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“No. But I don’t necessarily like what people do with it, Mr. Wolfe.”
“Call me Daniel. I have a passion for truth. I do hope you share it.”
He was dangerous. He could turn on a pin, dodge and weave and strike with devastating cunning and speed. The barrister who could turn black into white.
“I’m not sure I want to share anything with you, Mr Wolfe. I don’t know you.”
“At this point, you only need to know one thing about me. If one path is blocked, I find another.”
He was threatening her with going to Isabel. She sensed the ruthlessness behind the teasing challenge in his eyes. Would he care what he trampled on in going down that path? Isabel’s guilty conscience would make her an easy target for him. Then what damage would be done?
“Have dinner with me.” He flashed another disarming grin. “It’s always better to know the enemy.”
Annabel ignored the flutter in her heart and bluntly asked, “Are you my enemy?”
The grin turned into a whimsical smile. “Lovers would be more to my liking.”
It took Annabel’s breath away. This was no whimsy. He meant it. She could feel it, his desire—will—to peel back every layer of her until nothing was unknown to him.
Well, two could play at that game, she thought with reckless determination. As long as he was engaged with her, he would leave Isabel alone. But becoming lovers? A shiver of apprehension ran down her spine. Daniel Wolfe was not the kind of man who would be satisfied with anything less than everything. All the same, she would give him a hard run to the line he’d drawn, and maybe he’d back off in the end.
“I don’t take lovers lightly,” she warned.
“Neither do I.”
“Dinner I’ll accept.”
“It’s always exciting, embarking on a journey of discovery.”
“Yes.” Her eyes taunted his confidence. “A pity the reality rarely lives up to the anticipation, but the food is good here. I’m sure we’ll find something to enjoy.”
With an adrenaline rush at the thought of pitting wits with him over the next couple of hours, Annabel strode ahead, disdaining any fear of him. What was more, she would eat a good dinner even if she choked on every bite. She would not let Daniel Wolfe spoil anything!
CHAPTER FOUR
ANNABEL sipped the pina colada, enjoying the sweet creaminess of the tropical cocktail and the energy lift it gave her. She needed to be sparking on all cylinders in Daniel Wolfe’s company. Nevertheless, her primary aim was to appear relaxed and completely unruffled by the situation.
She had deliberately requested a table on the wooden deck by the pool. The atmosphere was more intimate but she preferred to be distanced from the busy comings and goings inside the Long House, where the main dining room catered for a large crowd of guests. The light out here was dimmer, provided only by small table lamps. Her need for a sense of privacy overrode any sense of intimacy Daniel Wolfe might draw from her choice.
With the business of studying menus and making their meal selections over and the waiters gone elsewhere, Annabel let her gaze drift idly around the exotic plants that provided a lush setting for the artistically curved swimming pool. This was Daniel Wolfe’s party. It was up to him to set the conversational ball rolling. In projecting the air of pleasing herself, she denied any anxiety or apprehension over his intrusion on the scene.
Silence didn’t worry her. The longer it went on the better, as far as she was concerned. She knew he was scrutinising her, trying to burrow under her skin, but that didn’t worry her, either. He could study her as much as he liked. With her face in shadow and turned away from him, he wouldn’t see much.
“You remind me very strongly of the young Katharine Hepburn,” he said bemusedly.
Other people had made the same comment. Annabel supposed she should be flattered by it, since she was not as fine-featured nor as beautiful as the famous actress. It was the wavy red hair, green eyes, high cheekbones and wide mouth that made the comparison inevitable. Secretly she wished simply to be herself. Sometimes, although she deeply loved her sister, being a twin made her feel she wouldn’t ever be a whole person in her own right.
She slowly slanted a sardonic smile at Daniel Wolfe. “Do you have the same aim as Spencer Tracy when he first met Katharine Hepburn?”
“What was it?”
“I believe she made a comment about him being too short for her. He reportedly replied he would soon cut her down to size.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “It doesn’t apply.”
“Because you’re tall?”
“No. I wouldn’t like to see you diminished in any way.”
Her eyes mocked him. “What do you think you’ve been doing?”
It gave him pause for thought.
“Come, Mr. Wolfe. A man with a passion for truth should realise what he’s saying and how it will impact on the other person.”
“In what way have I offended you?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Diminished, not offended. Let’s be precise. In matters of truth, one must be precise.”
She enjoyed tossing his purpose in his face, making him examine his attitudes and behaviour before setting himself up as a judge. Besides, there were always so many interpretations of truth. It was often a highly personal thing. Even facts and figures could be twisted to suit someone’s preferred vision. Precision was not easily achieved.
He relaxed and smiled, and she thought he was enjoying the mental tussle she was provoking. “Tell me my crime,” he encouraged.
He really was extremely attractive when his expression lightened. For one wayward moment, Annabel imagined waking up in the morning with his smiling face on the pillow beside her. It had a strong appeal.
“Let’s try this scenario,” she invited, leaning forward to engage his concentration. “You take a woman you fancy to bed. There you are, all fired up with desire, and she says you’re the spitting image of your brother. Then she says you remind her strongly of Met Gibson, except your eyes are grey instead of blue. Are you still feeling good about having this woman beside you?”
“No. She’s not focused on the person I am.”
She grinned at him. “Feeling somewhat diminished, Daniel?”
He gave a wry laugh. “Guilty on two counts,” he agreed, conceding the argument to her.
She sat back, ridiculously pleased he had caught her point so quickly. Her eyes flirted with him. She was taking wicked pleasure in putting him on the spot. “I wouldn’t like a lover who didn’t make me feel uniquely special to him.”
Heart-tripping desire flashed out at her. “You are unique. Superficial likenesses are irrelevant to the person you are inside.”
She shook her head, trying to quell the treacherous response he evoked as she rebutted his opinion. “They’re not really irrelevant, you know. In some ways they shape the inner person.” Her mouth twisted ruefully. “Who knows how I would have developed if I hadn’t been a twin?”
“The strength of mind and inner fire would still be there,” he said with certainty.
“Is that what you see?”
“More like feel. I’d no sooner laid eyes on you than it hit me like a sledgehammer. I’ve never experienced so much concentrated mental and emotional power. A totally annihilating blast. It made me wonder if you were telepathic.”
Had it made him suspicious?
Annabel silently fretted over what might have been a telling overreaction to him that night at the motel. She had been under intense pressure to keep alert and make all the right responses, leaving no crack in her credibility. When he had stepped into the room, she’d been wound up tight, having already fielded a host of questions from the motel people, the ambulance officers, the police. Someone had tipped off the media, as well, and reporters were baying for blood outside.
One look at Daniel Wolfe and all her instincts had screamed, “Danger, threat.” Her mind had leapt into overdrive, instantly dictating, “Fight, eliminate.” He hadn’t said a word, yet she’d repelled him with all the power she could harness because...because she’d felt his power and it had disturbed her, distracted her, and she couldn’t afford to be distracted or disturbed. Not until Izzie was safe.
“Are you?” he asked.
The question meant nothing to her. She was still deeply involved in analysing her reaction to him, trying to explain it away. No other man had ever affected her like that. On the other hand, she’d never been in such a nerve-racking, life-and-death situation before.
“You don’t want to answer?” he appealed.
“Pardon?”
“Are you telepathic? It’s said that twins sometimes are with each other.”
She sighed. “There you go again, thinking of me as a twin.”
“But not as a carbon copy, Annabel. I would never mistake you for your sister.”
Warm pleasure flooded through her as his eyes reinforced his insistence that she was unique to him. Then she remembered the photograph, and her heart seized up. If he had it, could he tell the difference? Most people couldn’t with photographs. Her heart kicked into life again. One man’s personal opinion didn’t count as hard evidence. He’d need more than that to prove it was Isabel who had been with Barry Wolfe when he died.
If that was his intent.
Maybe it was just curiosity to know the truth.
Or was that hope speaking?
The soup was served. Its arrival was very timely. Annabel didn’t like the confusion in her mind. She felt a very strong tug of attraction towards Daniel Wolfe. The idea of exploring where they might go together was getting more seductive by the minute. If only their connection had been simple and straightforward. But it was impossible to ignore the complications involved in his identity and hers. She had to stay on guard.
Her mind wandered over the problems as they silently consumed the soup. The truth had to be suppressed. It could hurt too many people. Even if Neil Mason forgave Izzie’s lapse into temptation, he wouldn’t forget it. His trust in her would be shaken, which would erode the supportive nature of their relationship. This would inevitably rebound on the children, and what had been a happy and secure household would start snapping with tensions.
Izzie wouldn’t be able to bear it. She needed approval. She needed someone strong to lean on. That was why she’d married Neil Mason, a man twelve years older and imbued with the confidence of having all the answers to everything, a man who was more than prepared to take charge of his innocent, malleable young wife and direct her along the lines he considered right and proper.
Had Izzie fallen into the marriage because she didn’t know what else to do? She had only been twenty. Was it because Annabel had struck out on her own, determined to pursue interests her twin didn’t share, tired of suppressing them for Izzie’s sake?
Annabel had never voiced these private doubts. Although Neil’s pompous righteousness always irritated her, it had felt wrong to criticise a choice when it seemed to fulfil Izzie’s needs. However, if she was ruthlessly honest with herself, it had been a relief to pass the responsibility of propping up her sister onto Neil. She had overlooked his faults, wanting Izzie to be happy with him.
But was she?
To go to a motel with Barry Wolfe.
How much guilt did she bear in all this for effecting a separation from her twin to claim a life of her own, knowing Izzie’s dependence on continual support?
My other half, Annabel thought with a sense of helplessness. No escape from it. They were two sides of the same coin, different, yet joined to each other in an unbreakable mould that made up the whole. What kind of fate arranged such things? Or was it simply an unfortunate trick of nature? Why, in the split that had taken place to form two of them, was it ordained that one be strong and the other weak?
Steel and putty. Daniel Wolfe’s succinct summing up slid into her mind. How had he seen it so quickly? On such brief acquaintance?
Annabel wished it wasn’t true. She was always conscious that the division could have gone the other way, with Izzie being the strong one. She knew she could not turn her back on any cry for help from her sister. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t Izzie’s fault that she couldn’t cope alone. It wasn’t really Annabel’s fault, either. It was just how it was.
“It must be a difficult relationship for you, being a twin.”
Annabel glanced up sharply, startled at how closely Daniel Wolfe’s remark echoed her thoughts. He had finished his soup and was sitting back, watching her. The. instant their eyes locked she knew he was satisfied he had guessed right. It gave her an eerie feeling. How had he perceived and understood what she had kept hidden from so many others, even her own family?
Her parents were so proud of their girls, Isabel’s marriage, Annabel’s career, never really seeing the downside of their duality. Her mother would still be parading them in the same clothes if she had her way, blindly unaware it had made them feel like show dolls, not real people at all.
She looked at her bowl of soup, her hand poised over it with the spoon, and realised she had been brooding over a plate she had emptied, bar a trickle of liquid and a sliver of onion. She couldn’t remember tasting what she had eaten.
Troubled at having somehow revealed her secret burden, she carefully set the spoon down and composed herself, deciding to take the initiative from Daniel Wolfe and carry out her own inquisition. His interest in her relationship with her sister was too touchy, better blocked.
When her eyes flicked up again, it was with a look of bland inquiry. “All relationships have their difficulties, don’t you think?” Then with barely a pause she attacked, needing to get under his skin. “How do you feel about the pattern of corruption in your half-brother’s finance ministry? Does it surprise you?”
His mouth twisted in distaste. “Not really. Barry always had his eye on the main chance.”
So he wasn’t blind to his half-brother’s real character. “Did you know about it before his death?”
“Not in any detailed sense. I had little doubt the rumours were true, but it wasn’t my job to look into them, and Barry would never have confessed the truth. He rarely let his left hand know what his right hand was doing. He was a master of manipulation.”
The honesty of his assessment surprised her. He was pulling no punches on his half-brother’s behalf. Was it possible she could be equally honest with him? Would he be satisfied simply to be told the truth? And let everything lie as it was?
She barely held back the urge to do so. To reach out and... But it was crazy to trust a virtual stranger. Even crazier to confide in any relative of Barry Wolfe’s. He might be feeding her lines to see if he hooked something incriminating.
Nevertheless, his comments on his half-brother’s character certainly made sense of why her sister had fallen for Barry Wolfe. Izzie was so impressionable she would have been an easy victim for a man who had the knack of discerning other people’s needs and weaknesses and had no conscience about playing on them. Annabel nursed a bitter resentment at the callous way her sister had been used.
“He abused trust,” she muttered, her eyes flashing her condemnation of such heartless behaviour.
“People whose trust has been abused at an early age tend not to hold much stock in it,” Daniel Wolfe answered her evenly. “Trust becomes a commodity to be used in their favour.”
“You would have defended him?”
“Everyone has the right to a defence, Annabel.”
“Despite how much they hurt others?”
“That’s the law. It’s always a mistake to rush to judgment. Some people are flawed through no fault of their own. They, too, were once innocent before their circumstances in life twisted them into other paths,” he added quietly.
“That doesn’t give them the right to do as they please.”
“No, it doesn’t. Which is why we have prisons.”
But his sympathies lay with his half-brother. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like his legal argument, either, however reasonable it was. There were plenty of people these days who survived their parents’ divorces without turning into criminals who took from others when it suited them. To her mind, Barry Wolfe was a crook and a cad.
Daniel Wolfe probably didn’t want to hear that. Truth was sometimes very unpalatable. He might try to prove something else. His sense of truth and justice might demand that Izzie pay for falling into the Barry trap, regardless of the circumstances or consequences.
The waiter removed their soup plates.
Annabel picked up her pina colada again. Beyond the lit area around the pool, nightfall was turning the trees into dark silhouettes. She listened for the sound of the surf breaking on the beach, wishing she could recapture the sense of peace she’d felt earlier. It was gone. As was freedom. Daniel Wolfe had to be dealt with, one way or another.
“You’re angry,” he observed.
She gave him a derisive look. “You revive what I came here to forget for a while. That doesn’t exactly please me.”
He held her gaze with piercing intensity as he remarked, “One never really escapes from an uneasy conscience.”
