The Ultimate Betrayal

by Michelle Reid

  ‘And that—’ he turned to look her directly in the eye for the first time ‘—is the full unvarnished truth of it—if you can bring yourself to believe it, of course, and I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you couldn’t.’

  Rachel lowered her eyes, staring at her hands where they twisted tensely together on her lap. She wanted to believe him, needed to believe him, but…

  ‘Money, power—you can keep them,’ he ordained huskily. ‘If I can have your forgiveness in return.’

  ‘You already have that,’ she told him irritably. But the doubts still clouded her eyes.

  ‘Then what else do you want me to say?’ he sighed in frustration. ‘I cannot make your mind forget! Only you can do that.’

  Impatiently she got up, angry suddenly that he was laying the problem their marriage had become on her. He had said a lot—revealed a lot—about himself, how he thought and felt. But none of it helped how she thought and felt; none of it revealed anything about the inner Rachel.

  And maybe that was her problem, she conceded, feeling his eyes following her as she moved restlessly about the office. She, like Daniel, had always kept a part of herself hidden away. Dreams, he’d called them. But how was he supposed to know her dreams were fulfilled in him, in being his wife, the mother of his children, when she’d never actually said it?

  Could she say it now? With all the hurt and misery she had carried around with her over the last months, could she afford to be as open and as honest with him as he had just been with her? To save what was left of their marriage, could she do it? Could—dared—she put her love on the line for him again?

  Sighing into the heavy silence, she turned back to face him. Then she saw them, hanging in a neat row on the wall above Daniel’s head. And her heart stopped beating.

  Sam, Kate, Michael and herself. All professionally mounted and framed. Her very own sketches looking down at her from the wall of Daniel’s office.

  ‘I stole them,’ he confessed, coming to his feet as she walked slowly towards them. ‘I wanted them to look at whenever I needed Do you mind?’ he asked anxiously.

  Rachel was amazed she hadn’t missed them! Then she remembered the turmoil still waiting for her at home and smiled to herself. She wouldn’t miss a three-piece suite in that chaos! ‘You’ve managed to get the cross removed,’ she noted, staring at her own face and feeling oddly exposed by what it revealed. ‘It isn’t a good likeness of me.’ She dismissed what her own eyes were telling her.

  ‘It is you,’ Daniel insisted. ‘The real you. They all are to me,’ he added, with a quiet pride which warmed her right through. ‘Quite a family gallery, when you think about it.’ He smiled wryly.

  ‘Except you’re not there.’

  ‘No.’ His smile died. ‘Why is that, Rachel?’ he enquired. ‘Why was there no portrait of me in any of your books?’

  He’d searched through them all? She hesitated over her reply, then told the truth. It was time for the truth, she accepted suddenly. The full truth. ‘They all love me,’ she explained, nodding towards the three faces of their children. ‘I didn’t think you did any more. I tried to draw you,’ she added quickly, before he could say anything to that, ‘but the features kept distorting so I gave up in the end…’

  ‘Did Callum see these?’

  ‘What?’ The harshness of his tone threw her for a moment, and she had to think who Callum was. Then, ‘Oh, no,’ she replied. ‘Nobody saw these other than you.’

  ‘How serious did things get between you two?’

  ‘It didn’t get serious at all.’ She shrugged Zac Callum off as though he were unimportant.

  But Daniel wasn’t ready to dismiss the other man. ‘You kissed him!’ he muttered. ‘I saw you!’

  ‘One hasty kiss in the front seat of a car?’ she mocked his jealousy, then added softly, ‘That’s all it was—that’s all!’

  But he wasn’t convinced. His fingers came to clench on her shoulders as he frowned darkly down on her. Rachel sighed, noting that he had managed to do it again and turn the tables on her so that she was having to defend herself against something that she had not even done! Then she smiled at the absolute ridiculousness of it all.

  ‘You look like that devil again.’ Her eyes twinkled at him. ‘You know, the one who takes showers in vats of fire!’

  ‘I’m going to kiss you,’ he growled.

  ‘What—here in your very office?’ she mocked. ‘Wrong setting, darling. I belong in your other world, remember?’

  He kissed her, angrily and passionately. He kissed her until she swayed in his arms. He kissed her until her hands crept round his neck and hung on, fingers curling into the silken dark hair at his nape. He kissed her until her tongue linked sensually with his, and her breasts began to respond, and his own body pulsed urgently against the firm swelling wall of her stomach. He kissed her until she was breathless, gasping, eager, hungry and totally, utterly lost in him.

  Then, ‘I love you, Rachel,’ he whispered urgently.

  ‘I know.’ Softly, she pressed her lips to his taut throat. ‘I think I can let myself believe you again.’

  He sighed then in gruff relief, and took her mouth again, kissing her long and slow and deeply.

  One of his telephones took that moment to start ringing. Daniel turned to glare at it, then took hold of her hand and drew her with him over to his desk. ‘Don’t move,’ he said as he let go of her so that he could reach out for the phone, then hitched one lean hip on the edge of the desk and barked out his name.

  It was amazing how smoothly he switched from passionate lover to cool, collected businessman, she noted, hearing nothing of what he was saying as she curiously studied his face. He looked leaner somehow, more finely honed, as if his features had actually taken on a physical alteration to suit the man he was being now: sharp, shrewd, assertive. His eyes were cool—even though they never lost contact with her own. And his mouth was thinner, losing all that beautiful sensuality her kisses had given it.

  She smiled ruefully, and he frowned an enquiry at her without faltering in the discussion he was having with his caller. And some little devil in her made her want to crack the tycoon armour, making her reach out to stroke a caressing hand along his thigh.

  He almost choked on an inward gasp, his own hand coming to clamp fiercely on top of hers. The eyes flashed, the voice faltered, and Rachel laughed.

  ‘I’ll call you back,’ he ground out, and slammed down the phone. ‘That was an important client!’ he accused, pulling her towards him. ‘You did that on purpose!’

  ‘I love you, Daniel,’ she told him softly.

  He went pale, swallowing. ‘Say that again,’ he ordered thickly.

  Rachel reached up and pressed a kiss to his mouth. ‘I love you,’ she repeated, finding it easier now that she’d let herself say it.

  Daniel inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring as though he was savouring the very scent of the words. ‘I’ve missed you telling me that,’ he said as he exhaled again. ‘I’ve missed having the light on your face when you say it.’ He lifted a hand to her cheek, cupping it gently where the afternoon sunlight caressed her skin.

  ‘I loved you when I was a child of seventeen,’ she told him softly. ‘And I’ve never actually stopped loving you since. It just got—bruised badly, that’s all.’

  ‘So you hid it all away and made our nights into torments of pure hell.’ His chest lifted and fell on a heavy sigh. ‘All those terrible silent lovings, Rachel. And the darkness.’ He sighed at the pain of it all. ‘Now there was a punishment. Those dark silent lovings.’

  ‘Let’s go home,’ she murmured, wanting to hold him close, hold him against her, naked and gleaming in the light. ‘Can you leave here just like that?’ she then asked anxiously, remembering that all of this was, after all, his responsibility.

  ‘I can do anything I like!’ he claimed haughtily, straightening from the desk. ‘I’m the boss. I own this lot!’

  ‘Mmm,’ she murmured. ‘I’d forgotten that
—cash millionaire, I think I recall you saying once.’ Her blue eyes looked up at him speculatively. ‘That means half your assets are mine if we get divorced. I wonder if it would be worth the—’

  Taking her firmly by the shoulders he turned her towards the door. ‘We’re going home—to the new house, not the old one,’ he said threateningly. ‘Then we’re going to dump the kids on our new housekeeper while we use one of the finished bedrooms so I can show you which asset of mine is more important to you!’

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ she mused.

  ‘It will be more than interesting,’ he promised threateningly.

  ‘I am in a rather delicate condition, you know,’ she reminded him.

  ‘That never caused problems before.’ He dismissed that argument. ‘In fact,’ he added silkily, ‘I recall from past experience that you’re rather more—sensitive at times like this.’

  Just then the door to his office opened, and three children scrambled in, saving Rachel from having to refute that last provoking remark.

  Daniel stooped to pick up Michael, who was falling asleep on his feet. The baby’s head flopped on to his shoulder and Rachel smiled lovingly at them both.

  They rode down in the lift and walked off towards the car park, Daniel carrying the sleeping baby, his free arm still resting possessively across Rachel’s shoulders. Sam was a tornado fighter plane, bent on circling them all as they walked. Kate held tightly to her mother’s hand. She had pulled Rachel’s face down and kissed her a few moments ago, her blue eyes full of silent remorse. ‘I’ll never do it again, Mummy,’ she promised solemnly. And Rachel knew she wouldn’t. Kate had learned her lesson the hard way.

  It was a sunny day, and half of Masterson Holdings seemingly happened to be gazing out of the office windows as their employer and his family made their way across the car park.

  ‘I just can’t believe it of him,’ one man said. ‘I knew he was married, but three—nearly four kids!’

  ‘I’ve been working for him for years,’ someone else put in. ‘And I never knew he was married. He’s always been such a ruthless swine, so sharp you could cut yourself on him. What the hell made a sweet creature like her marry a man like that?’

  ‘He doesn’t look so sharp and ruthless now,’ the first remarked ruefully. ‘In fact he looks kind of cute. Perhaps he’s different at home.’

  ‘Or maybe she’s not so sweet and innocent as she looks,’ the second leered. ‘After all—four kids? That takes a lot of loving…’

  ‘What about my car?’ Rachel protested as Daniel herded them towards his.

  ‘I’ll get it delivered this afternoon.’

  ‘Not while I have the keys right here, you won’t,’ she pointed out with perfect feminine calm.

  Daniel muttered something beneath his breath, swapped the sleeping Michael for the car keys and commanded the twins to get in the back of the car. They scrambled in, he closed the door, then opened the front passenger door and carefully helped Rachel inside.

  The faces pressed to the office windows watched him stalk back into the building only to reappear again a few minutes later with young Archer from Sales—the same young man who had escorted Rachel to Daniel’s office earlier.

  Daniel handed him the keys and pointed to the white Escort. The two men parted and Daniel climbed into the BMW. A moment later he was climbing out again and opening the rear door. The twins scrambled out. He came around to open the front passenger door and took the sleeping child from Rachel, then helped her climb out. Then they were all trooping across the car park towards the Escort, where words were exchanged with Archer, plus sets of keys, then the family were opening doors to the Escort and the reason for this swap became clear when the baby was strapped into a child safety seat. Archer was about to make for the BMW when he was stopped by Kate. She gazed pleadingly at her father, who glanced enquiringly at Archer, who shrugged and grinned and held out his hand. The daughter demanded her father’s cheek for a thank you kiss, gave it, then was skipping off beside Archer and the rest were scrambling into the Escort.

  ‘Good God,’ someone gasped. ‘They’ve got him wrapped around their little finger! I wonder what the formula for that is? It could be worth a fortune bottled!’

  ‘Blue eyes, blonde hair and the most delicious body even while pregnant,’ someone listed.

  ‘I thought he had something going with Lydia Marsden not so long ago,’ someone else murmured thoughtfully.

  ‘Lydia Marsden!’ the scathing cry went up.

  ‘Sorry,’ the other man shrugged. ‘Stupid idea.’

  ‘Nice kids,’ someone said.

  ‘Nice wife,’ said another.

  ‘Nice car,’ laughed the next.

  ‘Nice home?’ The joke continued down the line.

  ‘Nice business,’ sighed someone wistfully.

  ‘Nice dole queue if you don’t get back to work!’ shouted out a voice which drowned out all the rest.

  ‘Remind me to have a safety seat fitted into my car, will you?’ Daniel muttered as he climbed behind the wheel of the Escort and readjusted the seat to fit his longer frame.

  ‘What—and ruin your macho ruthless tycoon image?’ Rachel mocked.

  ‘What macho ruthless tycoon image?’ he derided. ‘Did you bother to look up at the windows in my building?’

  ‘No—why?’ She turned to look now, though, saw the long row of curious faces and blushed hotly. ‘Will they tease you about us?’ she whispered anxiously.

  ‘Not to my face, if they have a healthy sense of selfpreservation,’ he grunted, then sighed. ‘Though God knows what they’ll say behind my back.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Rachel put a comforting hand on his thigh. ‘We all love you. Macho ruthless tycoon or not.’

  ‘Keep your hand where it is,’ he muttered tensely, ‘and I’ll be labelled a damned sex maniac!’

  ‘What’s a sex maniac?’ a young voice enquired from the back.

  Rachel choked back a giggle and snatched her hand away. Daniel looked heavenwards and sighed. ‘When you’re older, son,’ he answered drily. ‘I’ll explain when you’re older.’

  ‘Will you explain it to me when I’m older too?’ Rachel asked guilelessly.

  His eyes flashed her a burning look. ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you just as soon as I can get you alone!’ he promised.

  ‘With the light on, so I can—’

  ‘Don’t, Rachel!’ he groaned, closing his eyes on a spasm of pain. ‘You don’t know how much I want to do that.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said, and her eyes told him why.

  Daniel’s darkened. ‘Just hold that thought,’ he commanded, and put the car into gear.

  eISBN 978-14592-7618-5

  THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL

  First North American Publication 1996.

  Copyright © 1995 by Michelle Reid.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters In this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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  Printed in U.S.A.