When the Siren Calls Read Online Free

aroused by her experience with the man from the market and spurred on by fear, needing to reassure herself about her marriage. But his familiarity was crushing; she felt no possibility in Peter’s embrace — only his inevitable climax and her seemingly eternal disappointment.Three
    Strange feelings of guilt surged and ebbed within Isobel as she sat with Peter at the breakfast table; she pushed her food round the plate with her fork, eyeing it listlessly and eating nothing. She had lost almost a stone in the past six months, the weight falling off as Peter’s absorption in his latest client reached its peak. He, of course, failed to notice. Failed to feel her hip bones against his as they lay together, remained oblivious to the wedding ring that now slid loosely up her finger and back to the knuckle with a dull thud.
    She studied him as he prodded his mushroom omelette, his attention temporarily distracted from the business section of the newspaper. His face and body were as lean and athletic as the day they met, but the vitality within him was so changed from the man she married. And without knowing why, she found herself resenting that he was the same, yet different.
    “Peter, about yesterday…”
    But her words were drowned by the quiet bleep of his phone, the ‘please stay quiet bleep’ as she once called it; it was late afternoon in Tokyo, and his eyes and mind went to the message on the screen instead of the anxiety on her face. She reached across and put her palm over the phone; he looked at her with impatience, perhaps even anger, in his eyes.
    “I had quite a fright in the medina. At one point one of the sellers grabbed my arm, you know, really grabbed it, and a crowd gathered.”
    “Those guys don’t take no for an answer. If you had just waited half an hour we could have gone together,” he said, failing to sense any impending drama as he removed her hand from the screen. “Can I just deal with this, and then I’m all yours.” But he was not and she feared never would be.
    She rose and stood for a moment in exasperation. “I’m going to the room to pack, then I’m off to the pool.”
    He gestured to the phone pressed to his ear and batted off her words with a flick of his hand.
    All guilt dissolved as she made the short walk to the elevator, her vision narrowed by rage she focused only on the shining doors ahead. A man leapt up from a chair to her left but she did not see him. He threw down his newspaper and ran up behind her, pressing his hand playfully to her back.
    “Going my way,” he said, as she almost jumped out of her skin, whirling round as the last of her tired nerves snapped.
    “Oh my god, don’t do that,” she said, trying to disguise the contortion of emotions on her face.
    He laughed a boyish laugh. “Sorry, I just can’t seem to help myself jumping out of nowhere to rescue damsels in distress.”
    “I’m not in distress,” she said smiling, “and the lift only goes one way.”
    The lift came and went as they exchanged pleasantries, Isobel offering her thanks once more for his heroics and he convivially dismissing them, his humour as pleasant and energetic as the day before. He seemed content to chat idly as the doors opened and closed, but Isobel found her eye straying to the breakfast room entrance. He seemed to sense her discomfort and stepped into the elevator at the next opportunity, silently beckoning her with his smile to follow him.
    She looked at her watch.
    “We’re leaving in a couple of hours,” she said, to which he muttered a nonchalant “uh um,” obliging her to continue. “I thought I’d spend the last hour around the pool… just while Peter makes his calls.”
    “Sounds good, I was thinking about doing the same.”
    Isobel had to stop herself from running as she stepped out to the corridor and made for her room. Once there she threw her clothes haphazardly into the suitcase, rehearsing her reasoning as she went. “Why should I avoid someone who did