Intermezzo: Two years before the main event; when we first meet Marcus.

Rebecca and I were on holiday in the Aegean Sea with Jessica, our five-year-old daughter.

She had flown into the U.K. exactly one month after our first night together and had immediately moved in with me. She became a commuter, traveling back and forth to London every day on the train. We got engaged two months after that, while on a long weekend with Karen and Mary at Francesca’s Villa.

The wedding was six months later. It was a full-blown Atlanta society wedding in the grounds of Rebecca’s parents’ mansion. We honeymooned at an island resort in the Maldives, and then we settled down to married life. Two years later Rebecca was pregnant, and we had a daughter.

After Rebecca’s first year in England, Winter and Associates opened the proposed international branch in London and Rebecca had been given a partnership. She was happy in her position, her marriage and we settled down to life in the Sussex countryside.

We had been invited to join Mary and David for a month cruising on a 50-meter yacht they’d chartered for the summer. We weren’t their only guests; Rebecca’s parents had flown over from the States. Karen and Francesca were due to arrive the week after Conrad and Rachael had left.

Our relationship with Francesca was interesting; I had never slept with her since that evening of my birthday party, but I hadn’t hidden my relationship with her from Rebecca. She knew I’d been involved with Francesca, but not the details. After our weekend in New Orleans, I told her everything. Rebecca had understood at my birthday party, that Francesca and I had been close. Mary had confirmed it when she’d shown her Francesca’s paintings including the one of me.

“Only a lover could have painted you like that,” she told me. “Do you still love her?”

“I’ll always love her,” I admitted. “It’ll be impossible not to, but she’s no threat to you.”

“I know that she came to see me,” Rebecca acknowledged. “She said that you were the only man she’d ever contemplated falling in love with. Karen and Mary were her true lovers, and I’d be foolish if I rejected you because of her.”

For all that, Rebecca and Francesca have become close friends. Of the three other influential women in my life, it’s Francesca she’s the closest to. It’s a tad odd listening to the pair of them describing me in intimate detail. We see Francesca several times a year, and she is one of our daughter’s godmothers. She loves to paint us, and we are the proud owners of one of the best privately held collections of paintings by Francesca. Her Triptych of Rebecca, Rebecca pregnant and mother and baby, is world famous. It hangs on our lounge wall when it’s not jetting all over, taking center stage at exhibitions of Francesca works.

We’d been on board for just over a week when the yacht headed for a harbor on one of the Greek islands. We were scheduled to pick up a couple of Conrad’s friends, Roger and Pamela Donaldson. Roger was American and the owner of a group of companies, the Donaldson Corporation, mostly based in the USA with a smaller division in Europe. His wife, Pamela, was British. He, David and Conrad had been in the same fraternity at college and had kept in touch over the years.

When the yacht moored mid-morning, there was a third person waiting with Roger and Pam on the harbor wall. He was just over six-foot-tall, a smart looking man wearing casual trousers and a linen jacket. His face was thin, with brown eyes and a sharp nose, and capped with styled light brown hair. An elegant, handsome man, who was I guessed in his mid-thirties, and who seemed to be in the midst of a deep discussion with Roger.

Pam walked up the gangway as soon as it was lowered. “I apologize,” she said to David and Conrad. “This is our nephew, Marcus Forde.” She pointed at him. “He turned up today; he needed to speak to Roger urgently. There’s some issue at the division where he works. He thought it would only take a couple of hours to sort out, but as you can see, they’re not finished. I was hoping that your invitation would extend to him as well. It’s should only be for a day or so. We can drop him off at our next port.”

“Of course,” David said, and that’s how Marcus first came into our lives.

He and Roger boarded the yacht and quickly drew David into their discussion. They paused briefly to make their introductions. Apparently, Roger and Pam had been at our wedding, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember them. Marcus had that unique British public-school arrogance that immediately grated on me. All the ladies and Jessica thought he was charming.

In the end, Marcus only stayed one night on the yacht. After an early lunch, he and Roger retreated to one of the staterooms for most of the afternoon. Several times David and Conrad were asked to join them; at one point Conrad asked Rebecca to speak with them.

She came back to Jessica and me, shaking her head in annoyance.

“Dad’s agreed to take on the company Marcus works for, as a client,” she complained. “He sees it as an in, to get the rest of Roger’s business in the future. Christ, their finance and sales directors have been playing fast and loose with the local trade laws. They’ve managed to resolve the immediate issues, but I’ve got to meet with their legal team next month. Marcus was eager for me to fly back to the Britain with him to meet with them as soon as possible.”

“I hope you said no.”

“Of course I did, and Dad backed me. I called the office, and they’ll send a team to sort it out. Marcus is flying back tomorrow, so there is a change of plan, and we’re staying here for the night.”

I gave her a hug, and then we both returned to the important issue at hand: to entertain our daughter by the small swimming pool on the aft deck. Rebecca slipped off her sundress and glanced at me for my approval. I blew her a kiss; the blue Wicked Weasel did an admirable job of showing off her body while maintaining at least a passing nod to decency. Or it did so, until it got wet, becoming completely pointless, as the fabric turned translucent.

Hey, I enjoyed the show, and Jessica couldn’t care less, she was having fun with her parents. Mary had foolishly bought her a super soaker and was now regretting it. The little terror kept sneaking up on Mary, Pam and her grandmother as they were sunbathing on loungers and splashing them.

It was later on that I got a weird, uncomfortable feeling. We were still at the pool and Jessica, fortunately, was starting to slow down. Mary and the others had gone in, a little earlier. Jessica had wanted a last swim and Rebecca had taken her into the pool. She’d only lasted a couple of minutes before she wanted out, and Rebecca had passed her up to me. I’d taken my daughter, wrapped a towel around her, and we both watched as Rebecca swam the last couple of laps.

That’s when I got the prickly feeling between my shoulder blades. I looked around, and I finally spotted the source of my discomfort, Marcus’ head was silhouetted against the sky above me. He was leaning over the rail of the deck that overlooked the pool area and was watching Rebecca intently as she got out of the pool. She looked like a goddess rising from the sea. Her bikini was nigh on invisible; her pussy and prominent nipples visible through the transparent fabric, and she was oblivious to his scrutiny. I stepped towards her holding out a towel, and when I glanced back in his direction, he’d gone.

I thought about mentioning it to her, but for some reason, I didn’t. In the end, it didn’t seem all that important, and honestly, I think that any red-blooded man would have paused to watch her.

That evening, we all went out to a local family friendly seafront restaurant. Our daughter’s doting grandparents had insisted she should come with us. The waiters pushed two tables together to seat all the ten of us. I do love how Mediterranean restaurants are so child-friendly, and this one was no exception.

The waiters fawned over Jessica, finding cushions to place on her chair and happy to let her put her hands in the big tank with the lobsters for sale in it. For some inexplicable reason, none of us could order lobster. Hell, could you if a cute little girl is peering into the tank and is naming every one of them. Marcus was the only one who put up a token attempt to order one of Jessica’s new pets. He retreated at her withering glance.

The food was excellent, but it wasn’t too long before Jessica’s head was drooping and she was trying to stifle a yawn. I said I’d take her back to the yacht as Rebecca and her father seemed deep in discussion. Rebecca gave me a grateful smile, and I whispered that I’d be back as soon as I settled her down. We’d previously arranged for one of the female crew members to babysit if it was required.

With a sleepy Jessica in my arms, I walked the couple of hundred yards to the yacht. The on-duty crewman met me at the gangplank, and Mel, the babysitter, was waiting for us at our stateroom. It took me a while to get her settled down, two stories from her favorite book.

It was probably an hour before I left my sleeping daughter in the care of Mel, and I was able to return to the restaurant. There had been a subtle rearranging of the seating while I was away. Marcus had slipped into my empty seat and was talking to Rebecca. I gave him a pointed look as I moved to stand beside her. He started to ignore me, but then seemed to think better of it. He stood and pulled a chair over from an adjacent table and placed it behind her and sat down, gesturing to me to take my chair.

“I’m sorry if it appeared I’m monopolizing your wife,” he said. “I needed to discuss the situation and see if I couldn’t try to convince her to fly back with me.”