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The mistress of Markos Makarios.
Markos eased the car out into the road, turning left as his satellite navigation had instructed him. The top was down—he’d lowered it as he’d come off the motorway some twenty miles back—and the breeze was ruffling his hair. Both he and the car, a sleek, throaty, high-performance latest model, were attracting attention from passers-by, but he did not return it. His entire concentration was focused on his goal.
And it was nearly achieved. Two more roads to go, so the sat-nav told him, and then he would have found her.
The pupils of his eyes pinpointed, his mouth tightening.
His anger, leashed tightly, was absolute, shimmering beneath the surface like a black roiling tide. As he inched the car forward in the solid queue that seemed to be occupying the seafront road he stared ahead, unseeing.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw it. His head whipped to one side.
Her hair.
That amazing tumbling mane, lifting in the breeze as she walked along the seafront, her gait brisk but steady. Familiar—but with a completely different balance to it.
He stopped the car where it was, right in the middle of the traffic, and vaulted out, striding between the cars parked along the seafront concourse.
She stopped dead.
Her face whitened like chalk. She swayed, and for a moment he thought she was going to pass out.
‘Get in the car.’ His voice was low, and vicious.
He saw her swallow, tense completely, face rigid, eyes seeing—yet unseeing.
‘Get in,’ he said again.
Around the car, other drivers were tooting their horns with irritation, calling out to him. He ignored them. Ignored everything except the woman standing there as if she were turned to stone.
Jaw tighteni
ng, he seized her arm and propelled her the way he had come. She was nerveless, unresisting.
He took her around the front of the car, opened the passenger door and thrust her inside. She collapsed into the seat. Then, his face still as taut as a bow, he got back in the driver’s seat and rammed the car into gear, jerking forward.
He did not look at her. Did not allow himself to do so. But he could see, as he changed gear again, that her hands were clenched in her lap, her knuckles white.
He drove in silence, interrupted only by the sat-nav voice giving directions, which he followed. They took him to the end of the seafront and turned him left, heading inland again for a short distance, then turning him right, then left. The road it took him to was narrow, lined with miniature versions of the houses along the seafront, lacking the iron railings and basements and pillared entrances, but neat and elegant. Hers was painted white, with flower boxes and two steps up to the front door.
He drew up outside the house, pulling the car alongside the kerb, which had ‘Residents Only’ restrictions marked along it. He ignored them, and cut the engine.
‘Out,’ he said.
She fumbled with the catch and he leant across, releasing it. She seemed to shrink away from him. He felt the anger roil.
She climbed out, pausing to hold the top of the door for a moment, then undid the flap of her shoulder bag and extracted her house keys. She opened the door of the house and went in, leaving it open.
He slammed his door shut, immobilised the car, and followed her.
Vanessa unlocked the inner door to her flat, the lower half of the house, and walked inside. Her legs were like jelly. She wanted to sink down on the nearest chair, but she knew she could not. Must not. Shock was still reeling through her, and she could feel a sense of sickness in her guts. Her heart-rate was plunging wildly.
This isn’t good for me—this isn’t good for the—
The sound of Markos slamming the front door made her jump, and then he was striding inside her flat, slamming that door too, so the room reverberated with the force. He was right inside now, his height crowding the room, his presence dominating it. She took a step backwards, feeling the edge of the table behind her, glad of its support.
Her eyes went to him.
Markos.
