Web of Deception

by Blake, Nina

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we can still be a family. Me, you, and the children we have together.”

  “You want to set me up as some kind of mistress? Isn’t that a bit old fashioned, even for you?”

  “Not a mistress. I’d never keep you hidden away from the rest of the world like some sordid secret. I think of it as more of a partnership. We’ll have a family and live together for as long as it suits us, for as long as it works. It’ll be a relationship between two equals.”

  “What kind of relationship?”

  “A new kind. One that we construct ourselves to suit us.”

  “What? So you can see other women?”

  “I don’t want to see other women. Not now. Not in the foreseeable future. But I can’t give you a written guarantee now on exactly what I’ll want in ten or twenty years time. And I don’t think you can either. It’d be a lie. A lot of people tell each other those things and then they get divorced. I’m different. I don’t want to lie to you in the first place.”

  “No, you just want to have me while I’m young. While I’m still good for some hot sex. While I’m still in my prime childbearing years. Then when you’re sick of me, you’ll move on to someone else.”

  He slid his hand across her thigh. She flinched and he pulled back.

  “I want to look after you,” he said. “I don’t want to lie to you.”

  “Let’s get this clear. You don’t want to marry me.” His expression remained unchanged so she added, “You just want me to have your children.”

  Daniel pleaded with his hands. “I want children and I want you. Is that so bad?”

  “You want to use me.”

  “You’re stuck on this marriage thing. That’s it, isn’t it? I don’t want to marry you so you’ve jumped to the conclusion that I’m using you. Kate, marriage isn’t the only way. Maybe it’s not the honest way.”

  “Not for you because you don’t believe in it.”

  “What works for other people won’t necessarily work for me. And it doesn’t work so well for most of them either but people convince themselves they did the right thing because they got married.”

  Kate couldn’t believe it had come to this, couldn’t believe they were having this argument.

  She hadn’t seen it coming. She thought about Daniel’s hints about how she was different, about how she wanted to do things her way. It all started to make sense. She just hadn’t seen where it was headed at the time.

  She could have stayed with him for weeks, months, perhaps even years until the passion faded. His, that is, because she knew her feelings weren’t going to disappear. Damn it, she’d have stayed with him on his terms because that was the only way she could have him.

  But she couldn’t stay with him after this…insult. She wasn’t a baby machine. She was a human being with goals and desires of her own. Not to mention feelings. Daniel didn’t seem to be taking that into account. He thought he could manipulate her into doing whatever he wanted.

  And he nearly had.

  She’d been willing to put her life on hold for her passion, for a man. She’d been ready to put aside her own aims in life to fritter away some time with him, knowing there would be no substance behind the relationship, knowing he wasn’t in it for the long term.

  There was no way she could stay with him after this.

  She loved him. It wasn’t enough, though. Not when he didn’t love her. He’d all but told her he didn’t. If he loved her, he couldn’t have talked to her that way and made her that offer.

  It was ironic, but that was exactly what gave her the strength to fight her addiction.

  To stand.

  And to walk to the door.

  Because that was exactly what she did.

  She stood by the door and looked down at her suitcase, still sitting exactly where she’d left it earlier.

  Daniel followed her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Kate, I’ve done this all wrong. I assumed too much and started in the wrong place. I care for you and I want to share part of my life with you.”

  He cared for her. She’d worked that much out for herself but caring wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

  She turned and looked up at him. “But not all of your life.”

  “I don’t plan on making promises I can’t keep. I won’t lie to you and pledge the rest of my life to you because I don’t know if I can live up to that.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t force you to marry me.”

  “Let’s start over again. We can work this out. I don’t want to lose you over a misunderstanding.”

  Kate shook her head. “There’s no misunderstanding.”

  She should have known better than this. She’d been fooling herself, believing what she wanted to believe.

  This man was so cutthroat in business that he was willing to ruin good people like her parents, not to mention countless others. That sort of person was always no-good. That side of his personality was always going to surface sooner or later.

  Time to stop lying to herself.

  “I’ve muffed this up completely,” Daniel said. “You want some romance in your life and that’s fair enough.”

  She felt strangely calm. “I don’t want romance. I want the one thing you can’t give. Yourself.”

  “I can’t promise that you and I will last forever. I can’t say that in ten or twenty years time I’ll still feel this strongly about you.”

  But Kate could.

  She pulled open the door and picked up her suitcase.

  “Goodbye Daniel,” she said.

  Chapter eleven

  Daniel walked up the plank leading into the building and in through the open doorway. A labourer with a wheelbarrow full of rubble walked past him. As the man turned a corner in the corridor, a half-brick slipped off the top of the pile to land on Daniel’s toe. The man apologised immediately.

  Daniel looked down at his Italian leather shoes, covered in dust, the leather toe on one shoe dented from the brick which had landed on it. Leaving his office in a hurry, he’d forgotten to take the steel-toed boots he wore on building inspections and now his new shoes were ruined.

  Not that it mattered. They were only shoes.

  “Don’t worry about it, mate,” he said to the labourer, and kept walking.

  The smell of concrete dust filled the air. As a property developer, Daniel had been on many building sites and the smell reminded him of the excitement of seeing projects in progress. But that wasn’t why he was here.

  Kate Henry stood at the far end of the central corridor that ran through the building. Wearing tailored sage coloured pants and a matching jacket over a simple tee shirt, she looked like she’d pulled on a pair of work boots to come to site.

  Her blond hair brushed against her shoulders, peeking out from beneath a hard hat. Daniel wondered how it was possible for a woman to look so damn good wearing a bright yellow construction hat.

  She seemed to have spotted him through the corner of her eye but kept talking to the tradesman with whom she was dealing. The man appeared to be arguing with her but she pointed to the plans in her hands, her expression firm. Seconds later, the workman raised his hands as though giving up, nodded and walked away.

  It was clear this was her playing field, her area of expertise, and she meant business.

  She looked Daniel in the eye as soon as he neared her. “This is a construction site.”

  “I go on site all the time,” he said.

  “I’m at work.”

  “I know. That’s why I came. It was the only way I could catch you when you wouldn’t return my calls.”

  “There’s a reason for that. There’s nothing left to discuss. We’re through.”

  “No we’re not.”

  She turned, walked away and opened a steel framed glass door leading to an internal courtyard. Swinging the door open and closed repeatedly, she appeared to be checking the hinges. Whatever she was doing, she was a
voiding him.

  How many times had she told him she’d made mistakes in her past? Now, he’d made a big one. He’d thought he could play by his rules, have everything his own way, and it was painfully obvious he’d been wrong.

  Daniel hadn’t realised how much Kate meant to him until she’d walked away. It was such a cliché. It was also the truth.

  In the last ten years he’d got everything he wanted. Every woman. Every business deal. Each interaction made him more experienced, more accomplished, better equipped to handle the next challenge.

  He’d been called arrogant more than a few times, but so what? As far as he was concerned, he had reason to be.

  It hadn’t helped prepare him for this. Women didn’t walk away from him. Damn it, they came to him, not the other way around. He had an ego and plenty of pride but that wasn’t what this was about.

  He loved Kate.

  It was as simple as that.

  He just hadn’t known it before.

  Daniel leaned against the wall behind her, his arms crossed. “I can wait until you’re ready.”

  Planting her hands on her hips, she turned to face him. “I’m never going to be ready.”

  “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”

  She frowned. “I’m busy. You can see that.”

  “I didn’t want to badger you at work.”

  “Fine. Then don’t.”

  “I’ll go if you agree to see me tonight.” She pursed her lips so he added, “I can stay here all day and try to get your attention or I can come to your apartment tonight.”

  She scowled. “That’s blackmail.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that bad.”

  She closed the steel-framed door and walked away. “Eight o’clock.” She glanced back at his feet, and added, “Shame about the shoes.”

  Daniel didn’t give a toss about the shoes. He’d got what he wanted.

  For now.

  * * *

  Kate pulled open the door to her apartment. Perhaps she should have answered Daniel’s calls and spoken to him on the phone, after all. It would have been so much easier if she didn’t have to see him face to face, see him looking so darn sure of himself.

  Even in a pair of dark denim jeans which hugged his hips and a V-neck charcoal sweater he’d thrown over a tee shirt, Daniel looked elegant and composed.

  She closed the door behind him, thinking this wasn’t what she’d planned on. She’d never wanted a fling in the first place though she’d thought she could handle it. She certainly didn’t want to live with Daniel and have his babies, knowing full well it was nothing more than a temporary arrangement until someone else took his fancy. And she sure as heck didn’t want his money.

  So why did he make her melt on the inside? How could he still have this power over her?

  He was everything she wanted and he was nothing at all.

  Kate sat at one end of the sofa and Daniel at the other.

  “I can’t let us finish it this way,” he said. “It’s not good enough for me or for you.”

  She looked straight ahead. “I don’t see how we can work this out. We want two completely different things. We always have.”

  “What we want is not that different. I think you want me as much as I want you, Kate.”

  He wanted her. But that would never be enough.

  Longing gnawed away at her, eating into the pit of her stomach.

  She knew why it hurt so much. She’d known all along. The first night they met, he’d called it chemistry but love was more than that. So much more powerful.

  Damn it, this would be so much easier if she didn’t love him.

  But she did.

  She reminded herself that if nothing else, she knew what she didn’t want. And the only things he was offering would cost her too much.

  Her self-respect was worth more than that.

  “That first night I met you, I told you I wanted marriage and a family,” she said. “You didn’t want a relationship. You wanted a fling and we had one.” She shrugged. “Now you want more. A lover. Someone to bear your children. Someone who’ll be happy to hang around and make the most of things while they last. That’s not me.”

  She sounded so composed. More like she was talking about an architectural brief than the most intimate relationship of her life.

  Still, she didn’t look straight at him. She couldn’t.

  Through the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel lean forward. “I’ve asked a lot of you and it’s always been about me and what I want. I’m willing to bend a little now. I don’t want to lose you. Kate, I can’t live without you. I’ve been thinking about marriage and maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all.”

  A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “They are probably the least romantic words I’ve ever heard you say.”

  “I guarantee you, when I propose to you, they will be the most heartfelt words you’ve ever heard. I wouldn’t talk to you this way if I didn’t mean it. I haven’t even thought about marriage for the last ten years but I’m thinking about it now. I’m thinking about you.”

  “I don’t want to force you into marrying me.”

  “No one can force me into anything. Not even you.”

  Kate shook her head. “This is never going to work.”

  “I’ve made a mistake but I can be the man you want me to be.”

  She stared down at the rug. “No. That’s the one thing you can never be. It’s been all wrong from the beginning and I’ve been lying to myself. I can sleep with you, have a fling with you. But I can’t be with a man like you for the rest of my life.”

  “A man like me? What does that mean?”

  “You’re not honest.”

  “What the hell brought that on?”

  She turned and looked him in the eye. Felt a pang deep in her gut. His dark eyes looked so warm, so full of compassion. They didn’t look like the eyes of a liar, but she knew better.

  She had to get this over with.

  “You’ve got your own set of standards,” she said. “It’s all about you and what you want. It’s not about integrity and honesty and what’s right. I’ve always known that’s the case but I pushed it to the back of my mind, tried not to think about it. I can’t do that any more. That’s what makes you the wrong man for me.”

  “How can you say that? From the first night I met you, I was frank about what I wanted. I’ve been more honest with you than any other man has. That’s the problem. You’re just not used to hearing men talk that way but, believe me, a lot of men look at you and want to take you to bed. They just don’t say it in so many words.” He pointed a finger at his chest, and added, “I did.”

  “Yes, you were up-front about it but that doesn’t make it all right. I don’t want to live with you just to have your kids and live off your wealth. I don’t want to be there for as long as it suits you. That’s not good enough.”

  He looked down at his hands. “You’re right. It’s not. But one mistake doesn’t make me a complete bastard.”

  She ignored him. “Maybe you were honest about our relationship, but you were cruel. That’s just one small part of your life. I know a bit about your professional life as well. Business and private – you can’t separate the two. They spill over into each other.”

  A furrow formed in his brow. “What’s Webb Corp got to do with any of this?”

  “I know about the way you run your company, about your past, and I know you don’t run your business with integrity. You tread on the little people. You don’t care what you have to do to win.”

  “What on earth makes you say that? Where is this coming from?”

  “There’s the Mills building purchase for one. There was another firm bidding for it and you got rid of them. You gave the real estate agent a kick-back so he’d make sure the client to gave preference to your offer.”

  Daniel rested his forearms on his thighs. “So what if I gave the real estate agent a little bit extra? That other firm was going to
demolish the Mills Building. They didn’t even bother to hide their intentions. They said they didn’t care about the heritage laws. Said they’d knock it down and wear the fine and still make a bucket load of money.”

  She hadn’t known about that. Mark hadn’t mentioned it, not that it changed anything.

  “Does that make it all right for you to steal the deal from under their nose by bribing the agent?” she asked.

  “Yeah, in this case, it does. I had to do something a little bit questionable in order to do something very good. And the means justified the ends. I wanted to save that building, restore it, bring it back to its former glory. There’s no crime in that. I didn’t want to sit back and watch it get knocked down. So what if I got my hands a bit dirty doing it?” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you think I’m dishonest because of that.”

  “There’s something much bigger than that. I can’t be with you, Daniel. It’s never going to work. It doesn’t matter if you say you’re going to marry me or not. It’s been doomed from the beginning.”

  “You’ve made a pretty big accusation. Don’t skirt around it. What was so much bigger? What did I do that was so bad?”

  Kate sucked in a deep breath. “Irwin Webb. I know all about it.”

  “That was ten years ago.”

  She locked eyes with him and wondered how it was possible this was the same man who’d ruined her family.

  “My parents had shares,” she said. “They put everything they had into it. It nearly killed them. It might have been ten years ago to you but they’re still getting over it financially. You’ve recovered. Built up your fortune. They haven’t. They can’t even retire.”

  Daniel cupped his chin in one hand. “I had no idea. Why didn’t you say anything about this before?”

  “I didn’t want to face it. Didn’t want to think about it.”

  He shook his head. “So, instead you thought the worst of me. You think you know everything about me. Aren’t you even going to ask what happened with Irwin Webb, where the money went?”

  “I know what happened. You got taken to court for illegal business dealings and very narrowly avoided conviction. Meanwhile, you’d conned lots of little people into investing their money and those funds disappeared. Most of it, anyway.”