A Tempting Offer.

Daniel got out of the car, and a light breeze immediately ruffled his hair, covering his face with its freshness. The man took a deep breath of the sea air and walked slowly along the sand towards the beach. As he had supposed, at lunch there was practically no one there, with the exception of a couple of fishermen sitting a few hundred meters from him.

He could be in silence and solitude. The man stopped near the water line and sat on the sand. He did not care that he could stain his expensive suit from Armani. He was completely at a loss and his soul-sucking condition just made the gnawing feeling inside his heart grow more and more. He closed his eyes and lowered his head to his arms crossed in his lap.

"Still, as I said before, the image of a merry Casanova goes more to you," a soft female voice made him shudder and immediately returned him from his thoughts back to reality.

Daniel looked up and saw a girl dressed in all white in front of him. Her blond hair was waving in the wind, and her light smile and blue eyes, like the sky, made his heart flinch.

"Oh, I see the angel decided to come down from the sky and calm my mortal soul," Daniel showed his stunning smile, but the sadness in his eyes immediately revealed its falsity.

"Your tricks no longer work on me, Mr. Anderson. So you can take off your mask and behave as you wish," the girl replied, absolutely not yielding to his attempt to charm her.

"Well, that's even better," Daniel grinned and turned his head toward the bay. Why is that, her presence here next to him added to his peace of mind. "Have you been following me, Miss Williams?"

"Ha, you think too much of yourself, young man. I was already here when you came and walked by without even noticing me," Corey smiled wickedly and sat down next to him. "So what were you thinking about so deeply that you didn't even see the people around?"

Daniel looked at the girl, got up, took off his jacket and laid it on the sand next to her. He took Corey by her hand and sat her down on his jacket, while he sat right next to her. She did not comment on his gesture out loud, but inside was once again amazed. With each time this man was revealing his new sides to her, the ones that she couldn't even think of at first. She absolutely did not know what Daniel Anderson really was. And at that moment she caught herself thinking that she was really interested to know what kind of person he was.

"Well, so, will you share with me what bothers you? As a friend, I am ready to listen to you," the girl smiled.

"Friend? Hmmm, a tempting offer," Daniel smiled back. "Usually, my 'friendship' with girls works completely differently. You are the first to offer me this," he showed his snow-white teeth, obviously teasing a girl.

But Corey was unmoved. This feature surprised him even in their first meeting. Even then, she actively resisted all his tricks, although it was obvious that they had an effect on her. These thoughts made the man's soul warmer a little. The presence of this girl gave him a feeling of lightness.

"You know, Miss Williams, all my life I thought that I was defending a person who is very close to me, but it turned out that everything was the opposite. All this time he was the one who was defending me, gave me life and strength, and I was so blind that I did not even notice it. So ironic," Daniel smiled reluctantly, but in his eyes the feelings of pain and frustration were visible.

"Are you talking about your brother now?" Corey asked, to which Daniel nodded affirmatively.

"Hah, I remember once, when he celebrated his twentieth birthday, I showed up at the height of the party. I was not invited, because before that we had a great fight together, so I came in from the back door. There were three girls there and they were discussing among themselves how to seduce my brother.

He was always an enviable guy, but you know, given his obsession with Elena, none of them had a chance. But they so diligently approached the fulfillment of their plan that it became disgusting for me to even listen to them. As a result, I had to enter them into hypnosis, and they fought among themselves, after which they no longer appeared in David's circle of friends. When I recall this now, I begin to understand why David decided to remain silent. Apparently, I'm really too concerned about my brother," Daniel sighed and lowered his head.

But Corey was thinking about another question, which appeared in her head due to her natural curiosity and she really wanted to know the answer. "So you didn't sleep with these three girls, right?" She asked with a genuine interest in her eyes.

"Ha?! What makes you think that?!" the man was surprised.

"Rick once told us about this situation. According to him, you had sex with each of them, and then they got into a fight because of this and ruined David's party."

"Ahahaha," Daniel shook his head and laughed out loud, "Exactly, exactly. I already forgot about it. In fact, I simply inspired it to them, since I needed a weighty argument for their joint squabbles so that it looked believable. You know my reputation, right? So it was not a big deal," he winked at the girl.

"So it was all a fiction?" Corey asked.

"Exactly," the man confirmed her thoughts.

Corey thought for a moment, "Then, is your playboy reputation also a fiction?"

Daniel stopped and stared at the girl. Corey felt her body go petrified under the weight of his deep gaze. The man leaned forward, and she felt his breath close to her ear. His insinuating and low voice caused a wave of goosebumps on the girl's skin when he slowly whispered in her ear, "Miss Williams, it looks like you accidentally discovered my most important secret. What should I do with you now, huh?"

He moved away from her and looked into her eyes with his eyes dark like the abyss. The girl's cheeks flushed from such a captivating look. The man noticed the embarrassment of the girl and grinned.

"Since you are my only friend in a skirt, so be it, I will say it as it is. It is true that a myriad of women has been in my bed. But this does not mean that I had something with them. In 99% of cases, I introduced a woman into hypnosis and extracted the information I needed from her. And after just filling her head with various obscene fantasies. Something like that." Daniel narrowed his eyes and watched Corey's reaction.

But she did not have time to think the information through, as the new attack of his captivating voice riveted all her attention. Daniel leaned over and added in her ear, "But that one percent, which did get into my attention, was very pleased. I did not lie when I told you that I was very skilled in love affairs," he winked playfully.

Corey opened her mouth in amazement and did not know what to say. And she still thought of him as an intelligent and well-bred man? Yeah, right!

"You could have kept these details with yourself, Mr. Anderson," she answered, trying to hide her embarrassment.

"Ahaha, come on, there should be no secrets between friends, right? Moreover, friends do not do such things, so you have nothing to worry about, Miss Williams," Daniel grinned, "Or when you talked about friends, did you mean that we could be friends with benefits?"

"NO!" Corey covered Daniel's mouth with her own hands, the girl was all red as a tomato. The man took her slightly cold hands and covered them with his warm palms, "Just kidding, just kidding," he said with a kind smile and began rubbing her palms to warm them, "If you were cold, you should have said this before. In your case, you can not become too cold."

"It's not cold to me, it's just my hands are usually cold," the girl replied and looked away, but didn't snatch her hands from his warm embrace. The touch of this man did not cause her disgust. Next to him, she felt that she could behave as she wanted, be a lady or a playful child, regardless of her behavior, for some reason she was sure that he would accept her as she is.

"Your girlfriend will be very lucky," she added quietly.

"Eh?" Daniel looked at Corey in surprise, as if she had said something fantastic. He looked at his hands and realized that he was fascinated by warming her palms. He had never been embarrassed, except when Elena flipped through his whole life like some sort of fable, but at this moment he felt an unexpected constraint. The man gently let go of Corey's hands and turned away.

"Thank you for your appreciation, Miss, but the girl in her right mind would hardly agree to associate her life with a person with such a reputation."

Establishing a relationship was a big problem for Daniel, because the more he talked to the person, the more often he could see that person's future. In addition, he perfectly saw the lie and already knew in advance how sincere a girl's feelings were, or she just wanted to get a promising partner in her possession.

"You obviously underestimate yourself, Daniel," Corey replied in a serious voice. The man turned his head and froze, fascinated by the calm and gentle expression on her face.

At that moment, a huge stream of images flashed through his head at a breakneck pace, but he managed to snatch only some of them. He abruptly turned away and covered his eyes with his hand, 'Lord, what was it all about now?! Daniel, you blockhead, what are you thinking about?!'

He mentally scourged himself for a couple of obscene shots in his head in the hope that it was just his sick imagination, and not the vision of the future. Because if it was footage from the future... The heart of a man pounded furiously. No, he was not emotionally ready for this.

Corey noticed his confusion, and in order to defuse the situation, she took a neat paper bag out of her purse, "Do you want cookies?"

Daniel immediately came to his senses and stared at the cookies with lust, as if nothing had happened. He was not a sweet tooth, but the cookies of this girl became like a drug for him, from which he could not refuse another dose. Can a human cook so deliciously?

The man began to stuff his face with her cookies, completely forgetting about his despondency with which he came to this beach. At that moment his mobile rang, Daniel looked at the display and smiled,

"Oh hello, bro! Did you miss me? Decided to apologize to his beloved and terrific older brother? Hmmm ... Okie, no question, I'll be there in an hour," he answered gaily and hung up, leaving David completely at a loss from his elder brother's unexpectedly good mood.

"Miss, I have to go, will you go too or stay?" he asked Corey.

"I will stay here for a little while more," the girl answered and handed him a bag of cookies, "But dessert can go with you."

"Ahaha, you are so generous, young lady!" Daniel accepted her gift happily. A wild desire arose in his head to kiss her cheek, so sweet she seemed to him at that moment, but he restrained himself and only added in a whisper, "Thank you, Corey."

Although she did not do anything special, her presence and words gave him peace of mind and confidence, which she was completely unaware of. She considered his gratitude as a sign of politeness for the given cookies, and replied with the same smile, "You are welcome, Daniel. When you eat them all, you can come over for the tea, I will treat more. We're friends, right?"

The man smiled but said nothing. 'Well, having such a friend can be quite cool.' Daniel thought to himself and headed towards the parked car to go to the house of the Lee family, where everyone was already waiting for him.