Web of Deception

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 avoiding 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.”

Daniel took to his feet. “No, Irwin got charged and taken to court. Not me. I testified against him but he was let off. I made a big mistake. That much is true. I trusted Rex Irwin when he was shonky from the start. I didn’t do my research on Irwin and I paid for it. Jane introduced us and I’d trusted her too. Another mistake.”

Kate thought about her parents and how different their lives were from Daniel’s. They were in their sixties and still working because they couldn’t afford to retire. They didn’t have a flash Potts Point penthouse. Neither did rent a suite for the season at a five star hotel so they could go skiing when they wished.

“You weren’t left for broke like my parents,” she said. “They’re stuck working full-time because they’ll never be able to afford to retire.”

Daniel raked a hand through his hair. “You don’t know what happened to me so I’m going to tell you. I lost everything. I’ve already told you that Jane and I broke up because she found someone richer, more successful. That man was Rex Irwin, my ex-business partner. He got it all. The money and my girlfriend. Damn it, she was my fiancée. I was going to marry her. Spend the rest of my life with her. And I ended up with nothing because I stood by my principles.”

“What do you mean?”

“I could have done what Irwin did. He hid behind a loophole in the law and refused to pay back a single cent to the investors. But I couldn’t do it. Simple as that. I could have had it all. If I’d been a different man. If I didn’t have any scruples. My father told me I was crazy but I did it anyway. I paid back the investors as best I could.”

Kate shook her head. “That can’t be right. I know where the money didn’t go. To the little people like my parents.”

“Those people didn’t get all their money back but they got most of it and that came straight out of my pocket. I paid them out everything I had. Irwin didn’t do that. He still had property and assets in the names of other companies but he didn’t sell them off. I did everything I could. I did my best, damn it.”

Kate took to her feet too. It was time someone stood up to Daniel Webb.

“It wasn’t enough,” she said. “My parents were ruined. They went back to square one after decades of working and saving. Innocent people suffered. I can’t be with someone who has done something like that.”

Daniel pleaded with his hands. “Don’t you realise I lost out in every way. I had nothing. I had to get finance and set up a new business. Not to mention losing my fiancée. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound. As if the financial stress and scandal wasn’t enough, I had to lose the woman I loved. Yet you think I’m some kind of thief?”

“I know what happened with Irwin Webb. It doesn’t make any difference if it was ten years ago or ten days. My parents lost everything.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Ask Ray Price if you don’t believe me. He was there when this all happened and he stood by me. Not many people did. My partner was shonky, not me. I paid out as much money as I could. I did my best.”

“You can’t lie to me. I know, Daniel. I’ve always known but I’ve been fooling myself that it didn’t matter.” Shaking her head, she added, “It was never going to work between us. It was never going to be more than a fling. A bit of fun. But it’s not fun any more.”

“Do you really think I’m a liar? A con man? That I have no integrity.” He raised his voice. “Do you have any idea what an insult that is to me?”

“I don’t know. Is it as insulting as asking me to be some second-rate mistress who’ll bear your children?”

Daniel stepped backwards. “Damn it, ten years go I lost my fiancée because I didn’t keep the money for myself. And now I’m paying for it all over again. I’m going to lose you because it wasn’t enough. Nothing I do can be enough.”

Kate lowered her gaze. “You should never have come tonight. You should have just left it.”

His upper lip curled to a sneer. “Then I’d never have known exactly how little you think of me.”

She heard his footsteps as he walked to the door but couldn’t bring herself to look up.

“You were right,” he said. “This will never work.”