But it all seemed too late, and his back, hostile and set against her, told her not to try it.

Sophie’s eyes watered. She wasn’t even sure if Tom loved her, not anymore. He had expelled her from her home, from her business. Left her with the clothes on her back. And he’d done it for Pierre . . . for that cheating, betraying, controlling bastard.

She had never realized it before. All those nights she had cried for Pierre, prayed for his safe return, refused not to give up on him. He had gone, leaving her and her son in a prison of his own making.

“I love you, Tom,” she said quietly. Then she walked out of the office and shut the door behind her.

She had never hated her husband. Until that moment.

Chapter 37

Chapter 37

He never forgot the first moment he saw her.

She was standing there in the market square, and she was wearing red. Amid all the grey, drab clothes of the merchants and the workers, she stood out, brilliant and unafraid. She walked with the confidence of a rich woman, and the peasants scuttling along under the shadow of the mediaeval buildings drew aside as she passed, for she was obviously important.

Vladek stared. He swallowed the last of the pastry he had expertly stolen from a baker’s shop two miles away, and saved for his lunch. It had been good, with cheese and real meat; he could feel the protein landing, solid and comforting, in his empty stomach. But the pleasures of eating faded instantly when she strutted by.

He catalogued everything that was great about her. The soft red wool of her clothes, like something from the West. The neat, high-heeled black shoes. A quick glance at her calves told him she wore real American nylons. Her hair, dyed black, he thought, was carefully swept up into a pillbox hat. She had a neat little handbag, black leather with a golden clasp. It was quilted. It must have been imported, he thought. No way that came from Russia.

But she was walking away from him, that fine, rounded bottom mincing towards the edge of the square.

Vladek thought she was the most elegant female he had ever seen. Nothing like the fat farmers’ daughters or the gaudily painted whores with their bruised skin that he encountered around Tallinn every day. Not even like a party member’s wife, well-fed and nicely dressed. No, she had style, true distinction; she was a monarch butterfly in a room full of moths.

She looked . . . rich.

He stirred. He wanted her. But not just physically;Vladek felt a sting of white-hot desire. He instantly needed to do more than screw her. He wanted to possess her. She was the kind of woman who was destined for him.