Caught on Camera with the CEO (11 page)

And the follow-on questions grew louder and louder in her head—if she wasn't going to find her brother, why was she still here? How much longer did she give Alex's PI to find him? How much longer would she let herself be with Alex?

For the first question the answer was easy—they had to have more time. She hadn't packed up and moved countries to give up after only a few weeks. She wouldn't let them stop. Somewhere someone must be able to help—surely they'd find him eventually.

As for Alex, he was just part of the deal, wasn't he? The physical favour. Hardly—she mocked herself. No way was it ‘just sex' and uncomplicated—it already was complicated for her. Half her heart was his. And he hadn't asked for it. How she wished he would.

‘Did the meeting run late last night?'

She finally heard Cara. ‘Oh. Not too bad, no.'

‘Oh.' Cara smiled. ‘You seem a little tired today. Distracted.'

Dani felt her cheeks warm. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘It's OK,' Cara said. ‘There's not much to do today anyway.'

Dani's mobile rang.

‘I'll send a taxi to pick you up this afternoon.' Alex got straight to the point. ‘I have a thing I have to go to. I forgot to mention it this morning.'

‘Sure. No problem.' So he didn't need his ‘date' for this one. Dani battled against feeling disappointed but lost. Nor could she control the feeling of concern from rising—he'd sounded tired, which was unusual. She wished she could see him—to read his expression—because something had definitely been off.

Silly. She reminded herself with hard words—she wasn't his mother, or his girl, not even a friend. She was his flatmate with fringe benefits. That was all.

‘That was Alex?' Cara asked.

Dani nodded, knew her colour was rising.

‘Gorgeous, isn't he?' Cara sparkled. ‘He and Lorenzo are the most eligible bachelors in town—and not because of their bank balances or bodies. Although—' she looked coy ‘—I don't know that Alex is going to be a bachelor for much longer.'

Dani looked at Cara with great concern. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea or some cold water?' Pregnancy was making the poor woman delusional.

 

Alone in his house, she found some ready-made soup in the fridge, ate it while standing. She sloped up to bed early. But despite feeling exhausted she couldn't sleep. She went back downstairs and curled up on the sofa—but she couldn't settle into a book, decide on a telly channel, or choose a movie. It was the tone she kept hearing—that discordant note in his voice when he'd rung. She couldn't sleep until she'd seen him.

She heard the gates and the garage door. He wasn't nearly as late as she'd thought he'd be. She listened to his slow, heavy tread on the stairs and waited. He appeared in the doorway and shock rippled through her. She sat up. ‘What's wrong?'

He looked awful—his face all shadows and angles. And as he stepped further into the room she saw the shadows were darkened by something else—pain. He looked at her, his expression so tortured that the vulnerability struck a knife in her heart. She couldn't believe this wreck of a man was Alex. Usually full of such vitality. She'd never thought he could look so destroyed.

‘Tell me.' She needed to know. She needed to help.

But he was silent.

Her cheeks heated. He didn't want to tell her. Was she overstepping the mark? Too bad. She reverted to blunt speak. ‘You look awful.'

A little puff of air escaped him and he flopped onto the sofa beside her. He closed his eyes, his brows knitting. Then suddenly he spoke. ‘I had a meeting with my father.'

Dani blinked. That she hadn't expected. ‘But—'

‘Samuel Carlisle wasn't my father.'

Oh—Dani thought it but no sound came out of her mouth. Instead she sat utterly still. And waited.

‘I always knew my parents weren't that happy. It wasn't fights all the time or anything. It was just…chilly. Then I heard my mother one day on the phone. I was only twelve but I wasn't naive. It was an argument with her lover. I walked in to where she was and she hung up straight away. I asked her and she denied it, tried to laugh it off. But I knew. And I never told Samuel because I knew it would freak him.'

He went silent. ‘After that I went to boarding school. I was still close to Samuel, but not her. I went to university, went into the business. Then Da…' he paused ‘…
Samuel
got sick. He needed a donor. She didn't want me to be tested—said I was too young. But I did it anyway. The blood work came through. I'm a really rare type. I looked it up, and Samuel's—had them checked. There was no way he could be my father.'

Dani bit down on her lips as she watched his pallor increase.

‘I confronted her—she admitted it but begged me not to tell him. To him I was his only child. It would kill him.' He sighed. ‘So I didn't, of course. But I wanted to know the truth. She wouldn't say—said his name was irrelevant. Nothing more than a sperm donation. Insisted Samuel was my real father.'

‘And wasn't he?' Dani asked softly. ‘In every way that counted?'

He turned his head and looked at her. ‘I had the right to know. Samuel had the right to know.'

That was true. She nodded—she understood the need to know.

‘She died before she ever told me who my father really was. I could never ask Samuel. So I thought I'd never find out. Samuel lived for a few more years—desperately sick, desperate to see the bank succeed. So I made it succeed.'

The silence was long. And eventually Dani prompted him. ‘And then he died.

‘And almost a year to the day I got the call.'

Dani's mind searched for the answer and then made the stabbing guess. ‘Patrick.'

‘So obvious now, isn't it?' His smile was faint and bitter. ‘He was their best man, can you believe that? He used to be like an uncle—always around when I was a kid. Now I know why. After she died he moved to Singapore—for business, apparently. He's been there since. Never married. He insists the affair ended years before, but how can I believe a word he says? And now he wants a
relationship
.' He turned and stared at Dani. ‘How can you have a relationship with someone when they've done nothing but lie to you all your life?'

He screwed his face up. ‘How could they? It could have been found out so much sooner if I'd ever been seriously sick. She ran the risk of it for years. But she never said anything. All my life I had the Carlisle duty drummed into me.' His anger mounted. ‘The bank. The business. It was my destiny—rammed into me.'

‘What else would you have done?'

‘I've no idea. I never seriously thought about it. It just was. Even Patrick advised me to go into it—when he was doing his honorary uncle bit.'

‘But you're good at your job, Alex. You enjoy it. No one could work the kind of hours you do if they didn't enjoy it.'

‘You think? What about all those people who work two, three, four jobs just to get food on the table? It's about necessity, Dani. And it was necessary for me. Samuel was sick—he was dying and the company hit the skids. I had to turn it round—rescue it while he was alive to see it saved. I had to prove to everyone that I was good enough to do it—that I deserved to
be the boss, not just because I was his heir. I did it all for him. For her. And she'd lied to me. For years and years she lied.'

Betrayal. It hurt so much when a parent let you down. Dani understood that too.

He shook his head. ‘My whole life has been a lie, Dani.'

She looked at the tension etched into his face and took his hand in hers. ‘When did he call?'

‘Thursday, almost two weeks ago.'

The day before he'd kissed her. Now she understood why he had. He'd been having a rough time and gone for a moment of fun. And, boy, had he got a whole lot more than he'd bargained for. Poor Alex.

His anger rippled out again. ‘I insisted on tests. But it's true.' His fingers tightened unbearably on hers but she held in the wince, knowing he wasn't aware of his strength. ‘Why should I have anything to do with him?'

‘People lie for all sorts of reasons, Alex. I'm not saying it's right, but maybe you need to ask what those reasons might be.'

‘There's no excuse.'

‘People lie to protect—sometimes themselves, sure, but sometimes to protect others too. Maybe they lied to protect you. They didn't want to hurt you.'

‘Protect me from what? Not knowing hurt more, Dani.' He lifted his hands from her and looked at them. ‘I used to wonder if she'd been raped.'

‘Alex.' Her heart wrenched and she grabbed his hands again with both of hers and pulled them to her chest. Of course he'd have worried about the worst. Afraid of what his mother's secrecy might have meant.

He looked at her, tormented. ‘And they let me wonder. Worry. For nothing. I can't forgive them for that.' The deepest hurt poured out. ‘He's despicable, Dani. I don't want anything
to do with him. I can't believe he's my father. I don't want to be related to him.'

She had to reach out to him. She had to help somehow, because she understood that hatred—and the underlying fear that the badness might come through his blood.

‘I've lied to you too, Alex,' she said quietly. It wasn't even a lie that would affect him, yet she felt terrible for it. Even more so as she felt him freeze. ‘I told you my parents were dead,' she said quickly. ‘And my mum is but my father isn't.'

Silent, he stared at her.

She breathed in and then said it. The one thing she tried never to think about. ‘He's in jail.'

‘Oh—'

‘As far as I'm concerned he died the day he came to see Mum when she was dying of cancer and conned the last of her life savings from her.' Dani spoke fast, stopping his interruption. She wasn't telling him this to get his sympathy, but so he'd grasp what she wanted him to learn. ‘He's a crook, Alex. A conman—theft, fraud, you name it, he's done it. The kind of lowlife who preys on the sick and dying.' She hated him, hated the way her heart raced and her skin went cold when she thought of him. ‘He wandered in and out of our lives—between sentences, between better options. He'd come and sweet talk his way back to Mum, saying he was changed. Always lies. Right up to the end, he stole from her. He has no conscience, no empathy, nothing.' And she'd wanted to believe him too, hadn't she? Every time. So not only had he stolen from her mother, he'd stolen from her too—taken her credit card and maxed it out. She let go of Alex's hand to push back the sweep of her fringe. ‘His blood runs through my veins, Alex, but I'm not like him,' she said fiercely. ‘I'm not anything like him.' She spoke faster, insistent. ‘It doesn't
matter who your biological parents are. You're still you. You're not him. You'll never be him.'

Alex just kept staring at her. ‘Is it that easy to accept, Dani?'

‘No,' she said honestly. ‘But you have to. We're unique, right? It's our experiences that shape us, not just our DNA.'

‘Yeah.' His smile was a shadow of its usual self, but at least it appeared. For all of a second. Then he went serious again. ‘Wow.' He paused. ‘Thanks for telling me.'

She scrunched deeper into the sofa. ‘I don't like to think about him.'

‘No.' He'd gone pale again, staring at the low coffee table in front of them, looking too tired to move.

‘I guess you have to decide whether you want anything to do with Patrick,' she said softly.

Alex shook his head slowly. ‘I don't want to know him.'

‘That's OK, Alex.' She smiled at him a little sadly. ‘You don't have to.' She held his hand, her heart aching for the hurt in his. ‘Your phone hasn't beeped.' It must be a record.

He jerked. ‘Oh, I turned it off. I'd better check it.'

‘Give it to me.'

Their eyes met. Silently he handed it to her. She didn't look at it, most certainly didn't switch it on. She put it on the arm of the sofa.

Two disappointed people. Couldn't they forget the past for a few hours? Abandon the search for answers? Just breathe and let rest soothe the aches they both had. She reached forward and unlaced his shoes. ‘You're tired. You need to get some sleep.'

Neither of them had had a decent night's sleep all week. She took his hand and stood, tugged until he drew his feet in and stood too. She let him up the stairs—past her landing and
on up to his bedroom. She undid his tie, his buttons on his shirt, his trousers, slid them from his body. ‘Lie down.'

He got into the bed. ‘I want you to stay.'

‘I am.' In her pink-pig pjs she joined him.

‘I—'

‘Just go to sleep, Alex.' She put her arms around him. Hugged him close. Cared for him.

A
LEX
didn't want to move—couldn't. Way too content. Dani lay beside him, curling into him, warming him more comfortably than the softest wool blanket. And now nothing else did matter. Because just resting together like this was so complete. The questions faded, the need for answers, and the bitterness disappeared the way wisps of clouds did beneath the heat of the sun—just, like, that.

All that he needed right now was right here.

In the early morning he looked across at her. Still asleep, she looked so beautiful. He'd never seen anyone so beautiful. And he wanted to see her happy. He wanted to see her have some fun—and not just
that
kind of fun. His heart leapt up, somersaulted, and bellyflopped back into his chest. He was
interested
—in her and everything about her. The caring she'd shown last night had melted something inside him. Her telling him that about her father…he knew that had been hard. He knew how private she was, how protective. But she'd done it because she'd thought it might help him. And it had in more ways than she'd expect. It had made him see clearer—see
her
clearer. Now he needed to know even more. He needed to know everything—why she was so alone and what she hoped would happen when she found her brother.

He slipped out of bed. First he had to shower and get down to the office so he could make plans. But some of the peace from last night remained in his system. He felt freer somehow—less angsty about Patrick. He couldn't even think his relaxed state was from fantastic sex—they hadn't even had sex last night. Sharing a trouble—was it as simple as that? He glanced back to the sweet dreamer in his bed. No. It wasn't that simple. Not at all.

 

Alex appeared just before lunchtime, wearing jeans and tee. Dani stared—shouldn't he be at work?

‘Come on.' He grinned. ‘We're bunking.'

She gestured to the pile of letters in the tray on her desk. ‘I can't.'

‘Cara won't mind, will you, Cara?' He magnified the impact of his smile with a wink.

‘Course not. Go on, Dani.'

‘Where are we going?' she asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

He led her to his car. ‘I realised that you've only been in New Zealand a couple of weeks and all you've done is work. You haven't had much fun.'

He was certainly in a play mood. She looked sideways at him—he was a different person from the tired, hurt man she'd seen last night. Now he was all colour and charm again. Her heart lifted and the smile bubbled out of her. ‘So what we are doing?'

‘It's a surprise.'

Dani felt excitement tingle in her tummy. So much for keeping her life free from getting more complicated. Complicated wasn't anywhere near enough of a description of her life—especially her
feelings
now.

‘I brought your jeans and trainers. You might want to get changed.'

She wriggled in the passenger seat of his car, slipping off her skirt, laughing at his all too frequent glances towards her. ‘Concentrate on the road!'

He pulled up near a big sports field. There were a couple of buses already stopped on the side of the road; the sound of people chattering carried through the trees.

‘It's a rec afternoon for one of the Whistle Fund's beneficiary schools. They need some help with the kids.' He sent her an embarrassed kind of glance. ‘Not that great a surprise, I guess. You up for it?'

She looked ahead through the trees to the football fields where orange cones were being set up and kids in trackies and trainers milled in a kind of amorphous mass. ‘Sure, I like exercise.'

‘I know.' His grin was pure shark.

She turned and went faux school marm on him in retaliation. ‘But aren't you going to get behind with your work?'

‘I can catch up tonight.'

And he would—the man worked round the clock. ‘Admit it.' She poked him in the ribs with her finger.

‘What?'

‘You love it. There's nothing else you enjoy more than your wheeling and dealing. You're a banking and business geek. And you'd be lost without it.'

His eyes slid sideways. ‘OK, I like it.'

‘No.' She maintained her authoritarian tone. ‘You
love
it.' He did—she'd
seen
him at work. He was happy there.

‘OK, I love it.' He sighed and smiled at the same time. ‘But I also like bunking now and then too.'

Yeah, but being the head of the family bank was his natural home—whether he was bloodstock or not. He was good at it too.

They walked over to where the few adults were being
sorted by the whistle-wearing coach. ‘Skills and drills first, then games later.'

The kids were broken up into groups of eight and they worked them out—practising passes, forward and back, running games, short drills, team building.

Dani laughed—working her group while surreptitiously watching Alex work his crew just alongside her. His time at his ‘boys' own outdoors' school was evident and it was equally clear he must work out a lot still—but then she knew that already.

She wasn't totally useless herself—she'd enjoyed her self-defence classes and working out at the gym. She might be on the curvy side, but that didn't mean she wasn't fit. She jumped up and caught a ball someone accidentally lobbed into the middle of her kids.

‘Good catch,' Alex murmured. ‘Nice to see a woman who isn't afraid of balls.'

‘I
like
playing with them,' she answered, all soft sass and an oh-so-innocent smile.

He chuckled, shaking his head at their lame innuendo. She giggled too and got on with exercising her group for the best part of an hour—catching his eye too often and sharing that smile.

But the best bit was when the games of touch rugby began. A lightweight version of the thump-you-to-the-ground national sport—only in this you disarmed your opponent with a touch, not a tackle. Dani shouted encouragement to the kids whom she'd helped drill. Another hour slipped by until there was a grand winning team. Alex strolled over to where she was standing, applauding them with her gang.

‘The winners want to play the leaders,' he said. ‘You keen?'

‘Absolutely.'

Some of the kids weren't that little and Dani felt her com
petitive spirit kick in. She looked along the field at Alex. They were on the same team. It was a nice feeling.

The game was fast, fun. Early on she got the ball, passed it straight to him and watched him run—all sleek speed and power. The try was easily scored.

The kids stood no chance against him.

At the end of it Dani asked him, ‘You wouldn't let them win?'

Alex laughed and shook his head. ‘It's good to learn how to lose. Besides, they wouldn't respect us if we didn't play an honest, hard-out game.'

He was right, of course. Except Dani wasn't sure he'd ever had to learn how to lose. She walked with him to where the coach was looking harassed. Now it was all over, some of the kids were tired and heading towards cranky.

‘We'll load the shed,' Alex said. ‘You guys head back. It'll be easier if Dani and I do it when you're all gone.'

The coach hesitated for all of half a second. ‘Thanks.' He immediately started rounding everyone up—ordering them back to the buses.

‘Bye, Alex.' One of the young players from his group hovered near.

‘See ya.' Alex grinned and waved before turning to gather more of the gear and head towards the shed.

Dani looked at the young teen, saw how her round eyes swallowed Alex whole, how the colour swept into her cheeks before she turned and ran away. Dani smiled; she knew just how overwhelmed the poor girl felt.

‘I'll repack the shed, you hand the stuff through to me.' Alex was already in there.

‘Thanks.' She didn't fancy the job of being inside that windowless shack.

They worked quickly—Dani stacking the cones and
tossing the balls through to him. It took no time in the space and silence the rowdy kids had left. She waited outside the door while he put the remaining items away.

‘Why do you feel trapped in enclosed spaces?' he asked from inside the shed. ‘What happened?'

She spun the last ball between her hands. It wasn't a small space putting her on edge now.

‘Tell me.' He stuck his head out of the door. ‘Something happened, right? You got a fright some time.'

It was a long time ago and she tried never to think about it. ‘It was nothing. I was an idiot.'

‘What was nothing?'

No one but her mother knew what had happened that day. No one but him, of course. ‘I'm not telling.'

He took the ball from her. ‘Why not?'

‘Because it was nothing.'

‘It obviously was
not
,' he said with feeling, tossing the ball home. He shut the door and fixed the padlock, then moved to tower over her. ‘Look, if you don't tell me, I'll hold you on the brink of orgasm for so long you won't be able to walk for three weeks because your body will be so sore from the strain of wanting it, but not getting it.'

She couldn't help but giggle at that. ‘Sounds great—when do we start?'

‘Tell me.'

Dani sighed. So he wasn't going to give up. Well, she'd give him the abridged version. ‘I locked myself in a cupboard when I was fourteen. Was stuck in there for ages.' She forced another laugh—but it was too high-pitched.

‘Why on earth did you do that?'

OK, so here was the not-so-fun part. She hesitated and felt him lean closer to her.

‘Dani…' A very gentle warning.

‘My mother's boyfriend came round. She was at work. She used to give her boyfriends a key,' Dani blurted—sooner said, sooner forgotten. ‘I didn't like the way he looked at me.'

‘So you hid from him?'

‘He came into the house and called my name—he must have known Mum was at work so I went into my wardrobe. I heard him come into my room. He poked around everything. I was too scared to move. He stayed for ages. Until I couldn't tell if he was still there or not.'

All she'd been able to hear was the pounding of her heart. And her ears had hurt with the effort she'd had them under—waiting for the tiniest sound, terrified he was lurking just on the other side of the door and was going to smash it open at any moment.

And she'd been right.

‘What happened?'

‘He tried to break down the door.' Dani flinched, lost back in the memory of it. Barely aware she'd answered.

‘
What?'

Heart galloping, she turned to stare at Alex. Her body trembling with remembered shock. ‘He knew I was there. He knew. And he waited and waited and waited until he got sick of waiting. And then he smashed the door.'

Alex swore. ‘What did you do?'

‘At first I couldn't do anything. I just couldn't move and I thought he was going to, to…but then the scream came out. I screamed and screamed.' But that moment—that infinite moment when she'd been unable to make a noise—had been the root of nightmares for years after.

‘Did he get you? Did he hurt you?'

She shook her head. A couple of bruises from a couple of punches was nothing on what she could have suffered. ‘The
neighbour came over, she banged on the door and threatened to call the cops. He shoved her out of the way and ran off.'

‘Did you go to the police?'

‘No.' They'd been too scared for that. ‘We changed the locks. Then we moved. But it wasn't that long before she gave the key to another one—he was different, of course.' Dani started to walk across the field. ‘I did those self-defence classes. I got quite good.' Or she'd thought she had. Fortunately she hadn't had to test it out.

Alex was quiet. ‘But you still get freaked in small spaces.'

‘Silly, isn't it?' She laughed—still too high-pitched. ‘Happened years ago. I should be over it by now. I mean, it was nothing. It wasn't that bad. What a wimp.'

‘Don't.' He took her hand and stopped walking. ‘Don't try to minimise it.'

Dani shut up at the touch of his fingers on hers, but it took a long time before she could bring herself to look at him.

‘You must have been really scared.'

‘I couldn't breathe,' Dani answered almost unconsciously.

‘He was going to hurt you.' Alex's face hardened. ‘He did hurt you.'

She shook her head. ‘No. He didn't.'

‘He did,' Alex said quietly. ‘Maybe not as bad as he could have, as he wanted to, but he did hurt you.'

She had no answer to that.

‘Your mum had lots of boyfriends.' Alex stated the obvious.

So?
Dani's hackles rose and she pulled her hand away, instinctively wanting to karate chop him in the neck. Instead she took a second to breathe—and heard the way in which he'd spoken. He wasn't judging. He wasn't even asking. It was a plain statement of fact—nothing more. And so she nodded. ‘And every time she thought she'd found the One.' Then she
shook her head. ‘There isn't a One. She was so naive—such a romantic fool. She let them walk all over her because she thought she loved them and she wanted them to love her. I won't be such a fool.'

‘Not every guy wants to take advantage, Dani.'

‘No?' She turned to face him. ‘He was still taking advantage right up 'til the day she died.'

‘Your dad?'

‘Yeah.' Always he returned like a damn boomerang. How her mother could take him back time after time she never knew. He was—amongst other things—a convicted fraudster, how could she possibly believe a word he said? But Dani did know why—because she had wanted to believe him too. She'd wanted him to love her—he was her
father
.

Instead he used them both.

‘You and your mum were close, huh?'