Painted the Other Woman

An ache started within her. A flickering of fear. A fear she didn’t want to face.

Fear of a time she did not want to face.

But it would come, for all that. The hours were ticking inexorably towards that time. The sun’s passage in the sky was arcing towards that time. It would come, fear it as she might—dread it as she did.

He says words of passion to me—but only passion. He smiles at me, and holds my hand, and walks at my side, and takes me in his arms—but what does he feel for me? Is it only passion? Only desire?

She could not answer—dared not answer. And dared not answer an even more fearful question.

What do I feel for him? Only passion? Only desire?

Yes! It had to be. It had to be only that and nothing more. She must allow it to be nothing else. Because when this idyll here was over, when the island was only a faint invisible sliver of land half a world away, and their reality was once more the busy wintry streets of London, then she would discover a truth she dared not know yet—a truth she feared.

What if he is done with me?

She took a heavy breath, staring sightlessly out over the blindingly bright water.

I have to prepare for that. I have to prepare for when he turns to me and tells me what I fear to hear.

That he was done with her.

No! She would not think ahead to that moment. She would not spoil these last precious days with Athan by dwelling on what might come. She would not cast the shadow of such fear over what she had now.

Resolute, she finished her fruit juice and got out of the pool. Athan would have finished at the business centre soon and be heading back to the cabana. Marisa wanted to be there waiting for him. As hungry for him as he always was for her. Mid-morning passion was so very, very enjoyable …

Putting her dark thoughts firmly aside, she set off, her steps eager.

Athan smoothed the silken hair, holding Marisa’s slender body against his. They were both drowsy in the aftermath of lovemaking. The low swirl of the overhead fan was the only noise. Soon they would rouse themselves and shower, and then dress for lunch. Not that lunch was in the slightest bit formal. Everyone wore beach clothes, possibly with the lightest cover-up and nothing more.

Lunch was a leisurely, relaxed affair, mostly salads and fruits, served from a huge buffet in the open air dining room shaded by wide awnings from the heat of the noonday sun. The constant gentle breeze gave a welcome cooling, and the lap of the pool water added to the lazy, easy atmosphere.

But then the whole resort exuded a lazy, easy atmosphere. Relaxation was inevitable.

Except that right now Athan was not feeling relaxed in the slightest. It was not because of their recent passionate consummation—it had another cause. An unwelcome one.

There were only two more days left of the holiday, and then they would be flying back to London.

He could feel his muscles tense momentarily. And in London he would have to confront Marisa—tell her just why he had taken her on holiday here, and what that reason meant for her. And for his brother-in-law. It would mean the impossibility of any relationship between her and Ian.

But even as he reminded himself of the reason he’d brought her here he could feel his mind rebelling. Maybe there was no need to spell it out to her. After all, surely if she’d just spent two weeks with another man she couldn’t possibly think of going back to Ian? Surely she would take it for granted that her time with Ian was over, and that was that.

So maybe I don’t have to confront her.

One thing was for sure: he didn’t want to. Right from the start he’d known it wasn’t going to be easy—that it was going to be unpleasant and uncomfortable. But now, after all that they had here, together, it was going to be a whole lot more than just ‘unpleasant’ … ?.

I can’t do it.

Revulsion filled him. How could he? How could he go from holding her in his arms to denouncing her as a marriage breaker? How could he make love to her and then accuse her?

He’d known, of course—he’d known all along—that that was what he was going to have to do, but it was one thing to plan cold-bloodedly to seduce the woman who was threatening his sister’s marriage and quite another, he thought hollowly, to spend two weeks with her and then have to face the ugly denouement that he’d envisaged delivering.

I must have been mad to think of such a scheme!

Mad to think that he could carry it out.

Madness to think that I could hold her in my arms like this and still be planning such a denunciation of her.

His eyes stared up at the rotating fan. Its movement echoed his thoughts, going round and endlessly round in his head. He knew what he had set out to do—what was coming closer and closer with every passing hour—knew that the very thought of it was building to a mountain of impossibility inside him.