The Ultimate Betrayal

by Michelle Reid

  Still holding Michael, Daniel got up and walked over to her as she placed the tray on his desk. He spoke quietly for a moment, then called the twins over. They snapped into action with an obedience that confirmed Rachel’s suspicions that Daniel had issued a severe scold to both of them.

  A moment later Michael was going trustingly into the other woman’s arms, and she took the children out while Daniel turned his attention to the coffee.

  He didn’t speak, not until he had offered her the strong drink and sat himself down beside her to watch her drink the whole cupful.

  ‘Right. What happened?’ he said quietly then.

  She shrugged guiltily. ‘I’ve been impatient with them,’ she admitted. ‘Today perhaps more than usual. They were feeling neglected, I think—pushed away. So they went in search of comfort elsewhere.’ She put down her cup when the tears threatened to come again. ‘I thought they’d gone to your mother’s…I searched everywhere for them…B-But it never entered my h-head that they m-might try to come h-here!’

  ‘It’s OK.’ He covered her twisting hands. ‘Don’t upset yourself any more. They’re fine. You’ve seen that they’re fine.’

  She nodded, fighting to get hold of herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered after a while.

  ‘What for?’ His head shot round to stare at her.

  ‘For being a poor mother to your children,’ she said. ‘For intruding,’ she added, ‘here.’

  ‘Sometimes, Rachel,’ Daniel sighed impatiently, ‘I wonder what actually goes on in that head of yours!’

  ‘Did you smack them?’

  He frowned at the abrupt change of subject. Then, ‘No, I managed to control that particular urge,’ he said drily. ‘But that didn’t stop my tongue! What they did was stupid, dangerous and downright wilful!’ Angrily he shook his dark head. ‘Sammy took his medicine on the chin, but Kate was appalled.’ He grimaced. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever shouted at her like that before.’

  ‘She’ll forgive you,’ Rachel assured him. Kate adored her darling daddy.

  ‘Not if she’s like her mother she won’t,’ he grunted, and Rachel lowered her eyes.

  ‘It—it isn’t a case of forgiveness,’ she murmured. ‘It’s trying to forget it I find I can’t do. You shattered my whole world, Daniel!’

  ‘I know.’ Grimly he looked down at their clasped hands. ‘Shattered my own at the same time, if you must know. Not that that means anything.’ He shrugged. ‘I deserved it. You didn’t.’

  ‘Then why did you do it?’ she asked in wretched bewilderment.

  Daniel sighed, the sound seeming to come from deep inside his rigid chest, and he let go of her hand so that he could rake his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Because she was there,’ he answered brutally, and winced at Rachel’s dismayed gasp.

  ‘Y-You must have hurt her very badly.’

  ‘Did I?’ His mouth twisted cynically. ‘She isn’t of your ilk, Rachel. Women like Lydia have thicker skins. They don’t hurt that easily.’

  ‘And that makes it all right, does it?’

  ‘No.’ Hunching forward, he rested his elbows on his spread knees and stared grimly at the carpet. ‘But I can’t feel guilt for her hurt feelings when she gave no thought to mine.’

  Rachel frowned at that, not understanding what he was getting at.

  Daniel saw the frown and sighed again. ‘If I try to explain it all to you, Rachel,’ he offered, ‘will you listen?’

  Would she? Did she want to know? Could she take the full sordid truth of it? Her eyes drifted away from him, pained and bleak, soft mouth quivering with a vulnerable uncertainty.

  His hand came out to cover hers, warm and strengthening. ‘Please,’ he asked again. ‘You were and still are the only woman I have ever loved, Rachel. If you can’t let yourself hear anything else, then, please—hear that, because it’s the truth.’

  ‘Then why Lydia?’ she flashed, spinning her head back to lash him with her eyes.

  His mouth straightened, the attractive curve of his lips becoming lost in the grim tight line. He took his hand away, letting it drop loosely between his spread knees. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘for a short while last year, I lost control—not just with what was happening to you and me,’ he enlarged, ‘but here too.’ His grey eyes skimmed the length of his plush office. ‘Lydia was a safety-valve. Pure and simple, very basic.’ He fixed her with a grim look. ‘I was under terrible pressure, and I used her, quite frankly, to relieve some of it.’

  Was that supposed to reassure her? Rachel stared at him, the rumblings of anger beginning to bubble up inside her. ‘So now I’m supposed to forgive—forget,’ she said. ‘And sit back and wait for the next time you’re under pressure like that and feel the need to relieve it with some other accommodating fool who happens to be available?’

  ‘No.’ Unlike her, Daniel did not harden his tone. ‘Because it won’t happen again.’

  The sceptical look she sent him was her opinion of that.

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ he repeated patiently, ‘because it didn’t work the first time.’ He studied her hurt and angry face to see if she understood what he was getting at, then allowed himself a small wry smile when he realised she certainly did not. ‘You and your undying innocence,’ he murmured drily.

  ‘I stopped being an innocent, Daniel,’ she derided, ‘at the age of seventeen, when you took innocence from me!’

  ‘You gave it, Rachel,’ he corrected. ‘You gave it freely.’

  She flushed—couldn’t help it because he was so damned right! And she hadn’t just given, she’d virtually thrown herself at him.

  ‘And, believe it or not,’ he went on, ‘I took when I’d had no intention of taking. No—’ he reached out to grip her hands again ‘—don’t take that the way I made it sound,’ he begged. ‘I wanted you, Rachel. My God,’ he sighed, ‘I always want you! But you were seventeen years old, for God’s sake! And I was a reasonably experienced man of twenty-four! I knew that, in all decency, I should turn and walk away from you before things became too serious! But I couldn’t,’ he admitted. ‘So I was determined to keep the relationship light—but I couldn’t even manage that.’ His jaw clenched momentarily. ‘In the end, I found myself so obsessed by you that my work began to suffer. And yours did too,’ he reminded her. ‘You were heading for straight As in your exams before I came along. But instead of submerging yourself in study, as you should have been doing, you were out with me. And your parents began to get at me…’

  Her eyes widened in surprise at that piece of news. She hadn’t been aware that her parents had done anything but smile warily at him when Daniel used to collect her from home.

  ‘They disapproved,’ he continued. ‘And rightly so. I was putting at risk all those years of schooling you’d already put in. And, because of you, I had put in abeyance all the big plans I had mapped out for my own career.’

  ‘This?’ she asked, meaning the office they were sitting in which made its own statement of his successful achievements.

  He nodded. ‘Or something like this.’

  ‘So you fulfilled your dreams in the end, despite me,’ she remarked a trifle bitterly.

  ‘But at the expense of yours,’ he added.

  ‘Mine? How do you know what my dreams were if you never bothered to ask?’ she queried.

  ‘Art,’ he stated. ‘University first, then a career in art. Advertising, maybe, or design. It was all you thought about then.’

  ‘Was it?’ Her tone mocked his confidence. ‘Which just goes to show how little you really know about me.’

  His eyes flashed up to hers, dark and intense. ‘Then what did you want?’ he asked, and he swallowed tensely, as if he didn’t really want to hear the answer.

  Rachel derided him with a look. You, she wanted to say. All I ever wanted from life was you. ‘Let’s just say I probably got what I deserved,’ she mocked instead, and knew the words hurt him.

  ‘I was about to get out of your
life eight years ago when you told me you were pregnant,’ he went on grimly, and Rachel closed her eyes, accepting that it was his turn to hurt her. ‘I’d spent that fortnight down here in London, if you remember,’ he said. ‘But what you didn’t know was that I’d been attending a series of interviews for a job which would have taken me out of the country and as far away from you as I could get.’

  She’d suspected it, Rachel thought wretchedly. Ever since Lydia had opened her eyes to what she and Daniel really were to each other, she had suspected her pregnancy had trapped him. Daniel had not wanted to marry her; he simply hadn’t been given the choice.

  ‘No—’ again he grabbed her hands and squeezed them tightly ‘—you’re mistaking my reasons. I didn’t want to leave you!’ he stated fiercely. ‘But I was prepared to get out of your life for your sake! You were too young and had too much going for you for me to tie you down! The job offer was like a crossroads I had reached, and I accepted it because I believed it was the best thing to do for both of us! But it wasn’t an easy decision and I was feeling bloody wretched by the time I got back from London with my cool goodbyes all rehearsed in my mind.’

  He stopped, his eyes darkening on a remembered pain. ‘Then there you were,’ he murmured thickly, ‘standing right in front of me, looking up at me with all that—all that…’ He pushed a hand to his eyes, covering them for a moment with fingers which shook. ‘And I stood there, dying inside because I was going to have to let it all go. The next thing I knew—’ he swallowed ‘—we were making love when we should not have been, making things worse, because how the hell do you tell the woman you’ve just drowned yourself in that you’re going to leave her?’ he choked, too lost in his own pained memories to notice how still and pale Rachel had become. ‘Then, while I was struggling to say the damned words, you laid your head on my knee and said calmly, “I’m pregnant, Daniel. What shall we do?"’ He laughed softly, shaking his dark head. ‘It was like being handed a reprieve with the hangman’s noose already tied around my neck! I felt freed—alive—so alive that all I could do was sit there——’ he spread his trembling hand out expressively ‘—and let the sheer bloody joy of it wash over me! I didn’t have to let you go, because you needed me. You— needed—me!’ he repeated hoarsely. ‘I could dismiss your dreams of a career. I could dismiss your youth. And I could do what I’d really wanted to do and gather you in, keep you close so no one else would know what a wonderful, beautiful treasure I’d got!’

  He sucked in a deep breath of air, then let it out again slowly. ‘So, we got married,’ he went on less emotionally. ‘And came down here to live in that poky little flat in Camden Town. We had hardly any money, barely a possession we could call our own, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy in my entire life! Then the twins arrived, and I had a stroke of luck which gave me the chance to try something I’d always wanted to do. You know how I used to dabble in stocks and shares then?’ She nodded. ‘Well, after we married, I hung on to those I thought might bring in a good return one day, and one particular block did,’ he said. ‘It was my first real killing on the market, and I had a choice; buy you a nice little house with the money, or feed it straight back into the market. I fed it,’ he confessed, as if it were a mortal sin.

  Which perhaps it had been at the time, Rachel allowed, if only because he hadn’t bothered to discuss what he wanted to do with her first. But then—she gave a mental shrug—perhaps Daniel would not be the man he was today if he had needed constantly to refer to others before he made a decision to take a risk.

  ‘Then I spent the next few months feeling as guilty as hell when the flat became impossible to live in with two small babies and all the paraphernalia that comes with them. Then the stock began to pay big dividends, shifting up the market ladder at such a rate that I made my second killing in as many months! And after that—’ he shrugged ‘—I never had to look back. We bought the house. I set up my own company, diversifying into helping out small ailing companies by gaining majority stock, then feeding more money into them to make them more efficient. And Masterson Holdings grew steadily, until it became what you see today. But not without its sacrifices,’ he added grimly. ‘The bigger the company got, the more time I had to spend working in it. And the sheer nature of my business meant I had to move in certain social circles if I was to keep an ear to what was going on in the business world. But the more I saw of that world, the more determined I became that none of its ugly taint was going to rub off on you! You were the rose-garden in the middle of the vile jungle I fought in,’ he likened huskily. ‘You were the only constant thing in my life. I would come home to you and see the sweet seventeen-year-old I first fell in love with, and I knew I would fight the very devil himself to keep you that way!’

  He took another deep breath, his eyes hooded a little because he was revealing to her so much of the inner man he usually kept hidden away—the one she had been curious to know but had never looked closely enough to find for herself.

  ‘I think someone up there must have known it,’ he said ruefully then. ‘Because the next thing I know you’re pregnant with Michael, and not having an easy time of it. And one of my newest acquisitions becomes involved in a nasty little fraud scandal which takes months of legal battling to sort out. I’m away more than I’m at home where I should be, making things easier for you. You can be bloody stubborn sometimes, Rachel,’ he inserted gruffly. ‘We had more money than we could ever spend even if we tried, and you wouldn’t let me hire anyone to help you.’

  Her chin came up. ‘If you can run this place singlehanded, Daniel, then surely I can take care of one small house and three even smaller children!’

  He sighed, hearing the self-defence behind the attack. ‘And we all have our limits of endurance,’ he pointed out. ‘You almost reached yours after Michael was born and he gave you hell for four months solid. And the twins developed a severe strain of measles.’

  ‘And I found out about your affair with Lydia,’ she added coolly.

  But Daniel shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That was the result of my reaching my limits of endurance, Rachel. I almost lost everything in the ugliest hostile take-over attempt I’ve ever heard of. Harveys—a bigger holding company than mine—decided it wanted me out of the running, and it went for me with every weapon it had. Including trying to slap a fraud charge on me.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘THE Harvey take-over?’

  But she’d always assumed that it had been Daniel taking them over—not the other way round!

  He nodded, unaware how new comprehension was holding her still with shock.

  ‘It was bitter and it was bloody,’ he said. ‘And I had to take risks that made my mind boggle when I thought about them after it was all over. And where, at any other difficult period, I’d always had you to turn to for some blessed relief from it all, you were out of reach—tired and weak, and run off your feet trying to share yourself between two sick children and a very demanding baby and, selfish as I know it sounds,’ he sighed out heavily, ‘I resented the whole bloody lot of them! I needed you, Rachel! But you couldn’t be reached! And—God forgive me—Lydia could.’ He sucked in an anguished breath and let it out again. ‘With Lydia’s frankly brilliant help,’ he conceded, ‘I won the battle with Harveys. But for some reason that same God only knows, because I know I can’t work it out, the relief of it sent me staggering over those limits of endurance I mentioned, and right into her arms.’

  ‘How long?’

  He glanced at her, his brows pulled into a puzzled frown. ‘How long, what?’

  ‘Did you have her as your mistress—how long?’ she repeated rawly.

  He shook his head, an odd expression twisting at the corners of his mouth. ‘She never was,’ he admitted. ‘Not in the sense you’re implying anyway. I have tried to tell you that once or twice,’ he added wryly, ‘but you refused so much as to listen, never mind believe, and— God knows,’ he sighed, scraping his fingers through his dark hair, ‘
I didn’t blame you. After all, I’d been unfaithful to you in every way but the ultimate act, indulging in my own light relief from all the pressures by taking Lydia out instead of coming home to you. Wining her, dining her…’ His shoulders hunched as if the memory clenched at something vicious inside him.

  ‘Mandy told me you were seen coming out of Lydia’s flat,’ Rachel put in huskily.

  He nodded. ‘After my battle with Harveys, I went a little crazy,’ he confessed. She could see he didn’t like admitting that; the self-contempt was etched into his rigid jaw. ‘I just sat here and drank myself stupid until I wasn’t fit to drive myself home. Lydia coaxed me into her car and drove me to her flat to sober up. Oh,’ he added with a cynical twist to his mouth, ‘don’t get me wrong. She knew what she was doing and I knew what she was expecting of me when I let her take me there but—’ he stopped to smile bleakly. ‘In the end, I couldn’t. She wasn’t you and, drunk or not, the very thought of laying a hand on her made my skin crawl. She must have seen it,’ he grimaced, ‘because she just walked out of the room. I fell into a drunken stupor and awoke in a strange bed the next morning. Where she slept that night I have no idea, but she came back into the room just as I was struggling to pull myself together and trying to remember just what the hell I had done, already horrified and disgusted with my own behaviour even before she smiled and told me that I wasn’t bad for a man with as much alcohol inside me as I’d had.’

  He stopped to swallow and Rachel went pale, her heart dropping with a sickening thump to her stomach. ‘She kept me wallowing in my own self-disgust for months before she told me the truth. It was her way of getting revenge on me, I think,’ he said, ‘because I took my business away from her and gave it to one of her partners. The night she spoke to you on the telephone was a vindictive attempt to hurt me through you. And the last straw as far as I was concerned. When I called her back I informed her that I was going to remove my business right out of her sphere. Now I’m talking real money here, Rachel,’ he inserted grimly, ‘a very lucrative account. And the fact that she had now managed to lose it completely was not going to sit well with her co-partners, which frightened her—so much so that she lost control of her tongue. The insults which flew between the two of us then were so vile they were unrepeatable, but one thing she did let slip, which went at least some way to making me feel better about myself—she told me I never touched her. Oh,’ he added deridingly, ‘not in those words exactly. She was out to slay and used the kind of insults gauged to cut a man’s ego in half. But to me they were like music to my ears! I never touched her and, oddly, I knew suddenly that she was telling the truth at last. Knew because my own instincts had been telling me the self-same thing through all the weeks she kept me dangling on that tormenting string.