The Unexpected Mistress. SARA WOOD

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER ONE

      CASSIAN lounged contentedly on the roof of the large rented house which he shared in typically cosmopolitan style with two English strippers, a Buddhist from Florida, and a Moroccan herbalist. It was late, the sky a dense black scattered with stars, the air warm and still.

      He and his literary agent were watching the snake charmers and acrobats performing in the Djemaa el Fna, Marrakesh’s extraordinary market square. His agent’s mouth had been almost permanently open since they’d emerged onto the roof ten minutes ago and Cassian’s dark eyes hadn’t stopped twinkling in gentle amusement.

      ‘A tad different from central London,’ his agent marvelled with great understatement, goggling at a group of Saharan nomads who were sweeping majestically through the square.

      Men in rags, walking like kings, Cassian thought, reflecting on his belief that outer trappings often concealed the real person beneath.

      ‘Same world. Different values and desire. Life stripped to its bare necessities. The need to eat, to find shelter and love,’ he observed lazily.

      Stirred but not staggered by the scene below, Cassian poured coffee from the silver beaked pot and offered his agent a sweet pastry. After living here for a year, it had all become gloriously familiar to him; the huge lanterns illuminating the storytellers, the contortionists, the clowns and boy dancers, and the crowd of Berbers mingling with an incongruous sprinkling of awestruck tourists.

      By now his ears were attuned to the din. Drums, cymbals and western music drowned the hubbub of voices—and also, mercifully, the groans coming from the stall of the dentist who was enthusiastically wielding his pliers.

      A willing slave to intense feelings and sensuality, Cassian delightedly inhaled the powerful aroma of humanity mingling with spices and the smell of cooking from the blazing braziers dotted around the square. And he wondered curiously where his passion for living life to the hilt would take him next.

      ‘So,’ said his agent in bright cocktail-speak, clearly uncomfortable with the culture shock he was experiencing. ‘Now you’ve finished the book, I suppose you and your son are both going home for a while?’

      Cassian sipped his Turkish coffee, appreciating its richness. ‘Jai and I have no home,’ he said gravely.

      And yet… As if to contradict that statement, an image had come unexpectedly into his mind. Instead of the black night and the ochre buildings, the blazing torches and the patchwork of bright colours below, he saw emerald-green hills laced with grey stone walls, ancient woodlands and small stone villages by a cool, rushing river. The Yorkshire Dales. And, specifically, Thrushton.

      Astonished, he inhaled deeply as if he could feel the freshness of the champagne air in his lungs. For the first time in his life he felt a pang of longing for a place he’d once known and loved.

      That startled him: he who’d spent his adult life passionately embracing a setting, teasing out its darker side to create one of his popular thrillers…and then leaving without regret for new sensations, new horizons.

      ‘Still, you must have a great sense of relief,’ his agent persisted. ‘You’ve got your freedom back, for a start. No more sitting hunched over a PC for hour after hour,’ he added jovially, attempting to penetrate the mysterious psyche of the man he knew only as Alan Black.

      ‘I never lose my freedom. If I ever felt it was threatened,’ Cassian replied quietly, ‘I’d stop writing at once.’

      ‘Hell, don’t do that! We’ve got another film producer offering us an option on your next book!’ panicked his agent, seeing twelve per cent of a fortune vanishing overnight.

      But Cassian had stopped listening. His sharp ears had heard an unusual noise in the narrow alley beside the house. Moving to the low parapet, he could see a man there, curled up in a foetal position and moaning with pain. Someone was running into the darkness of the souk beyond. Without making a fuss, he politely excused himself and went to investigate.

      It was a few minutes before he realised that the bruised and battered man he’d hauled into the house was Tony Morris, his old enemy from that very part of England which had sprung to mind so surprisingly at the mention of the word ‘home’.

      As Tony blubbered and whimpered, and he silently washed the blood from the flabby face, Cassian found his longing for Yorkshire increasing quite alarmingly, the memories coming hot and fast and extraordinarily insistent.

      Ruled by his instincts, he acknowledged that perhaps it was time to go back. Time to immerse himself in the landscape which had reached like loving arms into his unhappy soul and given him solace and peace of mind. Time also to face the devils that haunted his dreams.

      And then Tony offered him the opportunity on a plate to do just that.

      Laura slammed two mugs on the table and doled out the last of the coffee granules with a preoccupied expression. Coffee wasn’t the only thing she’d have to eliminate from her shopping list. Poverty was staring her in the face.

      ‘Sue,’ she said urgently to her life-long friend, ‘I’ve got to get a new job sharpish.’

      Sue looked sympathetic. ‘Nothing yet, then?’

      ‘No. And I’ve been searching in Harrogate all this week!’

      ‘Wow!’ Sue exclaimed, suitably impressed.

      Her friend was the only person who knew what a huge step that had been. It was a month now since she’d lost her job. Night after night, Laura had lain awake