The Secret Beneath the Veil

by Dani Collins

  Keep reading for an excerpt from DEFYING THE BILLIONAIRE’S COMMAND by Michelle Conder.

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  Defying the Billionaire’s Command

  by Michelle Conder

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS OFTEN said that Dare James was a man who had everything, and most days he’d be hard-pressed to disagree. Blessed with bad-boy good looks, and the stamina and physique any star athlete would envy, he enjoyed expensive cars, even more expensive women, and homes that spanned the globe.

  A self-made billionaire by the age of thirty, he had started with nothing and now, thanks to sheer hard work and old-fashioned grit and determination, he pretty much had anything a man could want.

  What he didn’t have was the ability to handle fools lightly, especially pompous, fat-cat fools who understood that the stock market went up and down as long as their own wealth wasn’t affected.

  Dare propped his feet on his desk and leaned back in his chair. ‘I don’t care if he thinks we should dump the stock,’ he told his CFO over the phone. ‘I’m telling you to hold it. If he wants to question my judgment again he can take his business elsewhere.’

  Clicking off the call, he thumbed through to the next issue he had to deal with.

  ‘Trouble?’

  Dare glanced towards his office door to find his mother framed in it. She’d flown from North Carolina to London the previous night, stopping overnight at his before she headed to Southampton to visit an old friend.

  Dare smiled and dropped his feet from his desk. ‘What are you doing up this early, Ma? You should still be asleep.’

  His mother strolled into his office and perched on one of his sofas in the sitting area. ‘I needed to talk to you before I head off today.’

  Dare glanced at his watch. Business always came first in Dare’s world, except when it came to his mother. ‘Of course, what’s up?’

  If she wanted to borrow Mark, his driver, to take her to Southampton he’d already arranged it.

  ‘I received an email from my father a month ago.’

  Dare frowned, not sure he’d heard her right. ‘Your father?’

  ‘I know.’ Her brow quirked. ‘It was a surprise to me too.’

  Dare wasn’t sure what shocked him more, the fact that she’d received an email, or the fact that she’d taken so long to tell him about it. ‘What does he want?’

  ‘To see me.’

  Her hands twisted together unconsciously in her lap and Dare’s gut tightened. When a man who had kicked his daughter out of her home for marrying someone he didn’t approve of contacted her thirty-three years later you could bet something was up. And Dare doubted it would be good.

  ‘Bully for him,’ he said without preamble.

  ‘He invited me up to the house for lunch.’

  The house being Rothmeyer House, a large stone mansion set on one hundred and twenty-seven acres of lush English countryside.

  Dare made a derogatory sound in the back of his throat. ‘Surely you’re not considering it,’ he dismissed. Because he couldn’t think why she would. After the way the old man had hurt her, it was the last thing he deserved. And the last thing his mother should risk.

  Unfortunately he could already tell that she was not only considering the invitation, but that she wanted to go.

  ‘The man’s done nothing for you,’ he reminded her, ‘and now he wants to see you?’ Dare knew he sounded contemptuous on her behalf and he was. ‘He has an ulterior motive. You know that, right? He either needs money or he’s dying.’

  ‘Dare!’ his mother exclaimed. ‘I didn’t realise I’d raised such a cynic.’

  ‘Not a cynic, Ma, a realist.’ He softened his voice. ‘And I don’t want you getting your hopes up that he’s suddenly regretting his decision to cut you off all those years ago. Because if he’s not dying it will be some kind of power play, mark my words.’

  Dare knew he sounded harsh but someone had to look out for his mother, and he’d been doing it for so long now it had become second nature.

  ‘He’s my father, Dare,’ she said softly. ‘And he’s reached out.’ Her hands lifted and then fell back into her lap. ‘I can’t explain it really but it just feels like something I should do.’

  Dare was a man who dealt in facts, not feelings, and as far as he was concerned his grandfather, Benson Granger, Baron Rothmeyer, was offering far too little far too late.

  His mother could have used his help years ago. She didn’t need him now.

  ‘He mentioned that he’s tried to find me before,’ she said.

  ‘He couldn’t have tried very hard. You didn’t exactly hide out.’

  ‘No, but I have a feeling your father might have had something to do with that.’

  Dare’s eyes narrowed. He hated thinking about his father, let alone talking about him. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Once when you were young and I still believed in him he said he’d made sure my father would always understand what he’d lost. I didn’t think much of it at the time but now I wonder what prompted him to say that. And you know my father had no idea that you even existed until I mentioned it.’

  ‘Well, he’ll know I exist if you decide to take up his invitation because you won’t be going alone.’

  ‘So you think I should go?’

  ‘Hell no. I think you should delete the email and pretend you never received it.’

  His mother sighed. ‘You’re one of his heirs, Dare.’

  Dare scowled. ‘I don’t care about that. I have no interest in inheriting some old pile of rubble that probably costs more money to run than it’s worth.’

  ‘Rothmeyer House is very beautiful but... I can’t help but think I made a mistake keeping you away from him after your father died. He is your only remaining relative on my side of the family besides your uncle, and your cousin, Beckett.’

  Dare rounded the desk and took his mother’s tightly clasped hands in his. ‘Look at me, Ma.’ He waited for her to raise her blue eyes to his. ‘You did the right thing. I don’t need him. I never did.’

  ‘He changed after my mother died,’ she said softly as if remembering something painful. ‘He was never the most demonstrative man,
but he became almost reclusive. Distant with everyone.’

  Dare raised a brow. ‘He sounds like a real gem.’

  That brought a smile to his mother’s lips, softening the deep lines on either side of her mouth and making her look more like her relaxed self. At fifty-four she was still a strikingly attractive woman, and finally seemed to have embraced life again and shaken off the many tough years she’d had to endure.

  Which was one of the reasons Dare resented this communication from her estranged father now. His mother was happy and didn’t need any reminders of the past; which was called the past for a reason.

  ‘And our estrangement wasn’t all his fault,’ she continued softly. ‘I was impetuous back then and...in the end he was right about your father and I was too proud to admit it.’

  ‘You can’t possibly blame yourself.’ Dare frowned.

  ‘No, I don’t, but...’ She looked up at him. ‘You know, it’s the strangest thing but right before he emailed me I started having dreams that I was back in the house. It’s almost like a premonition, don’t you think?’

  Dare believed in premonitions about as much as he believed in fairytales.

  ‘What I think is that you probably need closure. And I’ll support you any way I can. Even going with you if that’s what you want.’

  She beamed him a smile. ‘I was hoping you’d say that because after I mentioned you, he said he’d like to meet you.’

  Great, Dare thought, just what he needed: a family reunion. ‘When is this lunch?’ he asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’

  ‘Sorry, darling, I should have given you more warning, but I wasn’t sure I was even going to accept until today.’

  Dare still wished she hadn’t, but his mind was already turning to the logistics. ‘Who else will be there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Has he remarried? Do you have a stepmother, by chance?’ His lips twisted cynically.

  ‘No, but he did say he had a guest staying with him.’

  ‘A woman?’

  His mother shrugged. ‘He didn’t say. Our communication has been a little formal up to this point.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Dare dismissed. ‘I’ll have Nina rearrange my diary.’ He frowned. ‘We’ll leave at—’

  His mother shook her head. ‘I promised Tammy I’d see her in Southampton later today and I can’t cancel on her. Why don’t I meet you at Rothmeyer House tomorrow just before twelve?’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’ He sat down at his desk. ‘I’ve organised Mark to drive you today. I’ll ask him to stay overnight to make things easier.’

  ‘Thank you, Dare. You know I couldn’t have asked for a better son, don’t you?’

  He stood up as she approached his desk and he enfolded her in his arms. ‘And you know I’d do anything for you.’

  ‘Yes, I know. And I appreciate it.’

  Sensing a lingering sadness in her voice, Dare wondered if she was thinking about his father. Thinking about what a roller-coaster ride it had been with him right up until his death when Dare had just turned fifteen.

  At best his father could be called a drifter chasing one dream after another in search of the big time, at worst he had been a conman with feet of clay. The only valuable lesson Dare had ever learnt from him was how to spot a con at fifty paces.

  But it had been a good lesson that had helped Dare make more money than he could ever have imagined. And he had imagined a lot growing up in the poorest suburb in a small American town.

  It had also stood him well when it came to relationships. For a while Dare had run with a rough crowd, but he’d soon learned that brothers were only brothers as long as you toed the line.

  Since Dare didn’t like toeing anyone else’s line but his own, he kept to himself and trusted very few people.

  Finding out when he was eighteen that his mother had an aristocratic lineage had only been interesting in that it had made Dare even more resentful of the family who had turned her away, thus forcing her to take three jobs just to make do. He’d never wanted to meet any of them and he still didn’t.

  But meet them he would and it wouldn’t be tomorrow when his mother turned up for lunch. It would be today. This afternoon.

  If Benson Granger thought he could insinuate himself into Dare’s mother’s life for any reason other than an altruistic one, he had another think coming.

  And while it wasn’t at all convenient to take a trip to Cornwall that afternoon, it would give him a chance to take his new toy out on the open roads.

  Dare smiled, but it wasn’t the charming, devil-may-care smile that made women swoon and men envious. It was a hunter-with-his-prey-in-his-sights smile, and for the first time since his mother had given him the disturbing news Dare thought he might actually enjoy setting his grandfather straight on a few things.

  * * *

  The locals at Rothmeyer village said that the summer they were having was the best in the last thirty years. Warm, balmy days, and light, breezy nights straight out of a Beatrix Potter fable.

  Up at Rothmeyer House, the grand estate that bordered one side of the village, Carly Evans braced her spent arms on the edge of the deep blue swimming pool and hauled her tired body out of the water.

  ‘Whoever said they got an endorphin rush out of exercise was either lying or dead,’ she muttered to no one but the Baron’s Pekinese, who snapped at passing insects as he lay like an untidy mop in the shade of the terrace.

  Carly had been doing laps of the pool and jogging during her free time at Rothmeyer House since she’d arrived three weeks ago and she’d yet to feel anything other than exhausted and sore.

  Not that she should be complaining on a day like today. Or any day. Working as the elderly Baron Rothmeyer’s temporary doctor had been a real coup. Not only was the location spectacular, but, due to the Baron having to undergo a life-threatening operation in two weeks, it was also live-in. As in, living in the main house, live-in.

  But the job would be over soon and she’d have to move on. Which was fine with Carly who, much to her parents’ distress, had become something of a wandering gypsy this past year.

  She pulled a face at the thought and squeezed water out of her long red hair, flicking it back over her shoulder. She was about as much like a gypsy as a nun was a circus performer, and up until a year ago she had led a very conventional life as a hard-working doctor in one of Liverpool’s best hospitals.

  That was until the bottom had fallen out of her world and ruined everything.

  Grabbing a towel, Carly briskly swiped at her face and body. She grabbed her phone and settled onto a lounger, determined that with the Baron gone for another few hours she was not going to waste her free time thinking about the past.

  ‘If you don’t face things,’ her father had said, ‘they become mountains instead of molehills.’

  As far as Carly was concerned hers had started out as a mountain and when it became a molehill she might consider returning home. Which was just as hard for her as it was her loving family because at heart Carly was a homebody who loved her parents. And her sister.

  A familiar lump formed in her throat as the past lurched into her consciousness.

  To distract herself she grabbed her cell phone. She had one new email from her parents, who would no doubt be subtly trying to find out if she really was okay, one from her old alma mater, and another from her temp agency, Travelling Angels.

  Clicking to open her work email, she read that they had another job lined up for her as soon as this one was finished and did she want it. Being one of only three fully qualified doctors on their roster, she had so far not been without work. Which was fine with Carly. Busy meant less time for contemplating past mistakes.

  But she wasn’t ready to think about her nex
t move yet so she closed that email and tapped on the one from her parents. Yes, there it was, the question of when they would see her next, and whether she’d made any decisions about her future.

  Carly sighed and closed that email as well.

  A year ago her beautiful, kind and gregarious sister had died of a rare and aggressive form of leukaemia. To add insult to injury, Carly’s über-successful boyfriend had been cheating on her instead of being by her side to support her.

  Not that she’d really turned to Daniel for support during those months. Being an important cardiologist, he was generally busy and, if she was being honest with herself, their relationship had never been like that.

  He had pursued her because he respected her and she had accepted his invitation to go out because she’d been flattered by his attention. Then Liv had become sick and everything had fallen apart. Daniel had become resentful of the time she spent with her sister, questioning her about her movements at every turn and accusing her of cheating on him and using her sister as a ruse.

  No matter what she had said, he hadn’t believed her and then she’d discovered that in fact he had been the one cheating on her. On top of all that, everyone at her hospital had known about it and no one had said a word to her. The whole experience had been mortifying.

  Feeling the sun burning into her skin, Carly yanked on a pair of cut-off denim shorts, dislodging the slender black velvet jeweller’s box that had arrived for her earlier that day.

  Still not quite believing what was inside, she opened it and once more marvelled at the divinely expensive ruby necklace nestled against the royal blue silk lining.

  ‘To match your hair,’ the card had read, followed by a swirling signature that denoted the sense of importance Benson’s grandson, Beckett Granger, cloaked himself in.

  Carly shook her head as she took out the necklace. For a start her hair was more orange than ruby red so if Beckett had thought to impress her with his cleverness he’d be disappointed.

  If he thought to impress her with the amount he must have spent on it he’d be disappointed as well. Carly was too practically minded for lavish jewellery and still wore the diamond stud earrings her parents had bought her ten years ago, much to Liv’s disgust.