Painted the Other Woman

He spoke abruptly. ‘This is what I don’t understand. That you didn’t realise I’d thought Ian had set you up as his mistress. Surely to God you must have done?’ His face worked. ‘Why the hell else would I have done what I did—said what I said? Why else would I have done or said those things to you? Just because you were Ian’s sister? Why the hell did you and Ian hide your relationship from everyone?’

Marisa’s eyes widened. ‘How can you even ask that? You know how close Eva is to Ian’s mother—her godmother. How she’s become like a second mother to her, taking her own mother’s place. That’s why we were so reluctant to tell Eva. Because it would have torn her loyalties in two. How could she have anything to do with her husband’s sister when that sister was living proof of just how much Sheila Randall was hurt and betrayed by her husband?’

She swallowed. ‘After I fled London, telling Ian it was because I couldn’t go on hiding in the shadows, and he got a new job without your patronage, he became determined not to go on concealing such an important part of his life from his wife. It was a new start for him, and however difficult it was going to be he didn’t want any secrets from Eva any more. Even the secret of my existence,’ she finished bitterly.

Athan was silent a moment. Then he spoke. His voice was heavy—as heavy as the lead that seemed to be weighing him down, crushing him.

‘I thought Ian was like his father. Incapable of fidelity. I’ve always thought it—feared it. I never approved of his marriage to Eva. Thought him lightweight. Superficial. Unworthy of my sister. And I thought that she was doomed to follow the same path as her mother-in-law, whose life was made a misery by her faithless husband.’

He paused, glancing briefly at Marisa and then away again, because it hurt too much to do otherwise. ‘When my suspicions became aroused I took out surveillance on him. I found out about your existence—that you were living in an apartment he was paying for. There was no doubt about it. There were photos of you and him in a restaurant. Intimate photos that showed you and he billing and cooing over each other.’ He paused again. ‘And one of the photographs showed Ian giving you a diamond necklace.’ Another pause, briefer this time, then words broke from him—harsh and hard. ‘What the hell was I supposed to think? My brother-in-law was giving another woman a diamond necklace!’

Marisa stiffened.

‘It was Ian’s grandmother’s. Our father’s mother’s necklace.

He wanted me to have it. He wanted me to have all the things that our father had denied me—wanted to lift me out of the poverty that my father had condemned my mother to.’ She looked away—far away—back into the past to her childhood. ‘She knew she should never have given in to my father. Knew she was at fault. Knew she was a fool to love him. Knew she deserved what she got from him—rejection and short shrift. It was a lesson, she taught me well,’ she said heavily. Her eyes came back to Athan. ‘Which is why it was so unbearable to realise you thought I’d stoop to carrying on with a married man. Why I was so angry that evening Ian told Eva about me.’

Athan’s face was drawn. ‘You had every right to be.’ His voice was sombre. ‘I misjudged you totally. Thought the very worst of you.’

She could hear the self-laceration in his voice, and something twisted inside her.

‘I hated you for it!’ she burst out. ‘I thought I hated you for what you did to me—deliberately seducing me. But when I realised … realised that what you thought of me was a million times worse than simply trying to latch on to my wealthy brother and mess up his family … oh, then I hated you a million times more than I did before.’ She felt her hands fist in her pockets. ‘When I threw in your face what I truly was to Ian—what our relationship actually is—oh, it felt so damn good. Wiping that condemning contempt off your face. And slapping you felt even better!’

She jerked to her feet, yanking her arm free of him. Standing there, buckling with emotion, she swayed in the wind, her face convulsed.

Why had he come here? To torment her again? What for?

It was over now—all over. Nothing more to be done, or said. It was all a mess—a hideous, insoluble mess. But she knew she had to accept that in the end, it wasn’t his fault. Heavily, she turned around to face him again. He hadn’t moved. Was just sitting there immobile, looking at her.

His expression was …

Was what? she thought, finding thoughts skittering across her mind inchoately, incoherently.

Wary—that was what it was. But there was more than wariness in it. His eyes—his dark, gold-flecked eyes, whose glance had once turned her to jelly—were now regarding her with …

Such bleakness.

That was what was in his face. His eyes.

She took a scissoring breath. ‘There isn’t any point to this—there really isn’t. It’s just a mess—a total mess all round. I can see … understand … why you jumped to the conclusion you did. I can see why you wanted to protect your sister. You did what you thought best at the time. But now … now that it’s all out in the open—the actual truth, not your assumption—it just makes it impossible for me to have anything more to do with you, or Eva—or even Ian, really. I can’t ever see you again—you must see that. What you did to me will always be there, poisoning everything.’ She looked at him. Looked into those dark, wary, bleak eyes. ‘I can’t get over what you did—I will never be able to get over what you did.’

For one long, unbearable moment they just gazed at each other across everything that divided them. An impossible divide.

A huge, crushing weariness pressed down on her. Her head bowed. She knew she should head for home, back to the sanctuary of her cottage. But her legs were suddenly like lead.

Then behind her she heard a movement. Hands lightly—so lightly—touched her hunched shoulders, then dropped away.

‘And nor will I.’

Athan’s voice was low. Conflict filled it. Filled his head. Was she right? Should he never have come here? Never have followed the crushing imperative to find her—talk to her? Because he had to talk to her. He couldn’t just leave it the way it had been—with her denouncing, punishing slap ringing across his mind. His soul.

Punishing him for what he had thought about her. Punishing him for what he’d done to her. Punishing him for getting her totally, utterly wrong …

‘It will be like a brand on me all my life,’ he told her. ‘What I did to you.’

She gave a little shrug. It was all she could manage. ‘It doesn’t matter. I understand why you did it. It was a … misunderstanding, that’s all.’ Her voice gave a little choke as she said the word that was so hideous an understatement. ‘A mess up. But it doesn’t matter. In the end it doesn’t leave any of us worse off, does it? If anything, Ian and Eva’s marriage is stronger than ever, so that’s surely some good out of it. He finally has a job where he feels he can not only make a real contribution to the world, in a way he never could before, but he can stand on his own two feet—out from under your shadow. Plus, of course—’ her voice twisted ‘—he has finally won your trust—convinced you he’s not cut from the same corrupt cloth as our father. So that’s all to the good, isn’t it?’

She spoke negligently, carelessly. As if nothing mattered any more—just as she was saying.