A Tangled Web Read online

  “This is all about envy? You’re jealous of him so this is what you do?”

  And that’s when the fury came. “Why wouldn’t I be jealous? He has everything! I’ve been watching him since he bought Additive Manufacturing and he just keeps doing it, he keeps growing! Me, I’m smarter than him, I’m a bloody genius and I’m still in that crappy little company while he’s doubled, tripled his since then and they’re all after him, all the news and cameras and fame and women, and we’re the same age, you know!”

  His voice was shrill now, hate taking over any coherent thought left. “And then he brings you, his clever little . . . You’re a real looker, a sexy thing, aren’t you? Taking you to all these parties, showing you around like you’re his prize, throwing it in my face, another woman, he always has one, always some hottie he takes home and fucks in that mansion of his!”

  Tess looked at him in horror, at the fury on his face. He was out of control.

  Fear gripped her.

  “See, I’ve been watching you. Interesting woman. Intelligent, oh, I know that. But beautiful, so beautiful, too, I wouldn’t mind you being mine.” He gave her a suggestive look that went down her body, then up again, lingering on her chest. She shuddered in revulsion. “Does he even touch you? Has he had you? Haven’t been any new tarts around him lately, only you. But a man like him, he can hide it. Does he? Or is it all you now, is your body his? If I have it, will I be sharing something of his, taking something of his?”

  She realized too late what he was up to. He grabbed at her. She didn’t have a chance to scream, but then no one would have heard her on the empty top floor of Blackwell Tower anyway. He gripped her upper arms, tried to pull her to him, but she fought him, she was strong and she pushed at him but he only he gripped her harder, crazed lust giving him an edge she had no hope against. He tried to pull open the jacket of the pantsuit she wore and tore off a button, then ripped at the delicate lace of the top she wore under it, and her panic peaked at his touch on bare skin. She managed to push his hand aside and he growled in anger, grabbed her waist and pushed her hard enough for her to lose her balance and fall back, and he fell on top of her. Victorious, he grabbed at her hair, tried to kiss her but she turned her head and he slapped her. Shocked, she stopped fighting for just enough time to allow him to undo the remaining buttons of her jacket and try to open her pants. She fought him, and his hand grabbed her thigh, his fingers digging into it through the fabric, hard enough for her to cry out in pain.

  “Don’t fight me, don’t dare fight me or I will show him what I have, I will—” he panted, wild eyed, even as he tore at her clothes, his hand grabbing the top of her pants, frantically pulling at them, touching skin again.

  She closed her legs tight, not letting him get to her. Still fighting with her pants he raised his body over hers, his legs on both sides of her.

  She stopped fighting.

  “That’s a good bitch,” he said, leering, and balanced himself over her with a hand on one side, his other roaming her chest, taking his time, thinking she had given up.

  She kicked him, kicked him with her knee so hard that he fell off her, doubled over with pain. She scrambled aside and when he reached to grab her she kicked back with her shoe, the heel catching him in the shoulder. He lost his balance and fell back again, and she was free. She scrambled up, ran to the door and opened it. Only then did she dare turn around, panting in exertion.

  He was still squirming on the carpet.

  “Remember what will happen if you tell him, remember,” he managed to growl at her, vivid hate in his eyes.

  “I won’t let you hurt him. I won’t let you. You just try, and I swear to God I will get you,” she said, her voice low, threatening enough for him to stare at her in surprise.

  She turned and left, walking, not even running, and fear took him over. She was supposed to succumb to him. Ian Blackwell’s wife was supposed to be at his mercy, his at will.

  He could still see her eyes, staring into his with vengeance.

  Chapter Seventeen

  She didn’t stop, didn’t look back until she reached the private elevator and got in. But Brett was in no shape to follow her. As the doors closed she turned around and saw herself in the mirror spanning the elevator, and that’s when the shock set in. Her cheek was red where he’d slapped her, and her hair, which she had pulled up, was in disarray. Her top was torn, and the top button of her jacket was hanging by a thread. As she was, the thought pushed itself into her mind, and she forced it away. She made an effort to straighten her clothes and her hair, and kept her head averted from the security cameras.

  “Please,” she kept saying to herself, “please don’t let security see this, don’t let anyone see me.”

  They didn’t. No one was watching the CCTV screens in the control room, and the night guards in the lobby barely looked up when she came out. They all knew she was in the building, and she was, after all, Ian Blackwell’s wife, she could do what she wanted.

  She walked out of the building and got into the Bentley, and Jackson, who held the door open for her, frowned. But she looked away, and he took that as a sign not to ask. The drive back to the house took forever, and when the car finally stopped she didn’t wait, not for Jackson to open the door for her or for Graham who barely had time to open the front door before she passed by him quickly, saying nothing.

  She was, Graham noted with apprehension, terribly pale, shaken, he thought, although she walked with her customary stature, tried, he could tell, to look her normal self. But she had looked away from him, which she’d never done, and he saw the button that was hanging loosely in place, as if she had tried to fix it. She was, in fact, uncharacteristically disheveled, and unless he was mistaken, and as someone who had seen her when she had left the house that morning, he could tell that her top was torn under that jacket.

  He followed her with his eyes, a frown on his face, as she walked up the stairs, stumbled on a step and grabbed the railing so as not to fall, then hurried on. Then he went out to speak to Jackson who was still standing beside the car, a not so different expression on his own face.

  Tess managed to get to her room, close the door behind her, lock it, and make sure she locked it, before she collapsed on the carpet. No tears, there were none. There should be, a small voice in her mind said, but she was numb, just numb. Think, she said to herself, you’ve got to think. You know what to do, how to deal with this. You know.

  She didn’t. This was different, she was different. She had been safe, had begun to feel safe, and nothing, nothing had prepared her for what happened that night. And it was too much, oh God it was too much, nothing had healed, it was all simply covered with layer upon layer of hiding and time and more hiding.

  No. No, she had to get herself under control, had to think.

  Brett had an interest here. He wouldn’t want anyone, least of all Ian, to know about him having attacked her, this was, in the least, a criminal matter. And he had a clear notion in his mind of what he thought was going on, what he thought Ian knew, what she knew, and a vested interest in not giving her a reason to give Ian the information he thought she had about what he was doing to her husband’s company. And he had seemed sure that he had enough to secure her silence, enough to be able to convincingly threaten her that he could turn things against her, that so-called proof he had prepared that would make her look bad to Ian and that he could go public with if he wanted.

  Which would hurt Ian. God, he would hurt Ian. She couldn’t bear that, would never allow it.

  Her eyes, dark, no gold in them anymore, were determined. She would contain this and find a way to stop Brett without Ian being hurt, use the fact that she now knew who was behind what was happening to Ian Blackwell Holdings to stop him before he could do anything. Use the time she just might have, assuming he would in fact choose to continue with his original plan thinking she would say nothing about what had happened that night.

  She had no choice but to contain it.

&nb
sp; She didn’t want to. She wanted to tell Ian, wanted so much for him to know. Wanted to trust him to help her. Would he? She remembered what Brett had said. Who would Ian choose to believe? Her, his contract wife of just months, or the man he’d known for years, whom he trusted to hold an important position in one of his subsidiaries? Would Ian trust her? He cared about her, and he’d trusted her with his company. But, faced with the convincing proof that the man who was smart enough to do what he was doing to Ian Blackwell Holdings had deliberately prepared, with only her word against his, would it matter?

  She lowered her head. It didn’t matter. All that was needed was for Brett to think that she had told Ian what she knew, or what he had done to her, and he would destroy her husband. And if Ian did care as much as she hoped he did, his first reaction just might be to go straight to Brett, to confront him.

  All roads led to Ian being hurt.

  Enough, she told herself. Enough. She knew she would never allow harm to come to him. This was not who she was. This was not who she was, and he mattered. God, he mattered so much. No one else had ever mattered to her this way, no one had even come close. And so all she could do was try to figure this out on her own.

  And keep Brett away from her in the process.

  Her mind was in turmoil, trying to think about everything but his attack on her, his hands on her, the fact that he had almost . . . She shuddered and pressed her hands to her mouth, stifled the sob. No, she couldn’t do that, couldn’t go there, couldn’t even begin to deal with it, with what happened, with what it was doing to her.

  She got up and walked to her bathroom in a daze, turned the water on hot in the shower, took off her torn clothes and threw them into a corner. Then she got into the shower and scrubbed herself, tried to scrub herself clean.

  An hour later found her huddled on the shower stall floor, her face buried in her arms.

  She felt so alone.

  That night she woke up in sweat as the dreams returned. She pressed her face into the pillow, stifling the scream. Tears followed but she fought them.

  Don’t cry, you can’t cry.

  He can’t know.

  Graham went into Mr. Blackwell’s den, closed the door behind him, and locked it before he turned on the lights. He walked around the large desk and squatted on its right side, then touched his index finger to the bottom drawer. The reader recognized his print and it opened. He took out a small console and skirted the desk again, coming to stand before the wall screen as it turned on. He then used the console to choose the day and the hour range.

  The footage began running on the screen. Only video. That was all he had.

  He stood there for a long time, watching. Fast forwarding most of it. Until that evening. There he stopped fast-forwarding and resumed watching, a frown on his face.

  Then he blanched and took a step toward the screen, then another, as if trying to get in, to be there. To do something, anything.

  The console fell from his hands on the desk with a loud thud, and he fumbled, cursed, and finally found his phone in his pocket. His personal phone, not the house line. He made a call. It was rejected.

  He dialed again.

  This time the call was answered, and the impatient face of Mr. Blackwell appeared on the phone’s screen.

  “I’m in a meeting—” Ian fell silent, seeing the loyal house manager’s face. “Will you excuse me for a moment,” he said to the people sitting around the conference table, and took the phone to the adjoining private office. Graham waited until he looked at the phone again and nodded for him to speak.

  Graham didn’t say anything. He just sent him the footage on their secure connection. He knew that the software in Mr. Blackwell’s phone allowed him also to hear, not just see.

  When Ian’s Tokyo-based assistant walked into the conference room to apologize to the internal auditors for his having to adjourn the meeting, Ian was already in the car, making arrangements for his jet to be prepared.

  Back in the house, Graham walked quietly to Mrs. Blackwell’s room and listened at the door. The silence was deafening.

  Tess didn’t want to come out of her room the next day. She didn’t want to eat, nor did she want anyone around her. She was hurting, in more ways than one. She had feigned feeling ill throughout the day and had refused when Lina had tried to convince her to eat something, or perhaps see a doctor, and when Graham himself had called, asking if he could get her anything, trying in vain to hide a worried expression. She had told them all she needed was some rest, and they had finally let her be.

  But she had made a decision to continue as if nothing happened, and that was how it would be. And so in the afternoon, much later than was usual for her, she mustered the strength and came down the stairs, wearing slacks, a simple top, and a long sleeve open front cardigan that she wrapped tightly around herself. No makeup, she’d considered putting on some, but Brett’s slap left only residual redness, and thankfully not a bruise, not there. At least, she thought, Ian wasn’t due back for a few more days, more if business warranted it. That would give her the time to settle herself, to try to deal with—

  She came to an abrupt stop, her heart missing a beat, then took an involuntary step backward. Brett Sevele was coming out of the living room, Ian following him. Her eyes remained glued to her assailant, who was with his back to her husband. Ian didn’t see the fleeting leer, the look Brett sent her. I win, it said.

  “We will speak more of this soon,” Ian stepped around Brett, positioning himself between Tess and him and steering him to the front door. “Privately, of course.”

  “Yes, we most certainly will,” Brett said, a hint of smugness in his voice, the look he threw behind his shoulder meant for Tess.

  She was still standing there, rooted in place, when Ian returned, having escorted Brett out himself. He stopped and looked at her. She looked pale, dark circles under her eyes, and she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring in the direction he had just taken Brett in. His eyes flickered to the sweater. It was a warm day, as this entire week had been. She could have done with just a light top, certainly inside the house. Not this long sweater that covered her.

  “Are you feeling okay? You look a little pale,” he said.

  She finally raised her eyes to him and forced a small smile. “Yes, sorry. I’m fine, just a bit tired.”

  He contemplated her quietly and she braced herself. Too late. Brett was bolder than she had thought he would be, he had done it. He had gone directly to her husband, her fighting back and her threat to him must have convinced him he couldn’t trust her to obey him. Is it over? she thought with a pang of pain. Is it already over before I even had a chance to fight back?

  “Come into the den, will you?” Ian said, and she did. He followed her inside and closed the door behind him.

  “You’re back early.” Her voice was quiet, hesitant, her movements slow.

  “I came back a few hours ago, Brett called me while I was on my way and I told him I’ve finished my business early and that he could meet me here. I was hoping to see my wife earlier, but it seemed you weren’t about to come out of your room today.” He watched her carefully. Gave her a chance to speak. To tell him. To say something, anything.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in, if I had known you were here . . .” Her tone was subdued. There was nothing of the liveliness, of the way she would have answered him normally.

  “Brett had some interesting . . . observations,” he tried.

  She said nothing, just leaned back on his desk. But not as she usually did. This time it was as if she needed the support. He had expected her to react, wanted her to defend herself. But the woman before him was, simply, defenseless.

  “Aren’t you interested in hearing them?” he tried again.

  “It is what it is,” she said, weariness in her voice, in her stance.

  He’d never seen her this way. But then he had never seen her look as she did now, never seen her so pale. So pained, he thought.

&nbs
p; He took a step closer to her, fear closing its icy fingers around his heart. “No, that’s not you, Tess, you’re a fighter. You’re fire and strength welded together into a powerhouse. You would fight. So why aren’t you? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

  Because this will hurt you. He will hurt you, and I couldn’t bear that, even at the price of losing you. She couldn’t say this. Couldn’t speak.

  He saw and understood. He wouldn’t have, if he didn’t know her. And if he didn’t know what had happened.

  But he did. And she needed to know that, needed to know that she could trust him, that she could turn to him no matter what.

  That no one came before her.

  He nodded to himself. Time to do this. “I had a break-in to my office at Blackwell Tower, oh, about two years ago. Which was quite inconvenient, to say the least. It was,” he said conversationally, going to the other side of his desk, “fortunate that security noticed in time and caught the thieves, so that nothing was stolen. However, following that unfortunate incident I had a surveillance system installed inside the office, unbeknownst to anyone. Anyone,” he emphasized. “It sends its video and audio directly here. The audio can only be accessed by me, but the video is periodically skimmed over by Graham—even if seemingly nothing happened—since I don’t have the time to monitor it all.”

  Her eyes were still lowered but he saw the furrow form in her brow.

  “Last night my wife returned home late. Graham knew she had been in my office, so he wasn’t worried, but when he saw her, he thought something was wrong. He can be very perceptive, Graham. So he asked Jackson, who confirmed that he had taken her from Blackwell Tower directly here. And then Graham came into this room and viewed the video for the duration she’d been there. And what he saw was enough for him to become very much unsettled. Graham, if you haven’t noticed, is never unsettled. Yet this had him calling me while I was in a meeting—which he has never ever done before—and having me watch it.” Ian paused. “And what I saw made me come home.”