Free Unmasking Elena Montella by Victoria Connelly

They’d have to come up with something else. Maybe they could teach some private lessons. He’d always been rather keen on the idea but couldn’t possibly think to do it in his present accommodation.
    He closed his eyes and tried to picture the kind of apartment he imagined them living in: a light, spacious loft conversion with pale wooden floors, white walls and windows looking out over more expensive suburbs than his present flat did. Three or four bedrooms would be nice: one for them, a spare for friends and family, a study, and one for – he grinned – the future.
    Maybe they could use the study as a classroom – setting up their very own school in miniature. They could charge a better hourly rate and there wouldn’t be the hassle of early mornings on the tube and the stress of actually getting Tomi to pay them at the end of each month. They could stumble out of bed after an early session under Egyptian cotton sheets, share a shower, cook breakfast in the sleek steel kitchen and then greet the students who’d all be incredibly well-behaved and stinking rich.
    Mark fidgeted in his seat as he began to get excited about his dream future with Elena. That was the great thing about dreams – you could have the most expensive taste in the world and it wouldn’t cost you a penny. He dreaded to think what the reality would be but he wasn’t going to think about that now. Instead, he focussed on the next few days ahead and what he was hoping to achieve.
    It was only over the last couple of weeks that he’d become aware of Elena’s multiple persona. He didn’t really know how to explain it but he got the feeling that she was many different people all at once. He knew everybody could be like that: who didn’t become the downtrodden child when talking to a parent, or a sycophantic sop when speaking to a bank manager? But it was more than that with Elena.
    For the most part, he got the vibrant vixen who was so full of energy that it practically spilled out of her but there were times when somebody else would flash from her eyes – a distant, more thoughtful person – somebody she tried to keep hidden but who, nevertheless, kept trying to escape.
    ‘ What’s the matter?’ he’d asked her the first time he’d seen her with a look in her eyes of such mournful proportions that it had almost made him cry.
    ‘ Nothing!’ she’d said, and her mouth had heaved into a huge smile again and the look was gone. He’d caught her off-guard but she refused to acknowledge it, and that wouldn’t do. If they were going to be married, if they were planning a future together, then he needed to know all about her.
    There was nothing about his mundane life she needed to know. An only child with divorced parents who’d both gone on to marry perfect replicas of their exes, he’d spent all his life in West London with a quick detour to Edinburgh University before becoming a teacher. He felt dull, dull, dull, and he wondered what somebody as vibrant as Elena was doing with someone like him. They said opposites attracted but he felt as if he were a bungalow next to her palace. But this palace obviously had hidden hallways – maybe even a prison or two – and it was up to him to find out exactly what she was hiding behind so perfect a façade.

Chapter 13
     
    Reuben had to admit that Elena argued a convincing case as to why Rosanna thought she was engaged to some teacher called Mark rather than an artist called Reuben, but he still had his suspicions. After all, she hadn’t exactly greeted him with open arms. He thought he could’ve at least expected a warmer welcome from her after having travelled such a long way - or at least a welcome somewhere above tepid - but no - she’d been suspicious and, unless he was becoming really paranoid, she’d looked guilty. She’d kept looking over his shoulder as if she’d expected him to have brought somebody with him and, when he’d kissed her, it had felt tense and awkward.
    As they left