Web of Deception - By Nina Blake Page 0,37
in my arms?”
“I’ll do that later. But I deserve to know about your life too.”
Daniel rolled onto his back again. “There’s not much to tell.”
She stroked his chest. “Then it won’t take long.” He didn’t say anything so she added, “It’s clearly shaped your personality and your goals. Once you wanted marriage. You were engaged, after all. And now it’s not something you want. It’s not only that you haven’t found the right person. You told me from the start you didn’t want to get married. Ever.”
He knew she wouldn’t give up until he’d told her the full story. It had happened ten years ago and he wasn’t in love with Jane any more. There was no reason he couldn’t talk about it.
“My experience with Jane Simpson made me see the light,” he said. “I wasn’t cut out for marriage.”
“You weren’t or she wasn’t?”
Kate was quick. She wouldn’t miss a trick.
“Jane wanted marriage all right,” Daniel said. “And she got it. She didn’t even wait that long to find her ‘Mr Right’. She was engaged two months after we broke up and married a few months after that.”
Kate slid closer to him and took his hand in hers. “That must have hurt.”
“It did at the time. After that, it didn’t take me long to work out I was better off without her. She wasn’t the person I thought she was. Money was the only thing she was interested in. She was never truly interested in me. Only my money. And when I didn’t have any of that, she dumped me.”
“What do you mean ‘you didn’t have any’? You’re a wealthy man, Daniel.”
“I wasn’t always. I was young and I’d been working my way up in business, buying a few properties. It was Jane who introduced me to a businessman called Rex Irwin. He’d been around for a while so he had contacts and other capital and security. Together we formed Irwin Webb. He had a substantial amount of capital but he needed the finance I provided. And my name. The family name.
“Business went badly and I hadn’t done my research properly. That’s one lesson I leant from this particular experience. Irwin Webb folded and I was pretty much broke after that. Basically, I had to start all over again which is what I did. But not with Jane. She wasn’t interested any more. She wanted a rich man and she got one.”
“Had she been having an affair?”
“No. I’m sure she only took up with the man afterwards. That wasn’t the issue. The problem was that I thought she wanted me but she wanted someone with money. I wasn’t so appealing to her without it.”
“It sounds like you were better off without her.”
“There were other problems too,” Daniel said. “She was a stockbroker and she got involved in a dodgy deal. I don’t know exactly what went on but I suspect she was involved in insider trading. She didn’t deny it and neither did she admit it. However she did make it clear I was being a prude about the whole thing. That it was no big deal. Simply a way to make a few extra dollars.”
“Isn’t it illegal?”
He nodded. “And immoral. And dishonest. So you see, honesty is important to me too.”
Daniel’s father had told him from the beginning that marrying Jane was going to be the biggest mistake of his life. And he’d been right. It would have been. At least this way, Daniel had ended up broke but not broken.
He’d let his father down.
Worse than that, he’d let himself down.
And he was never going to do that again.
Daniel pressed a gentle kiss to Kate’s lips. “Is there anything else you want to know?”
She shook her head.
“Then maybe we can get some sleep after all.”
She nodded.
But Daniel didn’t feel like sleeping any more.
Chapter Ten
The wind whipped through Kate’s hair, stinging her face. She pushed it behind her ears, and turned into the breeze so the tresses blew straight behind her. Though windy, it wasn’t particularly cold.
The balcony on Daniel’s apartment afforded a clear view across the white peaks of the choppy water of the bay to the Sydney Heads and the storm that was brewing. The sky was dramatic, not a speck of blue visible through the dark clouds.
Kate felt like a spectator. She could watch the storm come in but she wouldn’t get caught in the middle of it. She’d make sure she was safe.
Behind her, the sliding door swished open.
“What are you doing out here?” Daniel asked.
She