A Marriage Fit for a Sinner

The penthouse hadn’t changed, and yet Eva felt as if she’d lived a lifetime since she was last here.

After unpacking and showering, she trailed from room to room, feeling as if some tether she hadn’t known she was tied to had been severed. When she rushed to the door for the third time, imagining she’d heard the keycard activate, she grabbed her tablet and forced herself to work on her compositions.

But her heart wasn’t in it. Her mood grew bleaker when Romeo found her curled on the sofa and announced that Zaccheo wouldn’t be home for dinner either tonight or the next two weeks, because he’d returned to Oman.

The days bled together in a dull grey jumble. Determined not to mope—because after all she’d been here before—Eva returned to work.

She took every spare shift available and offered herself for overtime without pay.

But she refused to sing.

Music had ceased to be the balm she’d come to rely on. Her heart only yearned for one thing. Or one man. And he’d made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want her.

Because two weeks stretched to four, then six with no word from Zaccheo, and no answer to her phone calls.

At her lowest times, Eva hated herself for her lethargy, for not moving out of the penthouse. For sitting around, wishing for a miracle that would never materialise.

But the thought of flat-hunting, or, worse, moving back to Pennington Manor, filled her with a desperate heartache that nothing seemed to ease.

Romeo had brought her coffee this morning at the breakfast table. The pitying look he’d cast her had been the final straw.

‘If you have something to say, just say it, Romeo.’

‘You’re not a weak woman. One of you has to take the situation in hand sooner or later,’ he’d replied.

‘Fine, but he won’t return my calls so give him a message from me, will you?’

He’d nodded in that solemn way of his. ‘Of course.’

‘Tell him I’m fast reaching my tolerance level for his stupid silence. He can stay in Oman for the rest of his life for all I care. But he shouldn’t expect to find me here when he deigns to return.’

That outburst had been strangely cathartic. She’d called her ex-landlady and discovered her flat was still unlet. After receiving a hefty payday from Zaccheo, the old woman hadn’t been in a hurry to interview new tenants. She’d invited Eva to move back whenever she wanted.

Curiously, that announcement hadn’t made her feel better—

‘You’ve been cleaning that same spot for the last five minutes.’

Eva started and glanced down. ‘Oh.’

Sybil, Siren’s unflappable manageress, eyed her. ‘Time for a break.’

‘I don’t need a—’

‘Sorry, love,’ Sybil said firmly. ‘Orders from above. The new owner was very insistent. You take a break now or I get docked a week’s wages.’

Eva frowned. ‘Are you serious? Do we know who this new owner is?’

Sybil’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t know?’ When she shook her head, the manageress shrugged. ‘Well, I’m not one to spread gossip. Shoo! Go put your feet up for a bit. I’ll finish up here.’

Eva reluctantly handed over the cleaning supplies. She turned and stopped as the doors swung open and Ziggy Preston walked in.

The smile she tried for failed miserably. ‘Ziggy, hello.’

He smiled. ‘I heard you were back in town.’

She couldn’t summon the curiosity to ask how he knew. ‘Oh?’

‘You were supposed to call when you got back. I hope that doesn’t mean you’ve signed up with someone else? Because that’d devastate me,’ he joked.

Eva tried for another smile. Failed again. ‘I didn’t sign with anyone, and I don’t think I will.’

His face fell. ‘Why not?’

She had a thousand and one reasons. But only one that mattered. And she wasn’t about to divulge it to another soul. ‘I’ve decided to give the music thing a break for a while.’ Or for ever, depending on whether she felt anything but numb again.

Ziggy shoved his hands into his coat pocket, his features pensive.

‘Listen, I was supposed to do a session with one of my artists tomorrow afternoon, but they cancelled. Come to the studio, hang out for a while. You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to. But come anyway.’

She started to shake her head, then stopped. It was her day off tomorrow. The extra shift she’d hoped to cover had suddenly been filled. She could either occupy herself at Ziggy’s studio or wander Zaccheo’s penthouse like a lost wraith, pining for what she could never have. ‘Okay.’