Web of Deception - By Nina Blake Page 0,18
do about it. She’d have gone to dinner with him anyway and she damn well knew it but there were other questions playing on her mind. She couldn’t let him win this round.
Kate leaned back in her chair. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.”
“I think you’ll be worth it.” He raised one eyebrow. “So what were you saying? Something about standards?”
He was the wrong kind of man making the wrong kind of offer yet somehow that only seemed to make the idea all the more delicious.
She felt warm and wanted in a way she hadn’t felt before. She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be close to him, to let herself go, forget about everything else.
Just once.
She had to buy herself some more time. Turn the conversation back at him.
“What about your expectations?” she asked. “Haven’t you ever been involved in any business deals that didn’t go the way you planned?”
He straightened, tapped his fingers on the table. “I have a nose for business and I can smell a good deal from a mile away but when I first started out I wasn’t quite so canny. Not every project made lots of money or went the way I thought it would.”
There was one early deal, one early company, in which she was particularly interested and it had been bothering her.
“Like Irwin Webb?” she asked.
A muscle in his jaw tightened. “That wasn’t a high moment for me. It was also a long time ago and it got sorted out back then.”
“It was your business, wasn’t it?”
“It was nothing to do with me.”
No, it hadn’t been his problem. He’d washed his hands of it, got on with his life and nothing had stopped him from venturing into other more successful businesses.
Her parents had invested in that little venture and lost a lot of money. They should have retired by now but they couldn’t afford to after that so they were still working. Luckily, they had secure jobs as teachers.
Kate had found out what she wanted. There was no need for the conversation to be unpleasant.
“It’s funny, you know,” she said. “This is such an understated, intimate restaurant but I’d have thought you’d want to go somewhere flashy with a spectacular view.”
Daniel slid his hand across hers, then lifted his gaze from their hands to Kate’s eyes. “From where I’m sitting the view is spectacular.”
He made her feel special, like they were the only two in the room and she was the only one for him. Whether that was true or not, she wasn’t sure, but there was no denying her emotions.
She watched goose bumps forming on her arm and thought it odd when she felt so warm on the inside.
But then not everything in life made perfect sense. Though she was trying, being rational and logical wasn’t preventing those feelings from surfacing.
Their meal was over and it was time for Daniel to take her home. She’d have to be very careful to stop herself from getting involved. Her reaction to his touch told her that.
If she didn’t want to get involved.
* * *
“Black, no sugar,” Kate repeated, laying a tray bearing two white mugs on the coffee table in her living room.
It was only coffee. She’d been very clear to him about that.
If only she could be as straight with herself. Her head and her feelings had been arguing all night and she still wasn’t sure which was right.
Daniel took a seat in middle of the leather sofa and leaned back. “This is very comfortable. Very nice indeed.”
Kate handed him a coffee mug. She was pleased he’d noticed. Her furniture was functional and had been reasonably priced. Except the sofa. She’d made sure she saved money on everything else so that when the time came she could splurge and buy the big brown leather sofa she’d been eyeing up for so long.
Daniel was tall and his shoulders so broad that the sofa didn’t look so large any more. She sat down beside him, overcome with the feeling that anything might happen.
“I didn’t think Mark lived in Bondi,” he said.
Kate warmed her hands around the coffee mug. “He doesn’t.”
Daniel’s eyes flitted around the simple room across the crisp white walls to the bright rug on the dark floorboards, settling on the vase of flowers on the mantle piece. “If you don’t mind me saying so, this room has a feminine touch. I find it hard to believe a man ever lived here.”
“Mark and I don’t live