“Don’t worry. It’s not the police.”
“Let me lock up then. Do I need to bring anything?”
“No. We won’t be long.”
To his relief she turned and locked the front door, slipping the house key in her jeans pocket. The black sweater she wore highlighted how pale she was, and how exhausted. Guilt struck him square in the chest. He’d done this to her—even driven her to try to sell her home. So much hinged on the outcome of the next hour. He hoped like crazy that his instincts had been right and that it wasn’t entirely too late.
Mason handed her up into the cab of the truck, and walked around to the driver’s side. When he realised how much space lay between them he instantly regretted bringing the larger vehicle. In the Porsche they’d have been closer together. He sensed her stiffen when she realised where they were headed—Davies Freight.
“What are you doing? Why are you bringing me here?”
“There’s something you need to see for yourself.” He clenched his jaw tight. She wouldn’t like what was coming next. It had taken him and his brothers the better part of the past week to nail this. Like anything important, it all came down to the finer details. Now they had the conclusion he’d been seeking all along.
As they pulled up in the car park, Helena swiftly undid her seat belt and alighted from the truck before he could come around and open her door. He watched as she straightened her shoulders and smoothed her clothes and as her face assumed calmer lines. It was as if she was determined to put on a brave face for whatever he had lined up for her inside. Pride swelled inside him. She was so strong. Stronger than he’d ever realised or given her credit for.
“They’re waiting for us upstairs,” he said quietly.
“Then let’s get this over with,” she snapped and started to walk toward the front door.
She abruptly stopped in her tracks in the foyer, and looked at him, accusation clear in her voice when she spoke. “Who’s this?” She gestured to where his PA, Margaret, was sitting on reception. “What’s wrong with Mandy? Don’t tell me you’ve started firing my people.”
“Just come on in. I’ll tell you everything in a minute.”
They crossed through reception quickly and headed up the staircase to the next floor. At the door to Patrick’s office Mason hesitated a moment, turning to face Helena and holding both her arms just above the elbow in his warm firm grip.
“Now, you’re probably not going to like what you’re going to hear, but I want you to know I’ll be right by you.”
He pushed the door open to reveal the two uniformed police officers standing on either side of what had been Patrick’s desk. Mason heard Helena’s breath catch as she recognised the person leaning back in a chair in the corner of the office. Mandy. Gone was the friendly and welcoming receptionist she’d grown accustomed to. Instead, a hard and mutinous glare distorted her features.
“Mandy? What…?” Helena’s voice trailed away, one hand fluttered to her throat as the truth slowly sank in.
“Go on,” Mason nodded at Mandy, who turned her head away from Helena, refusing to make eye contact.
“Okay, okay. It was me.”
“Why?” Helena demanded, her voice low, steady and resonating with an anger he’d expected. “Why did you steal from us?”
The other woman snorted and shook her head. “We’re the same age, you know that? And from the same background too. I couldn’t see why, when I was right under his nose for the taking, he had to go and choose you. Why should you have it all? The clothes, the education, the beautiful house. He should have chosen me.
“I was mad when he brought you into the office, all proud as punch about his trophy bride, so I thought I’d teach him a lesson. Just a little one at first, but when no one noticed I decided to take a bit more.”
“Then you started gambling, and that’s what strung you up,” Mason interrupted in a voice colder than a Southland winter.
“Yeah. I started to take too much and Patrick found out about it.”
“That explains the paper behind the picture,” Helena exclaimed. “He must have started looking into it just before he died. Why didn’t he talk to me about it?”
“I’m sure he would’ve, given time. He wasn’t the kind of man to make decisions lightly. In fact, if I know him, he would even have given Mandy a chance to pay it back—isn’t that right?” He fixed his stare at the receptionist who nodded. “But when he died, you thought you could keep going and that no one else would know.”
“I had to. I owed too much money.” The woman’s face crumpled and tears shone on her cheeks.
Mason nodded to the police officers. “Thank you for waiting. You can take her now. I think Mrs. Davies has heard enough.”
He waited while they escorted Mandy from the room, then turned to face Helena.
“Are you okay?”
“Okay?” She lowered herself into a chair and dropped her head in her hands. “No, I’m not okay. I can’t believe she did that to us. She’s like one of the family. And I can’t believe Patrick kept it from me. Didn’t he think I could cope with the news? She was systematically decimating our company and he wanted to give her another chance?” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe her own words.
The phone rang shrilly on the desk and Mason reached forward and flipped on the speaker.
“Yes, Margaret?”
“Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Knight, but I have your solicitor on the phone.”
Mason looked at Helena. She was shaking from the after-effects of the episode with Mandy. She needed him right now. “Tell him I’ll call him later.”
His solicitor? Fear slammed into Helena with devastating force as she remembered her instructions to her lawyer this morning. She’d given up her son! And for what? She groaned in despair. What had she done?
Mason hunkered down in front of her, taking her frozen hands in his and heating them between his long, warm fingers.
“I know it’s a shock, but you can’t feel sorry for her. She hasn’t even expressed remorse for her actions—in some weird way she still believes she was totally justified. Don’t worry, the police will deal with her from here, you won’t have to see her again.”
Helena couldn’t speak. Mandy’s betrayal was the least of her worries. Her world was imploding and all Mason could say was “don’t worry”?
“Let me take you home. Will you be okay to walk?”
She nodded, incapable of speech. Her mind was racing with what she had to do next. As soon as she walked in that door back home she would be straight on the phone to her lawyer to countermand her earlier instructions. She’d been a fool for the last time.
The cabin temperature in the truck was set to high and it wasn’t long before she began to feel sleepy. The somnolent sound of the four-by-four’s tyres as they hummed along the road made it difficult to keep her eyes open. The past weeks’ events had taken their toll and she battled to stay awake, but somehow it was just easier to let her heavy lids slid closed. They’d be home in half-an-hour at the most. That’s all she needed, just a short kip to refresh herself and get ready for what was going to be the biggest fight of her life.
Twelve
Mason sensed the moment Helena fell asleep and loosened his vice-like grip on the steering wheel. She looked done in. The purplish bruises under her eyes spoke volumes as to how ragged she’d been running herself. It was up to him to make sure that changed.
Her breathing was low and steady, she didn’t look like she’d wake for some time. That was probably best, but he knew if he took her straight home she’d probably coolly flick him off at the front door and that would be it. His chance would be gone. No. There was no way he’d settle for that.
They approached the motorway interchange, but instead of going straight ahead toward the suburb where she lived, he made an instant decision and turned onto the southern motorway instead. She needed the sleep, he told himself. He’d handle her anger when she realized he was taking her to his holida
y home.
He shifted slightly in his seat, patting his trouser pocket with one hand just to confirm his plans would still work. Yes, it was still there. All he had to do now was get her to agree.
During the two-and-a-half-hour journey he kept checking her to make sure she was still okay, that still she slept. It wasn’t until he started up the steep grade of the private road leading to the house that she began to stir.
“Wha—? Where are we? This isn’t home.” She stretched her neck and rubbed a hand across her eyes. “Mason! Where have you brought me?”
“My home.”
She looked around in confusion. “But…. No! Take me back. Take me back right now.”
“I will, I promise. Look, you needed to rest, it was simpler to just keep driving. Besides, we need to talk. This place is as good as any.” Mason pulled into the garage and hit the button to close the door behind them.
“We could have talked at my place.”
She sounded madder than a wet cat.
“I know. Look, we’ll be back in Auckland tonight if that’s what you want. Just hear me out first, okay?”
He got down from the truck and walked around to her side, giving her a hand down. She snatched her hand away from him the instant both her feet hit the concrete garage floor.
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” her tone was as acerbic as the expression on her face.
“I’d say sorry, Helena, but I’m not. There are things we need to discuss. After that, well, we’ll have to see.”
“If you think I’m not going to fight you tooth and nail for custody of Brody, you can think again. He’s my son. Mine!”
Mason didn’t answer. This was going to be hard enough without antagonising her further. She followed him inside the house, stalking past him and heading toward the large ranch sliders facing the bay. Her body was rigid with anger, an anger he needed to dissipate.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, checking the upright freezer in the kitchen. He pulled out some frozen soup and a loaf of bread and put them on the bench.
“No. I’m not hungry. Just get to the point, Mason. Why have you brought me here?”
He walked into the sitting room and came and stood behind her. She flinched as he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.
“Okay, you want to know, here it is. First things first. I want you to know I was wrong. Wrong to treat you the way I did and wrong to threaten you. I was furious when I found out about Brody—I just wanted to hurt you back. I’m not proud of my behaviour, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for the unforgivable things I did and said.”
“I don’t know if I can forgive you. You refused to trust me, refused to even listen to me. I meant nothing to you.”
“No. You never meant nothing to me—if anything you meant too much. From the beginning I deliberately poisoned myself against you because I knew if I didn’t I would end up doing everything in my power to take you from Patrick. Everything.”
Her eyes dilated at his words, the forest green pools consumed by her dark pupils. Her lips parted on unspoken words of denial.
“It’s true. You have no idea how difficult it was for me to see you come down the aisle that day—how hard it was for me to keep my mouth shut. I’d already decided I wanted you. I was going to do whatever I could to find you again and there you were. Right in front of me, and completely out-of-bounds.
“It was easier to tell myself that you were a gold digger, just like any other, than to admit how much it killed me to see you married to him, to see you have what I believed to be his child.”
“Mason, I…I don’t know what to say.” Confusion clouded Helena’s features.
“I know. Look, let’s sit down.” He led her to the couch in front of the fireplace and bent to light the paper and kindling set in there. This wasn’t going as he’d planned. He’d just wanted to get his confession out of the way and move on. But she hadn’t reacted as he’d hoped. She was just as closed to him, just as emotionally distant, as she’d ever been. He added a couple of logs to the kindling and then sat down next to her. Somehow he had to do this on her terms.
He noted with relief that she didn’t flinch this time as he came closer. Maybe this wasn’t a lost cause after all.
“Helena, I don’t want to take Brody from you. But I want to be a part of his life. I’ll understand if you don’t want me around when you’re there, but please, let me get to know my son.”
“You’re going to drop the custody proceedings?” Her voice came out as a breathless whisper, laced with hope.
“Yes. I couldn’t do that to you or to him. I was acting out of anger when I said I’d take him from you. Anger at you, anger at Patrick—but most of all, anger at myself.
“I should have spoken up at the wedding. I should never have let you out of my grasp. But that’s my cross to bear. I had some hard truths come to me this week. I finally had to admit that I was the instrument of my own failures. I’m not going to let that happen again. I’ve decided to make my shares in Davies Freight over to Brody, but in your care until he’s old enough to look after the company himself. The money problems we can sort out with an interest-free loan from BKT—though you’ll never see a cent back from Mandy, unfortunately. I’ll be there to help if you want me to. If you don’t, I’ll understand.”
He searched her face for some sign of softening. Some sign that maybe she believed him.
Helena held her breath and waited. There was more that he wasn’t saying, she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tension that held his body. But he continued to keep it in. Suddenly she realised why. Though it had taken a huge amount of courage for him to open up to her like this, he wasn’t about to give her an instrument to flay him with unless she showed some sign of forgiveness.
“It’s okay. We can sort out Davies Freight later,” she murmured. “So where do we go from here, Mason? What next?”
“Helena, I want you to understand that whatever happens next, it’s your choice.”
“Thank you.” She paused, choosing her next words carefully. “I was going to let you have him, you know. That call you didn’t take from your solicitor, it was to tell you that I’d decided not to contest your petition. And I wouldn’t have, until this morning when you brought me to hear Mandy’s confession. Why did you do that?”
“I learned to listen to my heart.”
“You what?”
“I learned to listen to my heart,” he repeated. “I finally admitted to myself that I love you, Helena. I had to find out who was responsible for what had happened at Davies Freight, for you. Only for you. If I didn’t do that I’d never be able to face you and ask you for a future together.”
Helena’s heart began to swell with hope. He loved her?
“I want to know if we stand a chance, as a couple and as a family.” His eyes burned into hers as he spoke, leaving her in no doubt of the truth of his words anymore.
“You want me, too?”
“Always. Can you forgive me for having been a complete and utter fool?”
Tears sprang in her eyes and she lifted her hands to his face, drawing him toward her. “Of course I forgive you. How could I not? Can we really try again?” she whispered against his lips.
In response he covered her mouth with his and drew her hard against his body, where she belonged, where she finally felt at home.
His tongue teased her lips open and with a joyful moan, Helena surrendered to his caress. Her body sprang to life, every nerve ending on full alert as their tongues entwined in a ritual of belonging. She pushed her hands through his hair and cupped the back of his head, drawing him closer to her, relishing the strength of him, relishing the knowledge that he loved her.
He dragged his lips from hers and stared into her eyes, the question in them obvious.
“I love you,” she said, answering his unspoken plea. “I will never stop loving you, I never could. You know, I have done many things in my life that I’ve regretted
afterward but I have never regretted that first night we had. Never. How could I? Without it we wouldn’t have Brody. Without it, we might not have each other now. Patrick was my salvation from a bad situation in my life. I can’t say he wasn’t important to me, he was—but you, you were my light. You saved my life and I had no other way to thank you but with myself. In the dark, in the cab of your truck, nothing had ever been as perfect as that moment. You’re still my light, Mason. Today, and always.”
She slid gracefully from the couch and stood on the soft rug in front of the fireplace facing him, drinking in the masculine beauty of his face, the strong plane of his forehead and the slant of his straight nose enhanced by the glow of the fire in the winter light. His eyes simmered with unspoken desire, making her feel more beautiful, more wanted, than any woman in the world could possibly have the right to feel.
She lifted up the bottom of her sweater and pulled it over her head before letting it drop in a dark flurry to the floor. She reached behind her back and unsnapped her bra, delighting in the torment she knew she was inflicting on Mason as he watched, his lips slightly open, his breathing ragged.
Gently, she drew the straps off her shoulders, cupping the lacy pink fabric to her breasts until the last possible moment before letting the garment drop beside her sweater on the floor. She cupped her breasts with her hands—a spear of want, sharp and true, piercing her body with throbbing desire at the apex of her thighs. Her thumbs ran lightly over her nipples, hard and jutting, begging for a stronger touch. Begging for him.
Helena let her fingers trail down over her ribcage and down to the waistband of her jeans where, unable to control the quake of need that shuddered through her body, she fumbled the steel button out of its loop and rasped the fly of her jeans undone. A tiny shimmy of her hips and they, too, lay in a denim pool at her feet.
Mason emitted a harsh masculine groan, and Helena smiled enticingly as she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and slid them down her slender thighs. On legs that trembled like a newborn foal’s, she stepped out of the pile of clothing and toward Mason’s waiting arms.
The Tycoon's Hidden Heir Page 14
