A Legal Affair

by Smith, Maureen

  And when he awakened that Tuesday morning bereft of her warm, enticing body curled against him, he knew he had to get her into his life on a permanent basis.

  When his father called and casually asked him to drop by the ranch after his last class of the day, Caleb thought nothing of it.

  But the moment he crossed the threshold of his father’s study and saw the grim expression on Crandall’s face, he knew he wasn’t going to like what he heard. And that was putting it mildly.

  “Have a seat, son,” Crandall offered, waving him into a chair. There were pronounced lines of strain around his mouth that hadn’t been there the day before, when Caleb picked him up from the airport after taking Daniela home.

  Caleb eyed his father warily as he sat down. “What’s going on, Dad?”

  “This morning I received a visit from the private investigator I hired to run surveillance on Hoyt Philbin.”

  Caleb automatically tensed at the mention of the former mayor, who’d been on a relentless campaign to ruin Crandall Thorne ever since learning that his wife and Crandall had once been in love.

  When his father fell silent, Caleb prompted, “And?”

  Crandall pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly, looking as if he’d rather scale Mount Vesuvius during a volcanic eruption than deliver the bad news weighing heavily on him. “He came to report information on the private detective agency that Philbin hired to dig up dirt on me. The name of the agency is Roarke Investigations, a local outfit run by two former law-enforcement officers and their younger sister.” He paused, his lips thinning to a flat, hard line. “Her name is Daniela Roarke.”

  Caleb stared at his father as if unable to absorb what he had just heard. “What are you saying?” he inquired evenly. “Are you telling me that Daniela Moreau is actually Daniela Roarke, a P.I.?”

  Crandall studied him in silence for a moment, then inclined his head in a grim nod. “She’s not a law student, son. Apparently she’s working undercover as part of an investigation to expose me for some wrong Philbin is convinced I’m guilty of.” His tone hardened. “My guess is that she—they—were hoping to get to me by luring you into sharing confidences about my alleged criminal conduct. Daniela was the bait they used.”

  Caleb kept his expression carefully blank, because Thorne men weren’t prone to fits of hysteria or extreme outbursts of emotion. But inside he was screaming, raging at the world as a secret hope slowly shriveled and died inside him.

  He hid his wrath behind a flat, terse tone. “I want to see the photos.”

  Crandall frowned. “I really don’t think—”

  “It’s too late to protect me now, Dad. The horse is already out of the stable. It can’t get much worse. I want to see the photographs.” Because a small, foolish part of him—the part that had allowed him to fall in love with Daniela—was still in denial. He needed indisputable proof of her betrayal.

  Slowly Crandall slid a thick manila folder across the desk at Caleb.

  Wordlessly Caleb took the folder and opened it. Inside were typed reports nestled between black-and-white photographs that consisted mainly of Hoyt Philbin entering a nondescript, single-story brick building on various dates and times. Jaw clenched in mounting fury, Caleb sifted quickly through the stack, then froze when he came to what he was looking for. There, right before his very eyes, was a close-up shot of Daniela emerging from the same building, wearing the brown gypsy skirt and sexy lace-up sandals that had sent his imagination into overdrive. The picture had been taken just last Wednesday, the day she visited his office after class and claimed she’d missed him.

  The day he offered to introduce her to his father.

  She’d probably left campus that afternoon and driven straight to the detective agency to share the good news with her partners in crime. What a coup that must have been for her, to land such a prime opportunity less than two weeks after going undercover. She must have realized, then, what a gullible fool Caleb was, to have played into her hands so easily. Judging by the triumphant smile on her face in the photograph, the joke was definitely on him.

  He had been played for a fool, and he had no one to blame but himself. He—who’d always been taught not to trust beautiful women, who’d had more than his fair share of dealings with gold-diggers who were only after his father’s wealth and prestige—should have known better. Instead he’d allowed himself to be tempted and seduced by a woman who should have remained off-limits to him.

  He’d been so mesmerized by her that, as of that morning, he’d planned to ask her to marry him.

  Oh, yeah. The joke was definitely on him.

  With the manila folder still clamped in his fist, Caleb got abruptly to his feet and strode purposefully to the door.

  “Don’t do anything rash, son,” his father called out in warning.

  Caleb didn’t break stride as he left the room. He was past hearing, past caring and—soon enough, if he was lucky—he’d be past feeling at all.

  The house was silent when Daniela returned from campus that afternoon.

  She’d attended all of her classes as if it were a normal day, then she’d calmly walked to the admissions office and withdrawn her status as a student. Mistaking the cause of the tears that blurred her eyes, the kind admissions clerk had attempted to console Daniela by telling her that there would always be a place for her at the university whenever she was ready to continue her studies.

  Daniela cried all the way home.

  When she stepped through the front door and was greeted by empty silence, it only punctuated the sense of loneliness and despair threatening to engulf her.

  After checking her mother’s bedroom and finding it empty, Daniela assumed that Pamela had stepped out to run errands or visit her friends at the senior center where she volunteered.

  Returning to the living room, Daniela kicked off her shoes and sank down on the sofa with the remote control. As she wandered aimlessly through channels, she marveled at the pendulum of her emotions. After the glorious, magical weekend she’d spent with Caleb, she’d been walking on cloud nine. In the span of a day she’d gone from feeling the highest of highs, to the lowest of lows.

  Because today was the day she’d decided to tell Caleb the truth about herself.

  Withdrawing from the university had been the first step, a way to bolster her courage for the difficult task that awaited her.

  Difficult? Daniela thought sardonically. Try excruciating.

  Her only consolation, if one could be found, was that once she came clean to Caleb, dealing with her brothers would be a veritable cakewalk. Because there was nothing Kenneth could say that would make her feel any worse than she already did, knowing she’d betrayed Caleb in the worst possible way, and knowing that her punishment was to face a future without the first and only man she’d ever truly loved.

  When the doorbell rang, she got up and shuffled to the door on leaden legs. As if he’d been conjured by her thoughts, Caleb stood on her doorstep.

  Her pulse raced at the sight of him. She loved him so much. And though she knew it was a long shot, deep in her heart lingered the hope that somehow, some way, she could tell him the truth about everything, and still not lose him.

  She licked her lips nervously. “Hi, Caleb,” she said with forced normalcy. “You must have read my mind. I was just going to call you and ask you to come by after your last class.”

  His mouth curved upward in a half smile, but there was something in that smile, something barely perceptible, that sent a whisper of foreboding through her. “In that case,” he drawled softly, “I guess it’s a good thing that I’m a mind reader, isn’t it?”

  Unsure how to respond to the strange undertones in his voice, Daniela merely smiled and stepped aside to let him enter. As he shouldered past her into the house, she noticed a manila folder tucked beneath his arm.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked, closing the door and leaning against it for support, her knees feeling oddly weak—even weaker than they normal
ly felt whenever Caleb was near.

  “No, thanks. I’m fine, Daniela.”

  Was it just her imagination, or had there been a slight edge to his voice when he said her name?

  Deciding it was just her guilty conscience getting to her, Daniela pushed away from the door, walked over to the sofa and sat down, automatically expecting Caleb to follow suit.

  He didn’t. Remaining by the window, he propped a shoulder against the wall and regarded her in calm, implacable silence. He seemed to be waiting for something, though she couldn’t fathom what that might be.

  Her hands twisted nervously in her lap. “Have you already eaten? I could fix you something, like a sandwich or—”

  “I’m fine, Daniela.” A shadow of cynicism curved his mouth. “Or would you prefer to be called Miss Roarke?”

  For one stunned moment Daniela stared at him, his words not fully registering. But once they did, she felt a huge wave of sorrow, and a shame so intense she could scarcely hold her head up.

  She got to her feet slowly. “Caleb—”

  He pinned her with a look of such scathing contempt that tears burned her eyes. “How long were you planning to keep up the charade, Daniela?” He sneered. “Weeks? Months? Years?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No, of course not. I—”

  “Of course not?” he thundered furiously, advancing on her. “You say that as if I should know better, as if the idea of your going undercover for ‘years’ should be any more outrageous than your going undercover at all!”

  Daniela strove for calm, though her insides were quaking violently. “Caleb, please let me explain—”

  “Don’t bother!” He slapped the manila folder down onto the coffee table, spilling some of the contents to the floor. Daniela stared, in abject horror, as a black-and-white photograph of herself leaving Roarke Investigations landed right at her feet.

  “How apropos,” Caleb jeered. “That’s the very same photo I wanted you to see. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, Miss Roarke. What do you suppose that particular picture is saying?”

  Daniela knelt down to pick it up, her heart sinking further when she saw her smiling image, and realized how Caleb must have interpreted it. She looked up at him. “It wasn’t like that, Caleb,” she said, imploring him to believe her.

  “Oh, really?” he mocked bitingly. “So you didn’t leave campus after we spoke that day and run straight to your brothers to brag about landing an interview with my father?”

  “I didn’t brag!” she cried, surging to her feet. “If anything, I was hoping they’d talk me out of going!”

  Shaking his head slowly, Caleb raked her with a look of withering scorn. “You must really take me for a fool, Daniela. And why wouldn’t you? I fell for your little scheme—hook, line and damn sinker. Oh, you were good, I’ll give you that. Oscar-winning good. That whole help-me-find-my-calling act was inspired.”

  “It wasn’t an act!”

  His brow arched in cynical disbelief. “So you really do have an interest in becoming a lawyer? Is that what you’re telling me?” When she floundered, he nodded tersely. “That’s what I thought.”

  Daniela took a beseeching step toward him. “Listen to me, Caleb. Almost everything I told you about myself is true. About my family, about where I attended college—”

  “That’s even more insulting,” he bit out. “You were so confident in your ability to win my trust that you didn’t even bother to invent a solid alias. It never once occurred to you that I might see through your lies, that I might grow suspicious enough to check into your background. My God, Daniela, you didn’t even bother supplying the school with a fake address! All it would have taken was one phone call to ascertain the name of the homeowner at this address, and you would have been busted. But that never occurred to you, did it? You and your brothers knew I would be easy prey—”

  “No!” Daniela cried, unable to bear the thought of him somehow blaming himself for letting down his guard with her. “That wasn’t it at all! I never for one moment thought you’d be easy prey! We made the decision to stick as close as possible to the truth to make it easier for me to…to—” She couldn’t even bring herself to complete the awful explanation, which sounded far worse than she could have ever imagined.

  “To lie to me,” Caleb finished for her, his mouth twisting contemptuously. “You stuck close to the truth to help you keep your lies together. Brilliant strategy.”

  Tears crowded in Daniela’s eyes and rolled, unchecked, down her face. “If you believe nothing else I say, Caleb,” she told him in an aching whisper, “believe me when I tell you that I never meant to hurt you.”

  His gaze hardened. “You’ll forgive me if I have a hard time believing that,” he mocked scornfully. His eyes narrowed on hers. “Tell me something,” he said, understated menace in every inflection. “What did you really expect to learn about my father? What deep, dark secret did you hope to expose by befriending me?”

  She shook her head helplessly, on the verge of hysteria. “I don’t know, Caleb!” she choked out miserably. “Hoyt Philbin thinks your father has ties to the Mexican mafia, that he tampers with juries and engages in economic espionage, that he accepts bribes from corrupt labor union bosses and extorts money from his clients.”

  When she’d finished rattling off the litany of alleged offenses, Caleb said in a low, quelling voice, “Hoyt Philbin doesn’t believe a single one of those things. And you know why? Because they’re not true.”

  “I’m just letting you know what I was told!”

  “Yeah? Did Philbin also tell you that he’s hated my father for over forty years, long before Crandall built his empire and became a target of random government audits and secret investigations?” At Daniela’s surprised look, his mouth twisted sardonically. “Did you seriously think your ‘undercover operation’ was the first my father has ever endured? Did you think your little detective agency was the only one Philbin had ever approached to help him in his personal crusade to take down my father?”

  He didn’t raise his voice above a low growl, and yet each word snapped in the air like the crack of a whip, lashing at Daniela, breaking her down until she sank weakly onto the sofa and dropped her head into her hands.

  But he wasn’t finished with her yet. “Did Philbin tell you the real reason behind his grudge against my father? No? You mean he didn’t tell you that long before he met his wife, Tessa, she and my father were madly in love with each other? He didn’t tell you how young, social-climbing Tessa deserted my father for Hoyt Philbin because he was white, and his political future looked more promising than Crandall’s? And he didn’t tell you that forty years ago, my father and Tessa saw each other again for the first time in ages, that one thing led to another and they wound up having an affair? And out of that affair came my half sister, Melanie, who was born a little too dark-skinned for Hoyt’s liking, so he made Tessa give her up for adoption, telling her that they’d have other children later, when his political career was more established.”

  Aghast, Daniela could only stare up at him, unable to believe the incredible tale he was sharing with her.

  Amused by her horrified expression, Caleb gave a soft, mirthless laugh. “This is the kind of dirt you were looking for, isn’t it, Daniela?” he taunted bitterly. “This is what you hoped I would share with you during pillow talk. But wait, it only gets better.”

  Her heart constricted. “Caleb—”

  “Let me finish!” His voice softened to a silky, dangerous caress as he added, “After all, it’s the least I can do, since I never gave you the ammunition you came into my life seeking.”

  Swallowing hard, Daniela closed her eyes for a moment. It was impossible to reconcile this cold, ruthless version of Caleb with the tender, fiercely passionate lover who’d brought her to shuddering heights of ecstasy every time they made love.

  But it was she who’d brought him to this dark moment, tension and fury radiating from his body as he stood a few feet away from
her, no doubt wishing he’d never set eyes on her.

  “When I was fourteen years old,” Caleb began, his voice low and controlled, “I came home from school one day to find my parents kneeling over the dead body of a nineteen-year-old girl. They told me that the girl had broken into the house wielding a gun, and that she planned to rob and kill them. When I looked down at the body, all I saw were torn jeans, ratty sneakers and wild, dirty hair. I remember thinking that she looked like a homeless person capable of violence, so I believed them. I was so scared and shaken that it didn’t even occur to me to wonder why the girl looked so much like me. And then the police arrived, and my father told them what had happened, that he’d accidentally shot the intruder during a struggle for the gun. The police filed a report and conducted an investigation that eventually cleared my parents of any suspicion of wrongdoing, and after a while the whole thing went away. Until sixteen years later, when Hoyt Philbin paid me a visit at work. That’s how I found out that the girl my father accidentally killed that day was actually my half sister, Melanie, who’d been bounced around foster care homes all her life until she finally aged out of the system at eighteen.

  “Before that day, I’d never even suspected that I had a sister out there somewhere. Philbin told me that she’d gone to the house to confront my father about abandoning her, just as she’d confronted Tessa the day before. He claimed that my father killed Melanie to keep her from going to the press, but he was never able to prove it—though he’s never stopped trying. As you can imagine, I was devastated by this news, and to have to learn about Melanie from my father’s long-time enemy sent me into a rage. I’d already been thinking about leaving the firm. As I told you before, I was burned-out, physically and emotionally. Learning about my half sister, knowing that my father had kept the truth from me all those years, hastened my decision to leave.”

  As Daniela gazed at him, tears welled in her eyes and her heart broke for him. She mourned the tragic loss of innocence he and his sister had suffered so senselessly. And she mourned the life of a desperate young woman who’d been cast aside like a rag doll because of the selfish, reckless actions of the three adults who’d failed her.