The devil to pay, p.11
The Devil to Pay, page 11
Daniel laughed and drew up a chair to the table she was using on the terrace. “I wonder if your dad would have approved of me.”
“Ha! Not a chance, never.”
“Why not?”
“Insufficient criteria. You’d never have been allowed near me,” she murmured, tapping away at her laptop. “Can’t see you as a prop forward or church deacon somehow.”
“I’ve got plenty of money.”
“Even worse! Mammon, Daniel and false idols, tut tut!”
“Is that what your ex-boyfriends were?”
“They were prats,” she snapped without looking at him. “But we all make mistakes.”
“You’ve never mentioned them—talked about your past exploits—were there many?”
Rianna looked up and glared at him. “It’s got nothing to do with you! I’ve never pretended to be a virgin and in this past week together I’ve never asked you once about your girlfriends, assuming you can remember them all.”
Daniel chuckled softly. “Sorry, you’re right. Forget I said it.”
“I will,” she replied, frowning playfully and closed the lid of her laptop with a thud. “You never got any proper qualifications either, if I’m correct, which is another black mark against your eligibility. Dad wouldn’t have let you in the house.”
Daniel stretched and folded his hands behind his neck. “I got a couple of Cs somewhere along the line.”
“Were you really such an idle waster?” She laughed. “I find it hard to believe, looking at the man you are now. You turned the company round, you said, or were you embellishing the truth?”
“I was never idle and neither was my brain. Quite the opposite.”
“So?”
“It makes me feel awkward having to explain.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“You have to trade a secret back.”
“OK.”
“I was a gifted child, it turns out, but nobody realised until I went for some private tests after dropping out of the degree course.”
Rianna frowned. “A gifted child...but you failed academically? You were a lazy toad then!”
Daniel laughed. “It took some time and I had to see a good number of experts, but eventually I was diagnosed as a visual spatial learner. My brain works differently from most people’s, so even though I have an unusually high IQ, I struggled at school and university. I was written off as a naughty, disruptive boy. My parents were driven to distraction.”
“I’ve never heard of it. Does it affect you now?”
“I think in pictures whereas you think in words. I can’t learn step by step. I’m a whole-part learner and the education system simply isn’t geared up to people like me.” He looked away briefly. “So being a CEO suits me perfectly. I decide how things need to be done and it’s working out just fine.”
“You’re certainly successful now.”
“My handwriting’s dreadful! So now it’s your turn. Secrets. Now.”
“I’ve had a pretty boring life so far, I’m not sure I have anything very exciting to tell,” she replied awkwardly, knowing she had a very big dark secret hidden away she wasn’t prepared to share.
“The men, tell me about them,” he said quickly.
Rianna sighed. “If you must know, there were only two. I had sex with both of them. One I met at Church Youth. The other was my boss. Dad would have been happy for me to marry either of the bastards, but one, it turned out, had a secret wife and the other, well...” Rianna stood up, tucked her things under her arm and started to walk indoors.
“And the other?”
Without pausing she called out over her shoulder, “The other one was the church deacon and I got fed up being his bitch. He would only ever take me from behind.”
Chapter Ten
Daniel leaned pensively against the gnarled wood of an ancient pergola and felt the fragrant blossom of a climbing plant brush his temple as he watched her. Rianna was charming the pants off the middle-aged board members who were vying for her personal attention like children would for free sweets. The nerves she had been exhibiting earlier in the morning had disappeared with the dawn mist, and her presentation had been quite exceptional.
His presence had been a mere formality, he conceded privately. She really hadn’t needed him to fight the quarry’s corner with her. Her genuine passion for the place did all that. And she was good. Incredibly persuasive, convincing, businesslike... But what had he expected? Looking at it now in retrospect, he had probably expected her to stutter and fumble, fall to bits under pressure like she had in the cable car the first time. He should have known something was up straight away that morning when she had insisted on facing the demonic funivia to join the rest of the party. This woman had a hidden core of steel, a resolute strength that would not be cowed. Not for anything.
Daniel rubbed thoughtfully at his jaw. He’d never met anyone like her before and she had captivated him as a woman on a physical level, but this? She could give any number of his posturing executives a run for their money and he wasn’t imagining it. The board members were like fawning puppies right now and they’d not even been served their pre-lunch cocktails. Dio! If Rianna Peters couldn’t save the quarry, then no one could.
Not even him?
Well, that was another thing entirely, he thought defensively. He didn’t have Rianna’s motivation, her crystal clear belief and determination, her ability to win hearts and minds. And wallets.
Adrenalin rushed angrily through his body as he suddenly noticed Rianna take a few backward steps, her new designer stilettos catching in the paving slabs. A chubby arm writhed around her waist and her hands quickly moved to create a barrier between the unwanted admirer and herself. Within seconds Daniel reached them and disentangled the indignant predator.
“Allow me, Silvio,” Daniel interjected smoothly in spite of the way his heart pounded. “Your lovely wife would never forgive me if you overexerted yourself trying to save my accountant from misfortune.” He manoeuvred himself between them with the ease of a swallow in flight, hitching Rianna up against himself for good measure. “If you will excuse us, we need to attend to the luncheon arrangements.”
“I was perfectly capable of—”
“Of thumping one of your potential saviours?” Daniel muttered angrily when they were out of earshot. “Or were you prepared to accommodate every one of his lascivious requirements? Because that is where it would’ve led, believe me.”
“Oh, how ridiculous,” Rianna replied indignantly.
“You think so?” His expression was explosive. “You know so, do you?”
“Well, I really don’t think—”
“Well, I really don’t think you can afford to ignore my experience on this one.” He wheeled her by the elbow into a quiet corner of the restaurant. “And I didn’t like the way he was touching you. It was disrespectful.”
“Daniel, I hate to say it, in fact, I’m afraid to say it, but it’s almost as if you’re jealous or something!”
Jealous or something?
He was incandescent! As far as Rianna was concerned, she was his. For now. He might not be her one and only lover, but she was still naive, far too trusting, far too responsive and therefore, he reasoned quickly, he had responsibility over the way she proceeded with her sex life. But those disgusting old men... He shook his head silently. No. The thought was making him feel sick. He shouldn’t even be thinking that way. He’d known women who’d sleep with anyone to get their own way, but Rianna wasn’t like them. She’d never stoop to that for the sake of a pit full of gravel. She was worth so much more, and she needed protecting, but he still needed to justify his possessive and controlling behaviour to her.
“I just didn’t want you to throw away all the good work you’ve put in this morning. Your presentation was impeccable, but as for Silvio Gozzi, the slime can’t help himself when it comes to a beautiful and intelligent woman.”
“So that was why you had your hand on his throat?”
“You are mistaken—”
“You don’t remember?”
Daniel ground his jaw ferociously as he stared into the genuine honesty of her face. He couldn’t have gone that far... It was unthinkable. And he wasn’t going to think about it for a second longer. “Let’s get the cocktails moving and see if we can get this over with, shall we?” He looked around the restaurant with agitation. “I’ll get Gianpiero to take you back to the villa once you’ve made your excuses. They’ll reach a decision much faster if they’re able to discuss it over lunch, unhindered by your presence. It will also prevent Silvio from trying to grope you under the table.”
Rianna’s eyes flashed like bayonets. “I don’t agree! I need to see this right through to the end, to give it everything.”
“Then leave your ego at the door and bow out gracefully,” he ground out. “I know what I’m doing. You have to trust me on this.”
****
Rianna bit the inside of her cheek to stop her chin quivering with anger and disappointment. “If you think it’s best,” she replied stiffly as she realised Daniel was bulldozing her out of the way and effectively ordering her off the premises. She was infuriated at his high-handedness, but at the same time, if there was a danger she might compromise the final decision in some way, she couldn’t afford to take the risk, not for the sake of her smarting pride. She picked up a tray of Bellinis. “Very well, I’ll circulate with these and say my good-byes.”
Daniel snapped his gaze away from her, his face set like granite. “No. You must leave now,” he replied.
****
Daniel leant against the hot bonnet of the Bugatti parked below the villa, folded his arms across his chest and stared out at the dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea. For the first time he could ever remember, he wondered how to deal with the situation he had been presented with, whilst tempering his own wishes and desires. He had deliberately not phoned Rianna when the board meeting was over. This was news that had to be delivered in person and like it or not, he had to do it now. No more uncharacteristic procrastination, he had to get indoors and just tell her straight. She’d been waiting for a verdict all afternoon so he couldn’t postpone any longer and she was already angry with him. He could do it. He had no choice in the matter.
“Rianna,” he announced as her head spun round from the arched window of the principal living room. “I think you’d better sit down.”
Her face was pale. “I’m OK here. Tell me.”
“Sit down and I will,” he replied sharply.
With an irritated toss of her hair, she slid onto the sofa next to him.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” he began grimly. “The board reached a final decision this afternoon.” His heart twisted at the pain etched over her delicate features. He took her hands from her lap and encased their cold smallness in the warm strength of his own. “Your proposal for the quarry, the tunnel and the financing,”—he took a long breath—“has been rejected.”
“Rejected?” Rianna’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You mean...”
“They’re selling.”
She drew a shaking hand across her forehead. “So that’s it then. It’s all been for nothing.”
He gently took hold of the tops of her arms and forced her to look him in the eye. “No, it hasn’t. This last week has been—”
“What has this week been?” she snapped. “Silvio told me about you delaying the meeting for a week when I asked if he’d recovered from the cruise. He looked at me like I was mad. He’d had a bit of a cold, that’s all. Can you imagine how I felt when he said they’d had an email to say I needed more time to prepare? That the email came from you personally?”
Shock froze his spine rigid. Silvio...the bastard. “You didn’t say anything about this at the function.”
“I trusted you like you told me to, trusted you to know what you were doing. I believed you when you said everything would be all right.” She laughed bitterly. “I left my ego at the door. And my self-respect in the gutter. I kept my incompetent little mouth shut.”
“You should never have found out—it wasn’t necessary—and it’s not important. Silvio was just stirring things up.”
“It wasn’t necessary? Not important?” She angrily leapt up from the sofa. “Can’t you see how insulting you are?”
Her anger took him by surprise and it looked like he’d made a big mistake. “OK, it was wrong of me. It shouldn’t have happened, a white lie. It wouldn’t have changed the outcome in any case.”
“And you’re sure of that are you?” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest and glared at him hard. “Of course, you’re sure, Daniel, it’s obvious now, how silly of me. The quarry was never going to be saved whatever I did, because you hate it, because you want rid of it and nothing was ever going to change that. You planned this outcome all along.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. That’s not true.”
“So why did you delay the board meeting for a week?” Her expression was cold. “I know why: you put the meeting back to make me and the quarry look bad, to make it seem like we couldn’t hack it, like we’re amateurs, unprofessional, unfit to run the place. You also wanted to get me into bed, to take everything I have to offer before packing me off back home to a place you never intend setting foot in again.”
“It takes two, Rianna,” he muttered. “I don’t remember you complaining too much when I was on top of you last night.”
“It’s only just occurred to me I was being used. Used as a sex toy for a week, a plaything, a rub for your massive ego. Silvio Gozzi may be slime, but he’s opened my eyes to what you really are.”
“And what am I?”
“A user.” Her eyes narrowed as she took a sharp breath. “And a loser. Look at you with your expensive cars and empty bachelor pad. You didn’t need to get a degree anyway. Daddy was always there to bail you out and give you a job. You’ve no idea what it’s like to live in the real world, Daniel. People like me can only dream of the advantages you’ve had in life. And then wasted.”
“So let’s talk about people in the real world shall we? Specifically your own dear honest down-to-earth family.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Users and losers. You seem to be surrounded by them. Generations of children abandoned by feckless parents and left to fend for themselves or rely on the goodwill of others.” His heart rate began to pick up. “Your brother doesn’t seem too bothered about dumping his on you,” he muttered darkly, the accusation sounding more unkind than he intended.
“You know nothing about my brother or the circumstances,” she replied sharply. “It’s a mess—”
“No, I don’t, but let me guess,” he snapped. “How many years is he banged up for? I assume he’s inside jail for some reason. What was it? Drugs? Assault? Fraud? Or is it the simple fact he’s just run away from his responsibilities? Just like his woman, the one who brought those poor children into the world.”
“Stop it, Daniel.” Rianna’s voice shook as she stood up and paced the room angrily. “Stop now before you say something really stupid.”
“Like what exactly?” He glared across with simmering anger. “Something like telling you he’s a low-life misfit who takes you for granted? You don’t want to hear me say he will bleed you dry financially until there’s nothing left, do you? But he will and then he’ll move on to his next victim.” He thrust his hands hard into his trouser pockets. “Wise up, Rianna, and stop being a wretched doormat just because he’s blood. He’ll ditch you in the end just like your mother did.”
“Quite a speech, Daniel,” she murmured, pale and shaking after a few tense seconds. “So perhaps it’s time you shut your opinionated mouth and listened to me.”
“Be my guest.”
Her voice wavered. “My brother Bill can’t look after his children right now as he’s receiving intensive therapy—”
“Intensive therapy,” he affected a harsh laugh. “Rehab, don’t you mean? I knew there’d be drugs involved somewhere.”
“How dare you!” Rianna’s face blazed, her eyes bright with pewter fire. “Bill’s had a complete breakdown as a result of losing his wife. She was swept away trying to save their children from the tsunami in Malaysia last year. She managed to get them both to the jetty where he was and pass them up to him, but it started to collapse under the force of the floodwater. He couldn’t do anything but hold on to the kids and watch her disappear in the current. Bill and the children made it to safety, she didn’t. Hundreds were in the same situation, and there was nothing he could do, but he can’t come to terms with it. He can’t get over the fact he survived and she didn’t.” Her voice cracked. “He loved her very much.”
Daniel felt a flash of sickness well up inside him and turned his back to lean against a window ledge. He’d screwed this up badly. “I can only apologise for what I just said. I’m sorry. I hadn’t the slightest idea—”
“How did you know about my mother?”
“I ran some checks on you last week. After the mistaken identity business, I didn’t want to be made to look a fool again.”
“My file says she’s dead.”
“I was thorough. My people looked beyond the quarry files. There’s no death registered, no missing person... I’m sorry. I had to do it.” From the window, the sun burned into his shoulders. Its heat like a branding iron. “The assault allegations are still on record, as well.”
“I was too small to remember all that. Gran said Mum and Dad fought a lot, but whether it ever went to court, I have no idea.”
“Not your mother. The assault on you.”
“Me?”
“Gareth William Afon, thirty-two, divorced, unemployed, currently living with his mother—”
“That’s enough.”
“He beat you up! I assume he was the married one, your boss. And then there’s the engagement notice in The Taff’s Weir Chronicle. Elwyn Stanley Phuge, Master Builder, church deacon—”
“I said that’s enough!”
