The Mistress Deception

Although Weston Security Services had possessed a loyal core of clients at the time of David’s death, it had also been carrying a heavy debt-load, and at first, woefully aware of her ignorance, Rachel had been content to remain a silent partner. But as the business had continued to struggle she had realised that it would be a betrayal of David’s trust to watch his cherished dream die without lifting a finger to help.

It hadn’t been an investment that he had given her in his will so much as a part of himself. She might doubt herself, but David had always had faith in her ability to tackle new challenges. To that end she had used her stake in the company to persuade Frank to give her an active role in managing the business. She had waived a salary, preferring to see the money invested in new staff and equipment, and lived off her freelance earnings from two city gyms and a physiotherapy practice.

It had been a steep learning curve, and although Rachel had made plenty of mistakes, her hands-on method of training wasn’t proving the disaster that Frank had feared it would be. In the last few months the company turn-over had shown a promising improvement, but a balloon repayment was looming on the loan, and meeting the debt was largely reliant on a major corporate contract which Frank seemed to be confident was already in the bag. Rachel was not so sanguine.

‘I think it’ll be a while before I can afford to do that,’ she sighed. ‘Frank says that trust and respect build slowly in the security business, and being a woman in a male-dominated industry makes it that much more difficult to get accepted—’

She was interrupted as her sister took another surreptitious look at her watch and dashed for the door with a squawk of dismay.

Rachel returned to ripping open the zip-lock bag. Her birthday wasn’t far away, and she wondered with a lift of her spirits whether someone had sent her an early present.

Her eager anticipation drained abruptly away as she withdrew some photographs paper-clipped to the back of a scrawled note in green ink which slanted across the page, arrogantly ignoring the ruled lines. She washed down her disappointment with her rapidly cooling coffee as she scanned the jolting words.

Did you really think I would let you use me as your free ride to riches?

Of the two of us you’re obviously the more photogenic—a fact which I’m sure the tabloid press will be quick to exploit if these, or any even more explicit, are put into circulation. I always knew you were centrefold material, but while the resultant notoriety might well annoy me, it won’t destroy me. Unlike you. What will happen to Westons’ reputation for probity and discretion when your corporate clients find out that their security rests in the whip-hand of a blowsy, over-blown dominatrix who looks as if she’d be more at home in a brothel than a boardroom?

Sorry, doll.

You lose.

A mouthful of lukewarm coffee was stranded in her mouth as her throat clogged with shock. Her cup crashed down into its saucer as she unclipped the photographs and fanned them out in her hands like oversized cards.

‘Oh, God!’ She choked, spewing coffee droplets across the table in her spluttering horror, dropping the photographs as if they were hot coals.

‘Oh, God!’ Rachel’s horror deepened to bone-bruising humiliation, the outrageous insults in the note suddenly making sickening sense. There was no signature, but she didn’t need one. She knew instantly who to blame for the outrage.

She shuddered, pressing her shaking hands to hot cheeks as she looked down at the shameful photographs. Yes, she had knelt between his legs to unfasten his trousers…but this picture gave the impression that she had been—that she had done it in order to pleasure him. The heavy-lidded smile on his face certainly seemed to suggest that she’d been succeeding, whereas in reality she had been cursing a blue streak that his formal trousers had buttons rather than a zip—which she would have cheerfully used to castrate him! If he had gained any pleasure from what she had been doing, then it was purely his own warped mind that had created it.

And the other one—God!…that didn’t look anything like the way it had actually happened, either. Why—these pictures made her look as if she had been a willing participant in some kind of disgusting sexual perversion, rather than the good Samaritan which she had been dragooned into playing.

But good Samaritans didn’t roll around naked on a bed with those they rescued, the devil whispered in her ear.

Rachel shook her head, still dazed by the shock of seeing herself portrayed in the role of sexual predator. It was so fundamentally at odds with her character that it would almost be funny if it wasn’t so humiliating. The photographs were slanderously misleading. The circumstantial evidence might trumpet otherwise, but the situation had actually been completely innocent.

Well, perhaps not completely, she forced herself to admit as her mind replayed the images of that night. It had definitely not been her finest hour, but Matthew Riordan was to blame for everything that had happened. The whole un-savoury incident had been entirely his own fault!

So how dared he? How dared he now turn around and threaten to slander her with the evidence of his indiscretion! She had never said a word to anyone—not even Frank or Merrilyn—about what had happened that night after they had left the party. In spite of the pressure to gossip she had uttered not a single, solitary syllable. For his sake!

And this was how he repaid her for her kindness! One feeble bunch of flowers and this…this outrage!

The blood boiled in her veins as she looked at the note and one word suddenly jumped out at her. Blowsy. Blowsy?

Her hazel eyes turned a ferocious green. She could shrug off his groundless accusation that she belonged in a brothel as sheer malice, but how dared he call her blowsy? He hadn’t had any objections to her over-blown ‘centrefold’ of a body when he’d been begging her to make love to him, had he?

She was infuriated to feel her breasts tighten at the memory of his words, of the uninhibited way that he had expressed his desire as they had wrestled on the bed. As drunk as he’d been she had thought that he would be incapable of physical arousal, and hadn’t he taken great delight in proving her wrong! But then, maybe he hadn’t been quite so drunk as he had made out. Maybe it had all been a big act in order to lure her into just such a compromising position while some sleazy photographer snapped away from the closet.

Her eyes went unwillingly back to the most explicit photograph and hot chills fizzled in her belly. It was her body which was flaunted centre-stage, but no one could deny that Matthew Riordan made a pretty impressive supporting act. He wasn’t quite as tall as Rachel, but with his clothes off he had been larger than she had expected, in all ways…His lean body had a ripped quality, all muscle with little softening body fat, and the raw strength in the muscle-dense arms and thighs had taken her by surprise. At Westons she was used to seeing security guards shaped like weightlifters, but Matthew Riordan’s smooth, sleek body had an understated elegance that merely hinted at the power that lay sheathed beneath his skin.

The dirty rat! What a hypocrite he was—the cool, cultivated, highly respectable Matthew Riordan, scion of his wealthy family and controller of a substantial chunk of the New Zealand economy…

Well, the arrogant pig needn’t think he could control her. She mentally tossed her head. Let everyone find out that the real Matthew Riordan was a sleazy manipulator, without a scrap of moral conscience or a shred of human decency.

She looked at the photo of them lying on the bed and groaned, covering her hot face with her hands. In the end, would it matter which one of them was exposed as the liar? Any mud she threw was going to stick to both of them, and, while he had unlimited resources with which to whitewash himself clean, she had virtually none.

He had already proved as cunning as a snake and as lucky as the devil, she thought, peeking through her fingers again. He couldn’t have arranged that pose better if he had employed a Hollywood director to choreograph the sexy scene. The way they were posed made the most of her abundant breasts, her jutting nipples almost brushing his parted lips as she stretched above him to tighten his bindings. He needed only to lift his head slightly and…

Oh, no! She clamped down on the unruly urge to wander down that tortuous memory lane. She wasn’t going to be made to feel more of a sexual deviant than she did already. She struggled to fix her mind on more important matters. The most threatening implication in the note as far as she was concerned was that there were even more explicit photographs in existence.

Her eyes fell on the whip and she gave a little hiccup of hysteria. Admittedly she hadn’t been exactly alert to her wider surroundings while their tussle had been going on, but how could she have missed noticing that? The whole tenor of the scene implied that she was about to use it once she had rendered her victim helpless. As if she would ever use a whip against another human being! she thought hotly.

Although, come to think of it, at the moment the idea did have a certain sadistic appeal. Her pale pink lips pulled unconsciously back from her white teeth as she savoured the vengeful notion. Oh, yes, she mused—if Matthew Riordan and a handy whip should present themselves to her right now she might well take a great deal of pleasure in lashing the gloating smirk off his face.

So he thought he had won this dirty little game of one-upmanship, did he…?

‘Hi, Rachel, whatcha looking at?’

Rachel gave a frightened little yelp as Bethany bounced into the kitchen, her freckled face scrubbed squeaky clean, her budding breasts thrusting against her dark green school tunic as she leaned over the table.

‘Mum said you were opening the courier’s package. What was in it? Photos? Can I see?’

As Rachel frantically tried to push the prints back into the bag Bethany hooked one away. Fortunately for Rachel’s madly thundering heart it was the innocuous shot from the party.

‘Hey. Wow!’ Bethany’s green-gold eyes rounded in admiration. ‘What a babe! Who is he?’

‘No one.’ Rachel tried to grab the photograph back, but Bethany danced out of reach with a chuckle.

‘You look pretty hot, too. Nothing like your usual maiden-aunt get-ups. You look as if you’re about to explode out of that dress! Were you trying to vamp him? He looks pretty vamped to me.’

‘Bethany—’ Rachel’s protest held a breathless note of desperation that only egged her tormentor on.

‘So, who is he?’ Bethany teased, her face splitting on a grin, her long blonde ponytail dancing across her slender shoulders as she tilted her head. ‘A new boyfriend?’

Rachel fired up. ‘Definitely not!’

Bethany evidently thought her violent rejection a bit overdone. ‘He looks a bit younger than you,’ she said slyly. ‘Is he your secret toyboy…?’

Rachel bristled with all the dignity of her thirty years. ‘Hardly. I believe he’s about twenty-six!’ she snapped. Certainly old enough to have learned more respect for women. Perhaps she would be the one to teach him some manners!

‘Mmm. A pity he wears glasses, but I guess you can’t have everything, huh? At least his bod is nice, and he has that eat-you-up smile. And I don’t suppose he wears his glasses in bed…or haven’t you got him that far yet?’

Rachel went hot all over.

‘Beth-a-ny!’

Thank God those other photos were safely out of sight!

‘Oops, I forgot—personality is more important than looks, right?’ The girl giggled. ‘At least, that’s what you and Mum are always telling me. So—how sexy is his personality?’

‘Somewhat less than a slug’s,’ Rachel blurted out through her gritted teeth.

Bethany laughed in disbelief. ‘Oh, yeah? Then why are you looking at him as if you’d like to take a bite out of him?’

‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ she warned. ‘For instance, you look like an innocent fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, when we both know you’re actually the devil incarnate.’

Bethany raised and lowered her eyebrows. ‘Sounds kinky. Does that have anything to do with being carnal?’

Rachel bit back a reluctant smile. ‘You know it doesn’t, you evil child.’

Not only was Bethany highly intelligent, but thanks to her frank upbringing she also had a lively understanding of the world around her. Although Rachel sometimes found her sophistication unnerving, in her heart she thanked God that Bethany wasn’t as naive and wretchedly vulnerable as Rachel had been at her age.

‘So, are you going to tell me all about your pin-up boy?’ asked Bethany, finally handing the photograph back and clattering from cupboard to fridge to fix herself a large bowl of cereal and milk.

‘He’s no pin-up, believe me,’ Rachel said darkly, ramming the resealed bubble-pack deep into her capacious shoulder-bag, hoping the contents would be creased into oblivion. ‘He’s a slimy, spiteful, scum-sucking, foul-minded, flatulent, male chauvinistic swine with a brain the size of a quark and an ego the size of Mount Everest.’

Bethany’s mouth fell open and Rachel flushed as she realised that she had let herself get carried away by her inner rage. But how good it had felt to snarl it out loud! She hastily summoned a weak grin to show that she had only been joking.

‘Of course—that’s on his good days.’

‘Uh, sure…’ In spite of her evident curiosity Bethany wisely decided not to tease for an answer as to what the mystery man was like on his bad days. She crunched on her cereal, sending sidelong looks at Rachel as she got up and absently washed out her coffee cup, her mind still shell-shocked by Matthew Riordan’s underhanded attack.

‘Um, Rachel…I—we get on really well together, you and I…don’t we?’

‘Mmm?’ She couldn’t just ignore his vicious threat and expect it to go away. He had the potential to make her life a misery. ‘Oh—yes, of course we do,’ she said warmly.

‘And you know how you always say how much you like having me around—you know, when Mum and Dad go away on holiday and I come and stay here with you…?’

Rachel shook out a teatowel. She knew what it was like to be a helpless victim and she had no intention of ever letting it happen again. ‘What?’ She struggled to make sense of what Bethany was saying. ‘Oh, yes, I do—you’re great company.’

‘Well…how would you feel if I was—you know—around a lot more. Like…maybe…all the time…’

Rachel’s attention snapped fully back to the young girl at the table.

‘All the time?’ Her voice sharpened as she realised what her niece was asking. ‘You mean, you living here…with me? Permanently?’ Her heart expanded tightly in her chest so that she could hardly breathe as Bethany nodded. ‘But, Beth,’ she protested weakly, ‘you’re going to be living in Bangkok—’

Bethany abandoned the table, eager to argue her case.

‘Just because Dad has to work there doesn’t mean I have to be dragged away from all my friends—I mean, what if I don’t like the school?’ she said in a rush. ‘I won’t know anyone, I don’t know the language—’

‘Beth, it’s an English-speaking school,’ Rachel pointed out gently. ‘There’ll be teenagers like you there from all around the world. They’re all in the same boat, and you’ll soon make new friends—’

‘But I like my old ones! I love the school I go to now…and what about my yachting? I bet I won’t be able to bike down to the harbour and go sailing on my own in Thailand!’

‘Oh, Beth, if you feel like this you should talk to your parents—’

‘I have,’ she gulped. ‘But they don’t listen. They keep telling me I’ll adjust. But what if I can’t? What if I really, really, really hate it over there? Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me come back on my own, but if I was coming to live with you, then they couldn’t say no, could they?’ She bit her lip and her voice wavered. ‘Unless you don’t want me to…you think I’d be in the way…’

A lump rose in Rachel’s throat and she had to swallow hard to stop herself bursting into tears. She longed to let her emotions rule, to sweep Bethany fiercely to her breast and assure her that of course she wouldn’t be in the way, that she would always be welcome into Rachel’s home and heart.

But she knew she couldn’t. There were bigger issues at stake. She took a deep breath.

‘Oh, darling, I know how you’re feeling.’ She cupped Bethany’s long face with her strong fingers and smiled brightly into her woeful eyes, hoping to phrase her rejection in a way that wouldn’t irreparably damage their very precious relationship. ‘I know you’re scared about stepping out into the unknown, but you’re not alone. Don’t you think that your parents are finding this move a bit scary, too?’

Bethany blinked at the sudden shift in her perspective. ‘Mum and Dad?’

‘Of course—they’re leaving behind all their friends, too. It’s going to be especially tough for your dad—he has to step into a new job in a new country with colleagues he doesn’t know, while displaying the confidence and authority that people expect of his new position. And your mum—she has to give up a job she really loves and revert to being a full-time housewife in a community where she doesn’t know a soul. But together you’ll get through it. The three of you are a team…’

Bethany was quick to pick up the underlying message. ‘So you won’t let me come and live with you, even if I’m horribly homesick?’ she said in a thin, high voice.

Rachel braced herself against the mixture of hurt and resentment glowing in the reproachful green eyes. ‘If you go over there expecting to be able to do that, you’re just setting yourself up for failure, and you’re too intelligent for that. When you want to succeed at something you know you have to put your whole heart into it. Your mum and dad need you to be there for them, Beth. Don’t disappoint them.’

‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ said Bethany stiltedly. ‘If you don’t want me…’

Rachel forced her voice to remain steady, although she felt clawings of panic shredding at her control. ‘You have a choice about the way you behave—whether you accept with grace or try and make everyone around you feel guilty because life isn’t perfect. You take your mum and dad’s unconditional love and support for granted, but a lot of kids grow up without that kind of emotional security to back them up when things get rough.’ Her eyes were clear as she picked her words carefully. ‘I only wish your grandparents had been as protective of Robyn and I as Robyn and Simon are of you. It’s difficult to have any confidence in yourself when you hear nothing but criticism and condemnation from the people you love…’

Bethany looked away, scuffing her thick-soled school shoes on the tiled floor, the freckles standing out on her pale skin. ‘I guess…’ She lifted her chin and said with a totally false brightness, still avoiding Rachel’s eyes, ‘I suppose I’d better get my bag, or I’m going to miss my bus.’

Ignoring her half-eaten cereal on the table, she grabbed her lunchbox off the bench and rushed out of the kitchen. Rachel closed her eyes, letting out a ragged sigh as she sagged against the sink.

‘Thanks.’

She opened her eyes to see her sister hovering in the doorway, her sweet face grave.

Rachel smiled wanly. ‘For what?’

Robyn came into the kitchen, her eyes shadowed with relief and redolent with sympathy. ‘For simply being an aunt.’

‘You’re my sister,’ said Rachel. ‘What else would I be?’ They looked at each other, a world unspoken in the glance.

‘She didn’t really want to stay with me, anyway,’ Rachel dismissed. ‘It isn’t a rejection of you and Simon. She’s just temporarily got cold feet.’

‘I know. But, still, if you’d given her the choice she was asking for it could have made things very difficult for us over the next few years.’

‘Well,’ said Rachel, ‘I do have a pretty crammed life already. God knows I don’t need the added complication of trying to cope alone with daily doses of teenage angst!’

Robyn wasn’t fooled by her flippancy. ‘Oh, Rachel, you would have got on famously, and you know it. If you were only thinking of yourself you would have said yes to her in a New York minute! I know you hated to hurt her, but she’ll get over it. From what I heard she was trying to manipulate you with a sneaky form of emotional blackmail.’

So…she was the victim of two separate blackmail attempts in one day, Rachel thought with an unexpected sting of humour—and it was still only breakfast!

‘Do you think she’ll ever forgive me for letting her down?’ she couldn’t help asking.

Robyn crossed to give her the hug she so badly needed. ‘You haven’t let her down. You love her and want the best for her. You always have. She knows that.’

‘I’m going to miss you all horribly,’ she admitted gruffly. Up until now she had been careful not to let them see how shattered she had been by their decision to move abroad.

‘I know.’ Robyn responded to the rib-crushing fierceness of her hug with a little gasp. ‘But we’re only going to be an e-mail away, and at least I’ll have plenty of spare time to keep you up to date with our doings. We can even send each other photos over the Internet!’

A short while later, when Robyn and Bethany had departed for school and work, Rachel dragged the abused package out of her handbag, grappling with the awful spectre that her sister’s innocent words had raised.

There were worse things than having yourself splashed all over the tabloids. What if Matthew Riordan decided to go global and posted those frightful pictures on the Internet!

She smoothed out his loathsome note and forced herself to go over it again, word by horrible word.

In places the slashing green down-strokes almost seemed to dig through the page, as if they’d been written in a rage. Having seen the reputedly buttoned-down Riordan heir in the raw, both literally and figuratively, Rachel could well believe he was not as cold-blooded as his reputation made out, but this outpouring of contempt made him sound dangerously reckless.

What did he really mean by his threats? They were actually rather vague. Should she wait for him to deliver more specific demands…or was he assuming that she knew what they were?

Perhaps he intended to broadcast the photographs regardless of her response—or lack of it? How could she defend herself if he started sending copies to the press, to Westons’ clients? Her family and close friends might believe her explanations, but to everyone else she would be reduced to an obscene joke. As Frank was constantly drilling into her, reputation was everything. He was so proud of the Westons name. If he found out that there was the slightest possibility of Rachel being involved in a scandal he would be furious. In order to protect the business she might well have to resign.

Rachel bit her lip, battening down her fear. She mustn’t let herself be panicked into doing anything stupid. She should be thinking damage control, not capitulation.

She had heard Kevin Riordan boast that his son intended to run for City Council in this year’s local body elections, with an eye to contesting the Mayoralty some time in the future. Logically, that meant Matthew Riordan had almost as much of a vested interest in keeping compromising photographs out of the public eye as Rachel did.

It was that ‘almost’ which gave him his ruthless edge. He was prepared to subject himself to public humiliation and rely on his PR clout for damage control afterwards…but surely only as a last resort. At the moment the primary value of the photographs to him must be as a weapon to hang over her head.

All Rachel had to do was keep cool and try to exercise some damage control of her own.

If only she had known what she was getting into she would never have taken on the job of watching over Merrilyn Freeman’s wretched dinner party!

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU’VE got to do something!’

Rachel jumped as Merrilyn glided up behind her and hissed urgently in her ear.