His smile became even more satisfied. “You’re running
scared, baby, and I know you. You’re the one who just told me how perceptive I
am, remember? I’ll keep pushing buttons until I find the one that works.” He
moved slowly toward the door. “And I will find it. You know I will. I always
do. You haven’t got a chance of standing up to me, Sam. You of all people
should know that.”
“Get out!”
“I’m going. But I’ll be back. Believe it. I’ll see you
tomorrow.”
He strode outside to where his car was parked as if he hadn’t
a concern in the world. As if he had Samantha in the palm of his hand.
Samantha watched him leave, beginning to breathe normally
now that he was off the premises. Running scared, was she? He didn’t even have
an inkling of how unsettled, how nervous, how scared she really was! But even
if he had deduced the truth, he was going to tell himself that it was because
she was terrified of her own reaction to him.
The only terrifying thought was how she was going to explain
all this to Gabriel Sinclair when he arrived in the morning.
“It’s about time you got here!”
Samantha came down the front porch steps with quick, restless
steps as Gabriel’s rented car pulled into the drive. The explanations were
clearly outlined in her head and had been ready for hours. After a night spent tossing
and turning as she tried first to talk herself out of the strange guilt and
then, when that effort failed, tried to figure out how to convince Gabriel she
wasn’t really guilty of anything, Samantha was not in a good mood.
Gabriel perused her slowly as he climbed out of the sedate
car. Samantha could literally feel him taking in every aspect of her from the
overbright
sheen of her eyes glittering at him from behind
the lenses of her glasses to the tension in her figure and the hectic flush on
her cheeks. The bad night’s sleep showed, she thought disgustedly. Then, after
absorbing the evidence of her obvious agitation, Gabriel’s eyes moved
deliberately to the rounded curve of her hips tightly sheathed in jeans.
“Nothing like a warm welcome from his woman to make a man
forget this damn rain,” he drawled as he paced through the mist toward where
Samantha had come to a stop on the bottom porch step. She stared at him,
astounded that he could tease her even a little when he must realize something
awful had happened. Her mouth tightened at the sardonic expression in his eyes
when she made no move to kiss him hello.
“Oh, Gabriel, I’m sorry!” Samantha groaned.
“About what? The rain or the
unencouraging
greeting I’m getting?” He reached her side and leaned down to take her mouth in
a brief, hard kiss.
“I have to talk to you.” She stepped back nervously, leading
the way into the old house.
“About what?” he asked again, sounding more patient than
ever. He set down his leather travel bag and followed her toward the warmth of
the kitchen.
His very calmness fed her anxiety, Samantha thought irritably.
It was annoying to be so keyed up, so tense, and have the object of all that
tension acting as if he were some kind of salesman home after a week on the road.
“It’s very complicated, Gabriel.” She sighed. “Sit down. I’ll
get you some coffee.”
“Tea sounds more soothing. You sit down, Samantha. I’ll make
it.” His large bands descended on her shoulders, and she was pushed gently but
firmly onto one of the kitchen chairs.
She watched morosely as he set about collecting all the
things he needed for tea and then began making it in his careful, precise way.
God, she couldn’t even make tea the way he liked it, let alone cook or keep house
or conduct business in a fashion of which he approved. Self-pity hovered in a
dark cloud over her head.
“You should have picked another woman, Gabriel.” He didn’t
pause as he methodically warmed the china pot with hot water, but Samantha
thought the broad shoulders tensed a little beneath the conservatively cut pinstriped
shirt he wore.
It was funny, she thought vaguely, both Drew and Gabriel
wore conservatively tailored clothes but for entirely different reasons.
Buchanan chose the look because it fit the image he strove to maintain of
respectable corporate power. Gabriel chose it simply because it suited his
personality. Samantha couldn’t imagine him dressed any other way.
“One who can cook?” he jibed in response to her mumbled
comment.
“This isn’t a joke, Gabriel. Buchanan’s here. He arrived yesterday,”
she snapped back baldly. “And he’s coming back here today.”
Gabriel’s hand stilled for a moment before he went through
with the action of putting the kettle on the burner and switching on the heat.
It was typical of the man, Samantha realized. He never let anything put him off
course. She felt a sense of wistful admiration for his deliberate, unhurried
ways. He always finished what he started, even something as small and
insignificant as putting the kettle on the stove. Despite the shock of her
announcement, nothing impeded the flow of the tea-making ceremony.
There was something wonderfully reassuring about Gabriel
Sinclair. Why the hell had she tried to finesse the business arrangement
between them? This wasn’t the kind of man a woman wanted to manipulate or finesse.
This was the kind who should be treated as an equal and dealt with openly and
honestly.
“Oh, Gabriel,” she whispered raggedly, “I’m sorry.”
He turned slowly to face her, leaning back against the
counter and folding his arms across his chest. His face was an unreadable but
infinitely calm mask. Too calm. It wasn’t human to be that calm. It wasn’t even
particularly angelic. Samantha’s nervousness increased considerably.
“Okay, Samantha. Tell me about Buchanan.”
“It’s so damn complicated!”
“Probably not as complicated as it seems to you at the
moment,” he retorted dryly.
“You’re right,” she admitted quietly, bringing herself back
under control. “It isn’t really complicated, it’s just rather messy. Gabriel,
there’s something I haven’t explained to you about this business deal of ours.
Something I didn’t think really mattered because it didn’t have anything to do
with the financial arrangements between you and me. It still doesn’t,” she
added insistently.
“Who are you trying to convince, honey? Me or yourself?”
“Myself. Gabriel, three years ago I was engaged to marry
Drew Buchanan.” She lifted her eyes defiantly as she waited for the angry
explosion. Gabriel just looked at her, his gaze pensive.
“I see.”
She took a breath, “Do you? What I’m trying to explain is
that I had other motives for concocting this deal than the ones I explained to
you. I’m not just out to make a quick financial kill.”
“You’re out for revenge.”
“That’s the part that gets complicated.” She groaned. “I am
out for revenge but not the sort Drew thinks.”
“And what, exactly, does Buchanan think you want?”
He sounded so unmoved and so unalarmed she thought wonderingly.
Didn’t he see how she had misled him? Wasn’t he furious that an emotional
motive like feminine revenge was at the heart of her whole plot? He had to be
annoyed, to say the least, to find out that he hadn’t been given the whole
picture right from the start.
“He thinks I must still be carrying a torch for him. He sees
me playing out the role of a woman scorned.”
“And you’re not?”
Her eyes hardened. “Of course not. He’s not worth three
years of plotting and planning and research!”
“Who is?”
“My mother.”
“I think,” Gabriel noted calmly as he turned to the stove in
response to the teakettle’s whistle, “that I’m beginning to see a light at the
end of this crazy tunnel. Keep talking, Samantha.”
Her shoulders moved in an uneasy shrug. “There’s not much
else to explain. I’m in this because I’m trying to show Vera Maitland that she
didn’t raise a failure and a fool of a daughter.”
“Are you sure that’s how she thinks of you?” He poured the
hot water into the warmed pot.
“I saw the look in her eyes after my fiasco of an engagement
was broken up by my father,” Samantha said bitterly. “It was as if I had
betrayed every tenet she had taught me by making a fool of myself over Buchanan.
It’s been three years, Gabriel, and I can still see that expression in her
eyes. I didn’t turn out strong and independent and brave like my mother. I
turned out to be a weak little idiot who managed to let herself be blinded by a
slick, sophisticated playboy who uses everyone, including women, for his own
ends. When I saw him yesterday,” she went on in a lower tone, “I couldn’t
believe I’d been so stupid three years ago. My mother was right to be appalled
at what happened.”
“So this whole elaborate maneuver down in Phoenix is solely
designed to prove to your mother that you, too, can be as hard as nails?”
Samantha’s eyes narrowed at the cool mockery in his words. “I
think I’m trying to prove it to myself, too. I want Vera to know I can take
care of myself, and I want to know I can do it. I won’t be stomped on.”
“Tell me about that engagement, Samantha,” Gabriel ordered
quietly as he carried the tea things over to the table and set them down. He sank
heavily into the chair across from her and began to pour, his eyes on the pot.
He had a right to know, she decided grimly. So she told him
as concisely and as honestly as possible. She even told him exactly how it had
ended. “Vera called in my father, who did his duty and bailed out his daughter before
she actually found herself married to Drew Buchanan. He did it in a typically
Victor Thorndyke fashion, naturally. No holds barred. Walked into Drew’s office
and told him I wouldn’t inherit a dime if he married me. Drew was no fool.”
“He called off the engagement?”
“With his usual finesse and style. I hardly knew what was
happening, only that things were changing between us. Very quickly it was all
over, and I was forced to accept the fact that I’d made a fool of myself.”
“And the worst aspect of the whole situation was that you
hadn’t lived up to Vera’s image of a daughter?” Gabriel sipped his tea,
seemingly only casually interested in the answer.
“Or my own image of Vera Maitland’s daughter! My mother has
never made a fool of herself in her life. And certainly not over a man,”
Samantha noted proudly.
“Sounds like an
amazon
.”
“She is.” Samantha smiled obliquely. “I was raised on tales
of amazons.”
“And you’re out to prove you’ve inherited the mantle.” There
was a long silence while Gabriel sipped tea before he finally spoke again. “Well,
that does fill in the missing piece of the puzzle,” he murmured.
Samantha eyed him cautiously. “What puzzle?”
“I never could quite figure out what was going on behind the
scenes in this little deal of ours. There was always a piece missing.”
She frowned, “You knew I was holding something back?”
“Let’s just say I knew I didn’t have all the pertinent facts.
I’m coming to accept that as normal with you, honey,” he told her coolly. “You’re
just full of little surprises.”
The tip of Samantha’s tongue moved briefly across dry lips
as she continued to watch his unreadable face. The man could certainly play
poker if he ever wanted to and play it well. She couldn’t even begin to tell what
he was thinking.
“You don’t seem overly concerned about that fact,” she finally
ventured, genuinely puzzled now. “I mean, I rather thought this little
confession scene today was going to have a slightly different effect on you.”
“Really? What sort of effect did you expect it to have?” She
didn’t like the placid way he asked the question.
“It did occur to me,” she retorted, “that you might be a bit
upset about the whole thing. Angry, perhaps. Absolutely infuriated, in fact!”
“Why should I be infuriated?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
“Because you’re not the sort of man who likes little surprises!
For God’s sake, Gabriel, why are you taking this so calmly?” Her hand clenched
into a small, frustrated fist. This wasn’t going the way she had imagined it
would at all. But, then, things rarely did around Gabriel. When was she going
to realize that?
“Well, I can’t say I truly enjoy having a lot of little rabbits
pulled out of hats when I’ve invested a reasonable sum of money in the lady
magician,” he said wryly, “but I covered the situation by taking out insurance.”
“Insurance!” She stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“Gives a man a lot of peace of mind,” he explained equably. “More
tea?”
“Gabriel, what the devil are you talking about? What insurance?”
She ignored the offer of tea.
He sighed at her slowness, helping himself to another cup of
tea. “Samantha, what made you decide to tell me all this today? Why do I arrive
in the rain after a boring flight to find my business associate greeting me with
the mea culpa routine?”
“I told you! Buchanan came to see me yesterday!” Why was he
being so dense?
“And?”
“And I realized I hadn’t been completely straightforward with
you,” she mumbled, subsiding back against her chair. “There were reasons, you
know,” she went on defensively.
He nodded, as if understanding perfectly. “You were afraid I
wouldn’t go through with the deal if I knew there were emotional rather than
purely business motives involved.”
“Well? Would you have gone through with it?” she challenged.
“Once I realized you were going to go through with it with
or without me, yes. I wasn’t operating with a purely business attitude either,
I’m afraid. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
She slanted him an assessing glance through her lashes trying
to figure out his meaning. “If you’re talking about the fact that we’ve slept
together,” she said stiffly, “then that doesn’t make any sense. You and I both agreed
that the physical side of this relationship was totally unconnected with the
business side.”