Seducing The Enemy

Let your brother go. He’s dead. And I’m alive. About the Author Scandals! Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN AUTHOR NOTE Copyright

Let your brother go. He’s dead. And I’m alive.

There was a ruthless truth in what Annabel Parker had said.

The hell of it was he still wanted her. And he’d have her. Why not? She’d handed him the choice of passion with her if he let his passion for truth go. More might come out of it than she planned on giving him. If he walked away he’d be left burning with frustration on every level.

A grim laugh graveled from his throat. If nothing else, he’d have a sexual experience worth having. At least he’d be satisfied on that score.

They were both booked in for six more days at this resort. Six nights. He’d take them and no more, he decided. He was not about to lose his soul to Annabel Parker. He could be every bit as ruthless as she when it came to self-preservation.

Initially a French/English teacher, EMMA DARCY changed careers to computer programming before marriage and three lively sons settled her into community life. Very much a people person, always interested in relationships, she finds the challenge of creating new stories highly addictive. Her first novel for MIRA Books will be published in October 1997. THE SECRETS WITHIN is Emma Darcy at her most daring.

Scandals!

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A VERY PUBLIC AFFAIR (#1912)

by

Sally Wentworth

All will be revealed in October 1997

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Seducing The Enemy

Emma Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

HE’S dead.

The thought gave Annabel Parker intense satisfaction as she reread the killing summary of her article for the Australian National. She’d nailed Barry Wolfe to the wall this time. The long-time powerbroker in state politics and current finance minister couldn’t dodge these facts and figures. No need to add another word to what she’d written. Everything pointed directly to him.

Annabel smiled over the headline she’d chosen—“Pattern of Corruption.” There was a purity in patterns that couldn’t be obscured by personalities. The flamboyant and charismatic Barry Wolfe had fooled the public for too many years. The man oozed charm. One flash of his raffish grin and they fell in a heap, believing him, forgiving him, loving him. Accountability was well overdue.

She didn’t have the smoking gun, but the overwhelming bank of circumstantial evidence should land him straight into the courtroom of the commission into corruption. He’d need more than his handsome face and silver tongue to extract himself from that legal body. For one thing, the presiding judge was not a susceptible female.

It would be interesting to see if Daniel Wolfe, Q.C., would step in to defend his brother. The two men were poles apart, one embracing the law, the other holding it in contempt. The famous barrister had made his reputation winning unwinnable cases. It was said he could turn black into white. Nevertheless, Annabel very much doubted that even the highly skilled and formidable Daniel from the Sydney law courts could rescue his brother from the lions and resurrect a political career that was so deeply set in mire.

He’s dead.

Annabel was certain of it.

Having spent months following the money trails of dubious deals, and all this evening making every word count, she felt a sense of completion as she stapled the pages of the final printout together and locked the political dynamite in her filing cabinet.

Working from home had its advantages, but it meant the article would not be handed to her editor until tomorrow. Nevertheless, it was easy to imagine his elation over breaking such a high-ranking scandal. He’d be clearing the decks to use it for maximum impact.

Selling newspapers was not important to Annabel. Getting rid of corruption was. People like Barry Wolfe lined their own pockets while they sold their country down the drain. A complete shake-up was needed in the finance department. Ideally, her article would help to clean up the system of management and put some economic sanity back into the handling of public funding.

She was about to switch off the computer when her desk phone rang. The clock read ten forty-two. The late hour of the call brought an automatic frown, an unease.

Isabel...

Instinct identified her twin sister as the caller even before Annabel lifted the receiver. Her sixth sense picked up trouble, big trouble!

“Anna...” A desperate, frantic cry.

“Yes. What’s the problem, Izzie?” The automatic adoption of their childhood names for each other affirmed the special link that had always been theirs.

“He’s dead!”

The echo of her own thoughts rocked Annabel momentarily.

“He’s dead, and I don’t know what to do.”

Panic coming at her in waves. Annabel steadied her whirling mind. It had to be Isabel’s husband. “Neil?”

“Oh, God! Neil will throw me out. He’ll take our children from me. He’ll never let me see them again.” Hysteria breaking into wild sobbing.

Not Neil. Not family. A victim of a car accident? “Isabel!” She shouted to snap her sister back to the immediate problem. “Who is dead?”

It sobered her. “You’ll despise me.” Fear shaking through the evasion.

“Nonsense! I can’t help you if you don’t give me the facts. Where are you? What’s happened? Who’s dead?”

The firm demands succeeded in cutting through the emotional chaos at the other end of the line. Deep shuddering breaths, then, “I... I’m at a motel near you. The...the Northgate. We’re in room twenty-eight.”

Shock. Her straightlaced twin with a man in a motel? Neil Mason would certainly go off his brain. An adulterous wife would make a mockery of the family values he espoused for his political platform.

“It must have been a heart attack,” Isabel cried. “I wanted to call it off. We were arguing and he...he clutched his chest and collapsed. I gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I tried everything I could think of.”

“How long since he collapsed?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes...”

“You’re sure he’s dead?”

“I couldn’t get anything going again. No pulse. No breathing. Nothing. He was dead within seconds.”

Too late for paramedics to revive him now. Dead was dead, and discovery could wait. It wouldn’t make any difference to the man. The need to protect her twin surged to the fore.

“Get out of there, Izzie. Walk to my apartment—it’s safer than catching a cab—and I’ll take you home,” she instructed strongly, seeing no sense in her sister’s life being destroyed when there was no possibility of saving her lover.

Another burst of sobbing. “It’s no use. Someone took a photograph of us. I can be identified. Will you come and...and stand by me, Anna? I can’t face it alone.”

Annabel’s heart sank. “He’s a married man?” It was all she could think of—a wife having her husband trailed by a private investigator, taking a photograph to prove infidelity. If she was the vindictive type, the fatal affair could blow up into one hell of a scandal with Neil Mason’s wife involved.

“No. He’s not married,” came the gulping reply.

“Then why the photograph?” It made no sense.

“I don’t know. I was frightened. I wanted to leave. We had a fight. He laughed at me, saying one bell was as good as another. Whatever that meant. It all turned ugly and then—then...”

Some kind of set-up? Blackmail? Someone out to tarnish Neil’s puritanical policies? Or... A weird feeling of premonition crawled down Annabel’s spine.

The motel was only a few streets from where she lived in North Sydney. Her sister lived right across the city at Brighton-Le-Sands. With so many motels stretching over that distance, why come anywhere near her?

“Who’s your dead Romeo, Izzie?”

“I know you thought he was crooked, Anna, but he was so—so...”

“Who?” she asked, the premonition jagging into her heart. One bell as good as another. Isabel, Annabel, identical twin sisters, the same rippling cloud of distinctive red hair, green eyes, every physical feature such a close match. A photograph of either one of them could be mistaken for the other. “Tell me his name. Now!” she commanded tersely.

“Barry Wolfe.”

CHAPTER TWO

“HE’S dead?”

Shock and incredulity forced the question, even though Daniel Wolfe had no reason to disbelieve the journalist on the other end of the line. Jack Mitchell was a reputable and reliable reporter, not given to sensationalism for the sake of it. In interviews Daniel had given him on various court cases he had always quoted accurately. The call was a friendly gesture, a warning of what was to come. It just seemed inconceivable that Barry was dead.

“It happened at the Northgate Motel.” Information delivered matter-of-factly, leaving no room for doubt. “It’s not far from where you are at Neutral Bay.”

Daniel took a deep breath, trying to get himself on an even keel. “Yes. I know it.” A long, Spanish-style complex leapt to mind. Near a set of lights.

“He was with a woman. I don’t know the details yet, but he wouldn’t be the first guy who screwed himself to death, Daniel.”

“A heart attack?” Still incredible. Barry was a fitness freak. He’d run in the Sydney city-to-surf race only a fortnight ago. Being in good shape—attractive shape—was important to him.

“Sounds like it. There’s been no suggestion of foul play. The motel manager notified the cops of his death. I’m on my way to the Northgate now. It’s big news, Daniel. You’ll be getting other calls.”

“Yes.” As the other high-profile member of the family, he would certainly be a target for comment. “Thanks for...for preparing me.”

“Sorry to give you the news, but there it is.”

“Decent of you.”

He put the receiver down slowly, his mind dazedly groping towards accepting the facts. His finger pressed the button activating the answering machine. Better not take any more calls until he’d thought this through.

Barry dead. At only forty-two. The prime of life.

Daniel shook his head. There had always been something Peter Pan-ish about Barry, a perky, irrepressible vitality that could skate out of any trouble, a devil-may-care grin on his face, a daring twinkle in his eyes. It was almost impossible to imagine death catching him. It must have sneaked up on him, without warning. That it should come while he was with a woman... Daniel grimaced. Whose woman was the question.

It had to be a woman who was publicly attached to another man. Why else a motel? Barry’s tom-catting had always been indiscriminate. No respect whatsoever for wedding rings. Nothing he did on the sexual front could surprise Daniel, but these circumstances would almost inevitably lead to a muckraking scandal.

His father would hate it.

Barry’s mother would probably laugh and say it was a fitting climax for the dear boy’s life, taking his pleasure to the end. Having been through four husbands, Marlene was enjoying a succession of toy boys and would undoubtedly fancy going out the same way.

Daniel didn’t anticipate deep grieving from either parent. Vexation and titillation respectively. A sad reflection of Barry’s place in their lives. It wasn’t fair, Daniel thought, as he’d often thought over the years, seeing the careless treatment of Barry by his self-indulgent mother and the cool toleration dealt out to him by his father. It wasn’t Barry’s fault he had been a mistake to both of them. Though there was no denying he’d developed plenty of faults of his own along the way to this final, fatal night.

Nevertheless, it felt wrong to do nothing when all the vultures would be gathering to pick at the juicy bits attached to Barry’s death. He should be there, at the motel, monitoring what was happening, insisting on some dignity to the proceedings. Death was so damned naked, respecting nothing. Maybe he could do something for the woman, as well. No one deserved to be stripped in public.

The answering machine beeped an incoming call. Daniel left it to play itself out, striding quickly out of his private library office where he’d been studying the brief for tomorrow’s court appearance. He knew what he needed to know for the line of questioning he’d chosen. Tomorrow’s work could wait upon tomorrow. Tonight he owed to Barry. Someone should care, and there was no one else.

It was getting on towards midnight by the time Daniel forced his way through the bedlam outside the motel, police cars, television news vans, reporters and photographers pressing for whatever story angles they could grab, not to mention a crowd of curious spectators drawn by the unusual activity. Daniel headed for the police cordon keeping people from the ambulance, which was backed up to a room midway along one of the motel’s residential wings. Having identified himself to one of the officers, he was immediately escorted inside.

The next ten minutes were a blur. The only thing that really registered was the certain knowledge Barry was truly gone. The life that had made the person he knew so well was not there any more. The ambulance men wheeled the stretcher away, and under Daniel’s watchful eye, a proper decorum was maintained in the immediate vicinity until the departure of the ambulance could be effected.

The woman had been moved to an adjoining room. Daniel was asked by the police officer in charge if he would like to hear her statement, which was about to be taken. Determined to know the worst and deal with it as best he could, he quickly agreed.

His heart plummeted when he saw who the woman was. Isabel Mason! The supposedly purer-than-snow wife of the most vocal family-values politician in the current government. Barry was certainly going out with a bang! This scandal would reach epic proportions.

It amazed him that she looked so composed, sitting calmly at a table, sipping at a cup of tea or coffee. He would have expected her to be in floods of tears, or at least showing some signs of distress. Her hand wasn’t even trembling. A policewoman sat by her, but it seemed to Daniel no comfort was required.

“Miss Parker?”

Isabel Mason looked directly at the chief officer, as though it was she being addressed.

“Are you ready now?”

She was being addressed! Daniel frowned. Did she think she could get away with giving a false name?

“Yes.” A crisp consent. She glanced pointedly at Daniel, clearly wanting him identified.

“The deceased’s brother, Daniel Wolfe,” the police officer obliged. Then with an introductory wave, “Miss Annabel Parker.”

Annabel Parker? The journalist who’d been snapping at Barry’s heels over his dubious dealings? She was a dead ringer for Isabel Mason!

Then she looked at him directly, and twin bolts of green fire zapped his brain. It was a fierce mental blast, hurling him off into a far space where he existed only as some infinitesimal speck, too insignificant to claim her attention. Absolutely no help was required by this woman. Having disposed of him, she returned her gaze to the chief police officer and started her account of her meeting with Barry.

Daniel sat down. She certainly wasn’t Isabel Mason. She had the same glorious red hair, rippling down to swirl around her shoulders. And the same features, though there was something stronger about the bone structure of her face, a cleaner, sharper definition. The most striking difference came from within. This woman’s mind had a brutal force that was light-years removed from the soft, pliable femininity he’d seen emanating from Neil Mason’s wife.

He watched her mouth as she spoke. Words were shaped with precision, her lips firmly sculptured, not a trace of quivering uncertainty. He listened to what she said, fascinated by the cool, clear logic of her story. Brick by brick, she laid a convincing foundation for her convincing conclusion. It was a formidable performance.

He’d no sooner thought the word performance than she looked at him again, another stunning blaze that dared him to challenge anything she said. It promised she’d wipe the floor with him.

Daniel said nothing. He was too intrigued to want to do anything but watch her. She was magnificent. A unique entity. He’d never met anyone like her.

She wore black, a ribbed sweater that moulded superbly rounded breasts. A short, narrow skirt revealed long, shapely legs, sexily emphasised in black tights. She was tall, a good fit for him. What would it feel like to be entwined with a woman who was fired with an incredible store of secret energy? That could be an adventure worth having.

He’d like to know the rest of her, too.

She had everyone else bluffed.

Barry couldn’t have done it better himself, and he’d been a genius at sliding out of sticky spots. The story was completely sanitised of sex. The only scandal emerging from it would be a political one, and that had been brewing anyway.

Bravo, Annabel Parker!

The truth—whatever it was—was successfully skittled.

Daniel knew she was lying.

CHAPTER THREE

FREEDOM...

Annabel heaved a contented sigh. It was marvellous not to be constantly on guard. She revelled in the sense of tranquillity that flowed from this beautiful place in far north Queensland, thousands of kilometres away from the frenzy of scandals still breaking in Sydney. From this corner of her cabin, where only an insect screen separated her from the primitive splendour on view, she could gaze out over the lush rainforest to the sea and feel blissfully removed from the corrupt touch of mankind.

It was an illusion, of course. The cabin was part of a wilderness tourist resort built to capitilise on precisely this feeling. Nevertheless, great care had been taken to nestle it into the environment. None of the buildings was intrusive. They didn’t spoil. This was the only place on the planet where two world heritage wonders met—the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest—and the Coconut Beach Rainforest Resort offered the experience of both within a context of personal comfort.

The only sounds were made by birds and animals. No television or telephones in the guest accommodation. No newspapers. Even the people here went about their activities in a quiet and unobtrusive manner. Peace...sheer heaven to Annabel.

The weeks since Barry Wolfe’s death had been hectic and highly stressful. Thankfully, that was all behind her—the frantic substitution of herself for Isabel at the motel on that fatal night, the tension involved in giving a formal statement to the police, the seemingly endless inquisition by the media. Annabel felt she had more than earned this escape from the pressure of having to perform.

Izzie was surely safe now. They could both relax. If the photograph taken of her twin sister and Barry Wolfe entering the motel room could have disproved Annabel’s account of events, it would have surfaced when the news was hot. Or been used for blackmail before this. The danger was gone. Neil Mason would never find out that his wife had flirted with infidelity. Barry Wolfe was dead and buried.

Annabel ruefully reflected that she hadn’t wished him dead in the physical sense, yet she couldn’t regret his passing. The world was a cleaner place for it. Getting cleaner by the day down in Sydney, where the cover-ups were unravelling without any assistance from her.

Maybe it had been overly squeamish of her not to capitalise on the article she had written. Her editor had almost been frothing at the mouth for it. She’d worked so hard at putting the Barry Wolfe corruption story together, and it had probably been unprofessional not to go through with it, yet when it came to the point of deciding on publication the morning after his death, it had felt like overkill—brutal, unfeeling, unnecessary.

The man was dead. Not only that, she and her sister had been caught up in the circumstances surrounding his death. It made it all too personal, somehow. Besides, there was no moral gain in a public demolition of Barry Wolfe’s career when that career had died with him.

Definitely overkill.

She didn’t need that kind of professional kudos. She had only ever wanted the truth to come out so the corruption would come to an end. Which it had.

Although she had held back the damning article, she had been pressed into referring to her work on it, with the media demanding the reason for her meeting with Barry Wolfe in what was perceived as a clandestine manner. That in itself, plus details of her research, had raised enough questions to trigger an investigation.

Ironically, the finance minister’s death had exposed his cronies in corruption. Without his strong front to protect them, they were scrambling to explain their activities to the new minister, who was demanding accountability in no uncertain terms.

But Annabel didn’t have to think about any of it any more. The desired result had been achieved. She could breathe in this gloriously fresh air and simply enjoy herself.

Twilight was bleaching the sea of colour. It was time to walk down to the Long House near the beach for dinner. Although the paths were adequately lit, she preferred to go before darkness fell, to savour the ambience of the forest around her in its softer evening mood.

Her cabin was situated high on the hill, perched on stilts to counter the steep gradient. When she had arrived yesterday, the porter had commented on its isolation, wondering if it worried her. Annabel smiled over his concern as she locked the door behind her and started down the steps from the porch. Being left alone was precisely what she wanted.

The path that served her cabin also wound around the next, which was seven or eight metres distant and at a slightly lower level. Yesterday it had been vacant. The door opened as she was about to pass by, drawing her curiosity. New guests or one of the staff?

The man who emerged blasted her light-heartedness. Recognition was instant, rocking her with shock. Her feet faltered to a halt. The smile lingering on her lips sagged into a gasp of dismay. Her mind reeled against accepting the reality of his physical presence here.

“Good evening,” he said, offering the casual grace of a fellow guest, lending substance to the form, chasing away any chance he was a mirage.

Daniel Wolfe!

Barry Wolfe’s brother!

In the cabin next to hers!

Annabel couldn’t believe in coincidence. A convulsive shiver ran down her spine as she remembered him sitting in the motel room while her statement was taken down by the police, watching her recount how and when his brother had died and what she’d done about it. He hadn’t said a word, but his eyes had drilled into her with riveting concentration, raising the eerie sense that she was the accused in a witness box.

The fire in her belly to see real justice done had surged into a blaze of challenge that seared a silent but highly electric path between them. Not me, my friend. Her eyes had spoken in fierce rebuttal of anything he could do to her. You won’t get to me any more than your brother did.

He hadn’t then.

She hadn’t let him.