The Ultimate Betrayal. Michelle Reid

her a brief glance. She looked at his face, saw the lines of strain etched there, the greyish pallor. He moved his gaze to where the phone still lay off its rest and went over to it, putting his black leather briefcase down on the floor before picking up the receiver. His hand was trembling as he settled it back on its rest.

      Mandy must have called him. She would have panicked when Rachel refused to answer the phone, and rung Daniel to tell him what she had done. Rachel would have liked to have listened in to that conversation, she decided. The cut and parry of confession, accusation, condemnation and defence.

      He looked back at her through eyes heavily hooded by thick dark lashes, and she let him have his moment’s private communion as he ran that gaze over the mess she must look. Then, without a word, she turned and went back into the sitting-room.

      He was guilty. It was written all over him. Guilty as sin.

       CHAPTER TWO

      SEVERAL minutes passed by before he joined her. Minutes he needed, to compose himself for what was to come, while she sat patiently waiting for him.

      Strangely, she felt incredibly calm. Disconnected almost. Her heart was pumping quite steadily, and her hands lay relaxed on her lap.

      He came in—minus his overcoat and jacket, his tie loosened around his neck and the top few buttons of his crisp white shirt tugged undone. He didn’t glance at her but made straight for the drinks cabinet where his usual bottle of good whisky waited for him.

      ‘Want one?’ he asked.

      She shook her head. He must have sensed her refusal because he didn’t repeat the enquiry, nor did he look at her. He poured himself a large measure, then came to drop down in the chair opposite her.

      He took a large gulp at the spirit. ‘Loyal friend you’ve got,’ was his opening gambit.

      Loyal husband, she countered, but didn’t bother saying it.

      His eyes were closed. He had not looked directly at her once since coming into the room. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, whisky glass held loosely between both sets of fingers—long, strong fingers, with blunted nails kept beautifully clean. Like the rest of him, she supposed: long-limbed, strong-bodied and always kept scrupulously clean. Good suits, shoes, hand-made shirts and expensive silk ties. His face was paler than usual, strain finely etched into his lean bones, but it was still a very attractive face, with clean-cut squared-off lines to complement the chiselled shape of his nose and slim, determined mouth. Thirty-one now—going on thirtytwo—he had always been essentially a masculine kind of man, but through the years other facets of his character had begun to write themselves into his features: an inner strength which perhaps always came with maturity, confidence, a knowledge of self-worth. The signs of power and an ability to wield it efficiently all had a place in his face now—nothing you could actually point to and say, You have that because you’re successful and know it, but just a general air about the man, which placed him up there among the special set.

      And controlled, she realised now. Daniel had always possessed an impressive depth of self-control, rarely lost his temper, rarely became irritated when things did not quite go his way. He had this rare ability to look at a problem and put aside its negative sides to deal only with the positive.

      Which was probably what he was doing nowsearching through the debris of what one phone call had done to his marriage and looking for the positive aspects he could sift out from it.

      That, she supposed, epitomised Daniel Masterson, head of Master Holdings, an organisation which had over the last few years grown at a phenomenal pace, gobbling up smaller companies then spitting them out again as better, far more commercially profitable appendages to their new father company.

      And he had done it all on his own, too. Built his miniempire by maintaining that fine balance between success and disaster without once placing his family and what he had got for them at risk. He had surrounded her with luxury, cherished her almost—as a man would a possession he had a sentimental attachment to.

      ‘What now?’ he asked suddenly, lifting those darkly fringed eyelids to reveal the dove-grey beauty of his eyes to her.

      So, he wasn’t going to try denying it. Something inside her quivered desperately for expression, but she squashed it down. ‘You tell me,’ she shrugged, still with that amazingly calm exterior.

      Mandy must have told him exactly what she’d done. She must have worried herself sick afterwards that the silly blind Rachel had gone and done something stupid, like hanged herself or taken a bottle of pills. How novel, she thought. How very dramatic. Poor Mandy, she mused, without an ounce of sympathy, she must have been really alarmed to dare confess to Daniel of all people!

      ‘She’s a bitch!’ Daniel ground out suddenly, his own thoughts obviously not that far away from Rachel’s own. He lurched forward in his chair, hands tightening around the whisky glass. Face clenched too. That tell-tale nerve jumping in his jaw. Elbows pressing into his knees as he glared furiously at the carpet between his spread feet. ‘If she hadn’t stuck her twisted nose in, you could have been spared all of this! It was over!’ he shot out thickly. ‘And if she’d only kept her big mouth shut she would have seen it was over! The bitch has always had it in for me. She’s been waiting—waiting for me to slip up so she could get her claws into me! But I never thought she’d sink so low as to do it through you!’

      That’s right, thought Rachel. Blame Mandy. Blame everything and anything so long as it is not yourself.

      ‘Say something, for God’s sake!’ he ground out, making her blink, because Daniel rarely raised his voice to her like that. And she realised that she had been sitting here just staring blankly at him but not really seeing him. Her eyes felt stuck, fixed in a permanent stare which refused to focus properly—like her emotions—locked on hold until something or someone hit the right button to set them free. She hoped it didn’t happen. She had an idea she might fall apart when that happened.

      It must feel like this, she pondered flatly, when someone you love dearly dies.

      ‘I want a divorce,’ she heard herself say, and was as surprised by the statement as Daniel was, because the idea of divorce hadn’t so much as entered her head before she’d said it. ‘You can get out. I’ll keep the house and the children. You can easily afford to support us.’ Another shrug, and she was amazed at her own calmness when she knew she should really be screeching at him like a fishwife.

      ‘Don’t be damned stupid!’ he ground out. ‘That’s no damned answer and you know it.’

      ‘Don’t shout,’ she censured. ‘You’ll wake the children.’

      That seemed to do it, lift the top right off his self-control, and he surged to his feet. The glass was slapped down on the mantel top, whisky slopping over the side to splash on to white marble.

      He tried to glare at her but could not hold her steady gaze long enough to gain the upper hand, so he threw himself away instead, his shoulders hunching in the white shirt so that the material became stretched taut across his back, while his hands were thrust angrily into his trouser pockets.

      ‘Look…’ he said after a moment, struggling to get hold of himself. ‘It wasn’t what you think—what that bitch made it out to be! It was just—’ he swallowed tensely ‘—a flash in the pan thing—over before it really began!’ He slashed violently at the air with his hand, and Rachel thought, Poor Lydia, guillotined just like that. ‘I was under pressure at work. The Harvey takeover was threatening to kill everything I had worked for.’ He reached out for his glass of whisky, gulping at the contents like a man with a severe thirst. ‘I found I had to work night and day just to keep one step ahead of them. You were still recovering from the bad time you’d had carrying Michael, and I seemed to be spending more time with her than with you. Then the twins got measles—you wouldn’t even let me employ a nurse to help you!’ he flung at her in accusation. ‘So you looked worn out most