‘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.