Deceiver

by Robin Lovett

  He tilts his head, mirroring mine. “Now, why would we do that?”

  “Because that’s what normal people do on dates. Go out to dinner.”

  He gives a half-smile, full of no humor. “What about me would you classify as normal?”

  “I can pretend.”

  “You don’t want to pretend with me. Normal is the last thing you want.” He’s right. I don’t want safe—like all the other boring dinner dates I’ve ever had. “Besides, regardless of where we have dinner, going by your reactions earlier, we’re going to end up at my place anyway. Am I right?”

  I like this. No boring mating dance like I’ve done a hundred time—the guessing of will we have sex or no. I want it, he wants it. No delusions or pretense.

  I have nothing to be worried about.

  He lowers his voice. “Do you remember meeting my housekeeper and groundskeeper last night when you arrived at the party? The Tanners will play chaperone if you want. You won’t be alone with me. Unless you want to be.”

  I like the sound of that. “Unless I want to be?”

  “Do you?” He comes closer, close enough to kiss, close enough to grab and pull his lips down to meet mine.

  “You’ll have to give me answers. I need to know why my father hates you.”

  “I’ll tell you everything I said to him and more.” He lowers his head.

  I swerve away from him and open his passenger-side door. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The ten-foot iron gates of the Vandershall estate close behind us, and a feeling of satisfaction—the kind I’d been hoping for—overcomes me.

  I have her. She’s mine. She won’t be leaving here unless I say.

  She sits beside me, her hands restless in her lap.

  “Are you anxious?” I ask. If she had any sense of what’s really happening here she would be. Her fearlessness is a serious character flaw.

  She kicks her chin in the air. “More impatient.”

  “Impatient for what?”

  The look she gives me from beneath her lashes hits me like a laser. Tiger—sultry and hot.

  Her in bed is going to be a battle of dominance. But damn, are we both going to enjoy getting there.

  I train my eyes on the driveway ahead of me. The evening sun casts shadows along the road to the house. The miles through the forest are like traveling to a world away from the world. My world.

  The urge to keep her is growing in me, expanding in my chest beyond the mere need for revenge. I wasn’t expecting that taking her here, trapping her, without her even knowing, would light a sexual instinct in me. But it has. I want to make her mine. In all ways.

  And why not? There’s nothing to stop me. Certainly not her. Not with the way she’s looking at me.

  We pull up to the house, which I don’t really see anymore. The lake, the fountain, the stonework, the garden—she gets out of the car and stares at everything with a lingering gaze.

  “Is that a table on the water?” She points to the lake and the iron lattice table that tricks the eye into believing it’s standing on water.

  “It’s on a little island.”

  “Can we eat out there?”

  “We’re having dinner on the back terrace. But we can have breakfast on the lake tomorrow.”

  Her smile returns to that erotic mischievous look. “Breakfast, huh? You’re so sure I’m staying the night?”

  “You will.”

  She steps away from me and folds her arms over her chest. “You know that’s the fastest way to get me not to do something—by telling me to do it.” Her jaw clenches into a hard line.

  It’s amusing, her front of stubbornness. She can’t be serious.

  She tilts her head and her eyes turn calculating. “This seems too routine for you—picking me up, driving me out here, telling me to spend the night—I’m beginning to feel like you’ve done this a hundred times.” She stalks toward me, making me concerned about what she’ll do next. “Am I just a piece of ass to you? And don’t lie because I’ll know.”

  “It’s all I am to you, so what difference does it make?”

  She backs up and shakes her head. “Take me home. This isn’t going to work.”

  “What?”

  “I was under the impression this situation was exceptional for you—throwing a party for me, stalking me at my father’s office, all that seemed unusual for you. But now this just seems routine, and I’m not into routine. So I’d rather just go home.” She walks to the passenger side of my car to get in.

  Anger races through my veins. She’s not leaving. She can’t leave.

  I step between her and the car door. “You’re not leaving.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not letting you leave.”

  Her brows go up so high they almost hit her hairline. “No. That’s not how this works. I say, ‘I’m going home.’ And you ask what the address is. That’s it.”

  I’m filled with outrage, but more surprised at not wanting to give her my ultimatum yet—I want to wait. I want her willing first, before I tell her she’s my prisoner. I like coercion better than restraint. Even if I have to lie to get it.

  But I don’t move. “Please stay. Mrs. Tanner’s prepared dinner for us. At least eat with me.”

  “You didn’t just have some restaurant deliver food?”

  “She’s a great cook. And I swear I’ve never done this before.”

  “Done what? Had dinner with a woman first?”

  “Asked the Tanners to make a dinner for me and a date. They’re tickled about it, actually. Teasing me with text messages.” I pull out my phone and show her Mrs. Tanner’s We’ll have everything ready text with all the heart emojis.

  Daisy reads it with a twinkling smile, and I’m relieved to see her softening to my attempts to humanize myself.

  I tuck my phone back in my pocket.

  She murmurs, “You’re very persuasive.”

  I’m also a liar. “I swear you can leave after dinner if you want to.”

  She nods with a little chuckle. “Deal.” She turns to walk to the house.

  I place a hand on her lower back, the light touch like a brand. In subtle ways, I’ll teach her I’m in charge. Ways that she’ll like.

  I lead her around the back to the garden pavilion.

  “I want to see inside the house,” she says. “I didn’t get to last night.”

  My back stiffens. Going in the house again isn’t happening. “I thought everyone saw it last night after your sprinkler stunt.”

  She exaggerates a sigh. “I walked around the house, unfortunately, to make sure I avoided a certain someone.”

  “Me.”

  “Of course, you.”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Tanner would love to give you a tour.”

  She stops and turns to me. “What if I want you to give me the tour?”

  My hands start to sweat. “I’m sure you’d prefer Mrs. Tanner’s house tour to mine.”

  “What is it that has you spooked, Blake?”

  “Spooked?” I shake my head. “Scared isn’t something I am. Ever.”

  “When I asked about seeing your house, you got as nervous now as you did last night.”

  I crowd her, stand over her, dominating her space. She doesn’t back away, and her smile broadens up at me. “You mistake nerves for—what was it you said in the car? Impatience.”

  “Impatience for me to shut up and eat dinner so you can fuck me already?” She lifts a single eyebrow—in that cutest of affectations she showed me last night. Except now it’s not cute, it’s patronizing, and I want to wipe the look from her face.

  “You want me impatient.”

  She laughs. “Why do you insist on telling me what I want?”

  “Because I do know what you want.”

  “You don’t know me. How could you?”

  “I do know you. What’s more, I’m right, and that scares you. The idea that you could be predictable to someone, that they could know what you want better
than you know yourself—it terrifies you.”

  “Almost as terrified as you seem to be of going in your own house.”

  The patience I had, the allowances I was making for her and her curiosity, are at an end. “You know nothing about what terrifies me, so do not even pretend to try.” The terrors in my world are of a kind she can’t even fathom.

  Chapter Six

  On his back patio, a table is laid perfectly for us, with warmers beneath the plates, lids covering the food, and no one in sight.

  “Wow.” I look around. “Do you have little magic gnomes running around to do your bidding?”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Tanner are pretty magical.” He holds out a chair for me to sit, then seats himself across from me.

  I wait until both of us have a couple of bites, long enough for it not to be rude to ask: “So what business brings you to town?” I have to know what this argument was about with my father.

  “You.” His eyes narrow. “Do you doubt me?”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Why not?” He leans forward, his elbows on the table.

  “Because you’re a businessman with large amounts of money. The business you’re in town for has to do with my father. Was it about the estate?”

  His face cools and sets into an expressionless mask. “Yes and no.”

  “You need to tell me what your business is with Dad and why you upset him so much.” He inhales to respond, but I cut him off. “And don’t give me that attorney-client privilege bullshit. I need the truth.”

  His expression gives nothing away, but he waits, choosing his words with care. “Your father and my father had business many years ago that left me with unanswered questions. I was forceful in needing answers, and your father doesn’t feel he can legally give them to me.”

  “It doesn’t explain why he didn’t want me to see you.”

  “The content of my questions makes him think I’m less than worthy of his only daughter. Which is true.”

  I ignore his modesty. I don’t believe it. “They must be serious questions.”

  “Yes, they are. So you’ll bear with me when I say that I don’t wish to ruin our dinner by talking about them. I’ll be glad to tell you more tomorrow morning.” The weight in his gaze leaves no room for disagreement.

  I stare back, letting him know I won’t be intimidated. “That’s a very patronizing answer.”

  “And it’s the only one you’re getting. For now.”

  “Maybe it’s time for me to go, then.”

  His expression blanches, but he quickly recovers his face. Though his knuckles turn white gripping the arms of his chair. “You won’t leave.”

  I deliberate. I don’t want to go. I won’t get more answers in the morning if I leave. And I won’t get to sample any of the hot sexiness that’s been staring at me through dinner. But still. “You’re doing it again.”

  “What?”

  “Telling me what to do.”

  “I’m merely stating what I know you’ll do. Not telling you what to do.” He gives me a look so penetrating, it’s as though he’s seeing into me, and I almost believe him. Except he can’t know what I’m going to do before I do it.

  But the thought that he might know . . .

  It should appall me, or freak me out, but it doesn’t. It makes my heart beat faster—as though I really do want him to know me. “So arrogant,” I whisper.

  He leans forward, his gaze over me so searing, it’s like even if he could be on me, it wouldn’t be close enough. “You’re just hurt that I know what you’ll do before you do it.”

  “You don’t know me.” I shouldn’t want him to, but the weird part is, I do. “We only met last night.”

  “I’ve known you for longer than that.”

  “You can’t have.”

  “I knew you at Fenton. I was in law school your freshman year.”

  “I would remember meeting you if I had.” I’m disturbed at the possibility that I wouldn’t. He’s too attractive, my reactions to him too strong, and if I’d met a Vandershall before, I wouldn’t have forgotten.

  “I didn’t meet you. I saw you at parties. Watched you being the social butterfly you were.”

  “You watched me and never talked to me? Why?” His creepy tendencies are more deeply ingrained than I thought.

  “You hardly need compliments to boost your ego.” I’m relieved he seems to understand that hearing praise of my looks would only make me roll my eyes.

  “But I would like to know how you can know me so well from stalking me six years ago.”

  He bites his lip as though restraining a laugh, but his eyes when he lifts them are full of both humor and sincerity. “The wet T-shirt contest during pledge week freshman year.”

  I sit back in my chair. “You think you know me because you saw my tits through a shirt? I don’t think so.”

  “Not just your tits. Though they are enough to make a man pledge his life to you.”

  I shake my head. “Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

  “I’m sure.” He clears his throat. “It wouldn’t have mattered how your breasts looked. As magnificent as they are.” He looks off at the garden, the rows of bushes, the lush little stream and the endless copse of ash trees.

  A bitter reluctance passes over his face, almost like he wishes he wasn’t thinking about me, but he is. It strikes me—he’s thinking about me, giving more consideration to me as a person than the two guys who proposed to me this year combined. He’s not thinking about my pretty face, my family’s country club membership, or my dad’s law firm. He’s thinking of me.

  He speaks to the trees. “You’re beautiful and you know it, but it’s not how you define yourself. You’re determined to be around others who won’t judge you for your looks. That’s why you dyed your hair darker after graduation. You were tired of people stereotyping you as a blond.”

  I try to hide my shock. He can’t actually know this. He must be making it up and hoping he’s right.

  He turns his gaze to mine, and the intensity in his eyes captures me, like he’s seeing through me, into me, like he’s x-raying my soul. It’s terrifying. “You’re not conceited or needlessly modest. You own yourself in a way that is more attractive than any attention-seeking ploy.

  “You’re smart but don’t plan your future on it. You’re witty but don’t run your social life around it.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “You do make choices based on your rebellious tendencies sometimes.”

  “Sometimes.” His perception of me—stunningly—is as clear if not clearer than how I perceive myself. It’s impossible.

  “But mostly, you’ve made your life by being you. That’s why you haven’t decided what you want yet from it. You’re searching for the one thing that meets you so perfectly you don’t need to change yourself to get it.

  “I’ve never met someone before who was so completely comfortable in her own skin, with no regrets and no apologies.” He leans across the table. “That’s why I’ve sought you out. That’s why I threw the party for you.”

  I push down my fear of how scarily perceptive he is, of what this could mean about his connection to me that he can read me so well. “Why didn’t you seek me out at school?”

  “You weren’t ready for me.”

  I open my mouth to protest but the look he gives me is the one he had this morning coming out of my father’s office—the one that thrills me. The one that six years ago would have scared me. “I wasn’t ready.”

  I swallow, wishing he weren’t right. About everything. It’s scarier than I thought to have a man see me the way I want to be seen.

  It sets my defenses on edge. “I won’t let you define me either.”

  His indrawn breath catches in his throat. “I hope not.”

  Chapter Seven

  Truth mixed with the lies. That’s the real recipe to deception, I realize. Lace the two so tightly together she can’t tell which is which. Until I can’t tell which is which. Until I’m not sure myself
where the truth ends and the fabrication begins. I thought some of those things about her at school. Maybe all of them. I don’t know now.

  It’s not why I threw the party for her, or why I invited her here. But she doesn’t need to know that. It might be why I’m so attracted to her. Or I might be getting off on the whole about - to - hold - her - hostage thing. This could be as good of an idea for me as it is for my revenge. Her here, willing, wanting me—though that willing part probably won’t last once she knows she’s trapped. Still, Daisy Nowell turned out to be the same woman I spied all those years ago. It’s beyond luck. It’s a twist of fate that I hope doesn’t turn around and bite me later.

  Though it probably will.

  The look of awe she’s giving me, the pleasant surprise, makes me feel like the most powerful man on earth. I hold her desires in the palm of my hand and can mold them as I like. She wants me more now than she did when she got here.

  I wonder if I could make her crazed. Make her so hungry for me, she’s desperate—and then keep myself from her. The torture would be worth it. To see her writhing in need of me. To have her begging me for what I refuse to give her.

  She strokes her cheek. “So, about that house tour.”

  I won’t go in the house with her. But I can’t let her know that. I can’t show weakness. She has to know I’m in control here. I have to be in control here.

  The sun has gone down while we were eating. If I turn out the porch lights, we’ll be in complete darkness. “Go stand by that pillar.” I point to one of the wooden supports holding up the pavilion.

  She gives a bright smile. “I don’t take orders.”

  I lean across the table. “But you are curious. You want to know why I’d tell you to do that.”

  She taps her fingers and looks at me skeptically.

  “You can trust me,” I say, my voice soothing. “I won’t ask you to do anything you wouldn’t like. And if you don’t like it, you can just not do it. Or tell me to stop.”

  Seeming satisfied, she gets up and stands next to the pole.