatory. He felt his anger lash out again.
Anger at so much. Anger at Ian for what he was doing to Eva. Anger that he’d been landed in this mess to try and sort it out. Anger that sorting it out meant doing what he was doing now to Marisa.
I don’t want to do this to her!
The thought burned across his brain. But there was no point to it. None. He had to do what he must—say what he had to. He lurched forward, his hands going around her elbows, his grip like steel.
‘Because Eva Randall—’ his voice was like steel wire ‘—Eva Randall is my sister!’
He watched her face whiten. Felt the steel bite into him, tighter yet.
‘I didn’t know.’ Her voice was a whisper. Her eyes were distended.
He gave another harsh, humourless laugh. Because the universe was mocking him—mocking the scene he had to play out to the bitter, painful end. Because ending it was all he could do now.
‘Why would he tell you?’ he countered, forcing himself to speak. ‘Why would he tell you what was no concern of yours? I knew he hadn’t told you from the moment I introduced myself to you—the moment you saw my name on my business card. I’d gambled that he hadn’t and it paid off.’
His voice changed suddenly, and as it did Marisa felt a new emotion slither through the disbelieving shock that was shaking her like an earthquake.
‘Which left the field entirely clear for me. For my purpose.’
His eyes rested on her. Eyes that had once burned into her with a desire so intense she’d thought she must melt in the scorching heat of it …
Eyes that now were black like empty space. Desolate and devoid of all things.
‘I sought you out,’ he said, and his voice was as empty as his eyes. Saying the words he had to say. The words it would take to end it. Destroy it utterly. ‘I took the apartment next door—timed my meeting with you. You’d been under my surveillance ever since I first suspected that Eva’s husband was harbouring a secret. A sordid little secret. Once I’d met you I could simply put in place what had to be done. Put an end to things between you and Ian.’ His voice twisted. ‘After all, how could you possibly be part of his life after what you have been to me …?’
Faintness drummed at her.
From somewhere very deep inside her she found words. Each one was pulled from her like knives from wounded flesh. Costing her more than she could pay.
‘It was all a set-up?’
Her eyes were huge, her face stark, skin stretched over bones, white as alabaster.
It gave her an unearthly beauty …
Anger rived through him again. Anger that she should look so beautiful.
It was a beauty he could never possess again … barred to him for ever.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was all a set-up.’ He paused—a fatal pause. ‘Nothing more than that.’
Nothing more than that …
The words tolled in his head like a funeral bell. Killing everything.
She was staring at him, still as a whitened corpse.
Nausea rose in her throat. ‘Get out—’ Her voice was a breath, a shaking rasp.
The steel bands bit into him, constricting like a crushing weight around him. He had more he had to say—must force himself to say.
‘This is what you will do.’ He spoke tersely, without emotion. Because emotion was far too dangerous. He had to crush it out of him. ‘You will sever entirely all relations with Ian Randall. You will have nothing more to do with him. You will stay out of his life—permanently. Give him whatever reasons you want—but be aware that if you do not part from him—permanently—then I will give him a reason to sever relations.’ He paused—another fatal pause. ‘He will know what you have been to me.’
She swallowed. She could feel nausea—more than nausea—climbing in her throat. She fought it down—had to fight it down. Had to.
‘Do you understand?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Is that clear?’
She nodded. He would not go, she knew, until he had obtained what he had come for.
What he had always planned to obtain …
No! She must not think of that—must not let the realisation of what he’d done to her explode in her brain. Not now—not yet. She stood very still, holding herself together. She was beyond speech, beyond everything.
He exhaled a sharp breath. He had done what he had set out to do. He had done it and now there was nothing else for him to do. Nothing but to do what she had told him to do—to go.
‘I’ll see myself out.’ His voice was clipped, back in control.
He turned and walked towards the door, seizing up his suitcase from the hall beyond. His hand closed over the handle to the front door. For a moment, the barest moment, he seemed to freeze—as if … as if …
Then, abruptly, he yanked open the door and was gone.
Behind him, Marisa went on standing. Staring at where once he had been. Then slowly, very slowly, she sank down upon the sofa.
Burning with pain.
Athan strode down the corridor. His face was closed. His mind was closed. Every part of him was closed. Shut down like a nuclear reactor that had gone into meltdown and was now so dangerous only total closure could keep it from devastating all around it.
He must keep it that way. That was what was important. Essential. Keeping everything closed down.
As he descended in the lift, walked across the lobby, out into the road, reached for his mobile phone to summon a chauffeured company car to take him back to his own apartment, words went round in his head.
It’s done.
That was all he had to remember.
Not Marisa at his side, his arm wrapped around her shoulder as they walked along the beach at sunset, the coral sand beneath their bare feet, the foaming wavelets washing them as they walked, and the majestic blaze of the sun sinking into the