Web of Deception - By Nina Blake Page 0,46
it had been long ago and so much had happened since then.
Though Kate had downplayed the relationship to her mother, she knew she’d never be able to pull one over her mum. The woman had a way of sensing when something was wrong.
“The trip was fabulous.” Kate dropped down onto the edge of the sofa in her living room, the phone in one hand. “Too good for words.”
“And the young man?”
“Not so good. I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again.”
“Darling, it’ll all work out in the end. You’ll see. I was a bit worried about you going off with a new man for the weekend so soon after splitting up with Mark. But at least I knew that meant you weren’t pining after him.”
Him? Her mother was talking about Mark, of course. Kate had barely given her ex-boyfriend a second thought since they’d broken up. That relationship was well and truly over.
She felt a huge hole in her stomach like her insides had been taken out and twisted, but it had nothing to do with Mark.
And everything to do with Daniel.
“I’ve got no regrets where Mark was concerned,” Kate said.” I can see now that it was all wrong.”
“I’m so glad you’ve said that. We never liked him much, your father and I.”
Kate’s mouth fell open. This was the first time she’d heard anything like that. “Pardon?”
“I didn’t mean it quite that way. Mark was a good man in lots of ways. Hardworking. Reliable. But he wasn’t the right man for you. There was no spark about him. Or between the two of you for that matter.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you were so certain he was the kind of man you wanted. Respectable, solid job, good future and all that. And you looked so happy when you talked about your future together. I couldn’t disappoint you.”
“Mum, you’d never disappoint me…but I might have let you down.”
“How’s that?”
She didn’t want to tell her mother this, didn’t want to disillusion her, but it was time to stop lying to herself and come clean. The truth had a way of coming out one way or another and it was better to get it over sooner rather than later.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you about the man I went to the ski fields with,” Kate said. “I didn’t tell you his full name. It’s Daniel Webb.”
“I haven’t met him, have I?”
“He’s the same man who was involved with Irwin Webb all those years ago.”
“I thought the name was familiar. Didn’t you just say you weren’t seeing him any more?”
Kate rested her forehead in one hand, her elbow perched on her knee. “That’s right. I shouldn’t have gone out with him in the first place. I knew who he was and what he did. I got involved too quickly. Let myself rush into things. It was wrong of me to start seeing someone who’d done something so terrible in the past. Especially where you and Dad were concerned.”
“You’ve lost me, dear.”
Kate’s mother wasn’t making this easy for her. She was going to have to spell it out for her.
“It’s because of him that you and Dad lost all your money.”
“No, it was that Irwin fellow who was at fault. It just took everyone a while to work it out.”
Kate’s mouth fell open. Again. “Irwin?”
“When we first lost the money, we thought it was the company and both men that were at fault. But Irwin was the one who had to go to court. He was cleared on a technicality but I’m sure he was guilty regardless. It definitely wasn’t Webb. There was some kind of enquiry and Daniel Webb cooperated completely, unlike that other fellow. Then, it took a couple of years for the money to come through because it was in some kind of trust.”
Kate frowned. “What money?”
“Webb put up the money for the investors to be partially paid back. It didn’t cover everything we lost, though it was a substantial amount. It’s just that when the company first went bust, it looked like we were going to lose everything. In the end, it was still bad, only not as bad as we’d first thought.”
After everything she’d been through, Kate couldn’t believe it had come to this. Her mother had never mentioned anything like this before, never told her about money being returned to them. Whenever her parents had talked about Irwin Webb, they’d always said it was a crooked scheme designed to suck money out of small investors. For heavens sake,