Double Dealing (29 page)

Almost everything and anything was of interest to someone,
somewhere in business. Fundamental medical research news was of prime interest
to drug companies. Information on weather patterns led huge agribusiness firms
to make crucial crop decisions. Political situations in the Middle East
determined the price of American oil. The death of a world leader could totally
disrupt the stock market. It was all incredibly interrelated, impossibly
complex, and wonderfully stimulating intellectually for Samantha on most days.

But today she wasn’t concentrating with her usual precision.
Gabriel had phoned last night and said he would be in Seattle the day after
tomorrow. Samantha recognized the curl of intense anticipation in the pit of
her stomach and wondered at it.

How had such a man managed to invade every area of her life
so thoroughly? Stupid question. Gabriel Sinclair was a very thorough sort of
man. She shook her head bemusedly as she prepared the individualized research
reports for mailing.

She should be thinking of the next stage in her plans for
revenge. By now Buchanan must know who had swiped the restaurant out from under
his nose. If he didn’t find out this week, she would be astounded. She’d worked
long enough in his offices to know just how good his own sources of information
were.

Gabriel had left the day after the confrontation with Kirby’s
men. He’d gone back to California to set the wheels in motion which would
provide the cash needed to buy the restaurant in Phoenix. To be on the safe
side, he’d told Samantha he would have the actual purchase concluded by a
lawyer he knew in Phoenix. Samantha’s name was the one listed as purchaser.
Gabriel preferred to continue his habitual practice of maintaining a low
profile in such arrangements.

“Which does not mean I consider myself a silent partner,” he’d
warned her once again as he’d prepared to take his leave a week ago.

“No.” She half-smiled as she stood beside the Buick and
watched him feed the key into the ignition. “You’ve been anything but silent
during this whole process.”

“Self-defense,” he explained succinctly. “I feel like I have
to stay one step ahead of you for both our sakes!”

“Do I really scare you, Gabriel?” she murmured wistfully.

He hesitated instead of switching on the ignition. Then he
reached out a massive hand and dragged her head down to his level. Leaning
through the window he kissed her soundly. “You terrify me, witch. I feel like I’m
riding a tiger. I don’t dare get off, and I’m not at all sure what my fate will
be if I stay on! But at least I know now that I can trust the beast.” And then
he grinned his rare, shark’s grin. “Besides which, there are times when the
ride is very pleasant, indeed. Goodbye, Samantha. I’ll call you tonight.”

He’d called her every night since he’d left. Samantha had
come to look forward to the phone calls with the greatest anticipation. It was
true that Gabriel almost always discussed business, telling her the state of
the Phoenix situation and related details. But before the conversation ended,
he always managed to remind her of the claim he had staked on her body. No
matter how subtle the remarks Samantha always hung up the phone with vivid
memories in her head of how it had been to lie in his arms.

The day after Gabriel had left, Eric had decided to go back
to California long enough to make peace with his family.

“They’ve stopped calling every day,” Samantha pointed out
when he told her of his decision. “And at least you managed to keep Vic from
sending a private detective to my door.”

“Only by telling him I’d be back by the end of the week.”
Eric grunted. “God, if he only knew what I almost did!”

“He doesn’t ever have to know,” Samantha told her brother
stoutly. “No one ever has to know. Some things are better kept to oneself.”

“I’ve hardly kept it to myself! I managed to involve you and
Gabriel and somebody named Emil Fortune whom I have the distinct impression I’d
rather not meet face-to-face!”

“Actually, he’s rather nice face-to-face.” Samantha
chuckled. “A sweet little man who looks like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Very
gallant, too.”

“International arbitrage, hmmm?”

“That’s what Gabriel says.”

“Well, I for one am not going to ask how some international
financier knows who to call to get a character like Jackson Kirby off my back!
I’m just going to be grateful from a distance. Sam, what did Gabe mean the
other morning when he said you’d agreed to pay my tab?”

“He was just being deliberately cryptic,” Samantha assured
him, clearing the table of the remains of the hamburgers she and Eric had been
eating. How could she explain that pact she had made with Gabriel Sinclair? She
wasn’t even certain herself exactly what he had been asking of her.

He had wanted to know she wouldn’t cheat him in bed or in
business, but she had the feeling it was more far-ranging than that. But until
she knew herself what the contract meant, she certainly wasn’t going to try to
explain it to Eric.

She only hoped she hadn’t bound herself in a way which would
someday come to haunt her in a way she couldn’t yet foresee. Gabriel had been
so intense that night. And she, caught up in the emotional turmoil of
gratitude, passion, and sympathy, probably would have promised him anything he
asked at that point.

It occurred to Samantha as she generated address labels from
the computer that Gabriel was astute enough to recognize just how vulnerable
she had been that night. Gabriel Sinclair was not a stupid man. He simply
insisted on moving at his own pace and doing things in his own thorough way. He
was, in fact, quite brilliant. And, too, there must be a streak of ruthlessness
in him somewhere or how else could he have gotten as far as he had?

Angels were not always easy to understand. They were proving
to be full of surprises and perhaps even dangerous.

Samantha chewed on that thought for the remainder of the
afternoon.

It was as she crawled alone into her bed that night that
Samantha realized she had spent a great deal more time lately thinking about
her relationship with Gabriel Sinclair than she had about her plans for the
Buchanan Group. The knowledge was astonishing. How had Gabriel managed to
overwhelm so many aspects of her life so suddenly?

The next morning, however, when she opened the door to find
Drew Buchanan on her front porch, everything fell rapidly back into
perspective. Reality came thundering in on her.

It was raining, as usual, when the old brass eagle on her
door sounded commandingly throughout the house. Samantha, sitting at her
terminal, started a little. She had been concentrating intently on the Soviet
grain harvest reports outlined on the screen, and the sound of the old eagle
jerked her almost violently out of her study.

Gabriel was not due for another day. Eric, as far as she
knew, was still placating the other
Thorndykes
. A
neighbor?

Even as she walked down the hall to open the door, Samantha’s
intuition went into high gear. By the time she unlocked the door, she was
already half-prepared for who she would find on her doorstep.

“Well, Sam, you finally managed to do it, didn’t you? You
took me by surprise.”

She looked up at him, and a hundred memories together with
the tangled emotions surrounding them crashed through her head. He was as
handsome as ever, the pleasant, terribly deceptive all-American look enhanced
now with a touch more of the distinguished gray at the temples. For her the
charm had been turned on, she saw at once, the easy, laconic smile in place,
rueful amusement in his eyes. The elegantly tailored suit he was wearing
emphasized his height and the leanness of his body. She guessed he still worked
out religiously at a health club, as he had when she last knew him.

As she stood there taking in the sight of him, letting
herself taste the first hard, bright morsels of victory, a part of Samantha
insisted on noting the physical difference between Drew Buchanan and Gabriel
Sinclair. It was an easy difference to summarize. Drew was lean, dynamic,
polished, and sophisticated.

Gabriel was… Gabriel. Solid, hard, dependable. He was just
there, taking up more than his share of space and quietly forcing the world
around him to accommodate itself to him wherever he happened to be.

“Hello, Drew,” she drawled with exquisite politeness. “How
nice to see you again. Here on business?”

“Ah, Sam.” He sighed wryly. “I can see you’re determined to
get your pound of flesh out of all this, aren’t you?”

“Actually, I was thinking more in terms of seven hundred and
fifty thousand. Money is so much more useful than flesh.”

“Seven hundred and fifty!” For just an instant the indulgent
amusement faded a bit in those charming eyes. For a fraction of a second,
Samantha saw the cold, emotionless man behind the facade, and she shivered a
little at the enormity of what she had undertaken. Gabriel had been right when
he’d accused her of playing out of her league. But when the stakes were high
enough, a woman played the game that had to be played.

“Seven hundred and fifty,” Drew repeated, this time on a dry
whistle of admiration. “You’re really going for the top, aren’t you? I was
thinking more in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty thousand. Half a
million, max.”

“What’s another few hundred grand when you’re already into a
project for seventy million?” She smiled brilliantly.

He shook his head in seemingly rueful amazement. “You always
were pretty good at research. Where’d you get that figure, Sam?”

“Oh, it took some calculation. I had to add up a lot of
little figures to get it. Close?”

“Seventy million for the Phoenix job? Oh, yes. Quite close.
Are you going to keep me waiting out here in the rain, Sam, while you
negotiate?” He gave her that wonderfully endearing smile that was supposed to
make a woman see the little boy beneath the surface. It made her realize that
Gabriel’s rare shark’s grin was a lot more honest.

“Come in, Drew. I wouldn’t want you to get those lovely
shoes wet.” Italian leather, probably a few hundred dollars for the pair. No,
he hadn’t changed at all.

He stepped through the door as she moved aside, and his eyes
slid, lingeringly the length of her body. She was clad in jeans and a
western-style white shirt, the rolled up sleeves and open collar giving her a
rakish air. The brown mass of her hair was held back behind her ears with two
red clips.

“Interesting, but not quite the way I remember you.”

She tilted her head slightly as she led him into the living
room and waved him to a chair. “How do you remember me, Drew?” The question was
as cool as she could have wished, as if she didn’t give a damn about the
answer.

Which was, Samantha realized on a strange tide of relief,
very close to the truth. It was only then as she sank into the overstuffed
chair across from him, her legs casually outstretched and crossed at the
ankles, that Samantha acknowledged to herself she’d been hiding a sense of
unease about this confrontation. She hadn’t wanted to admit consciously that
when she finally came face-to-face with Drew Buchanan again she might still
find herself attracted to him.

Now the moment had arrived, and she was discovering that her
most secret fear had no real existence. How much of her freedom from that
danger was because of Gabriel? When a woman had lain in an angel’s arms, the
devil was no longer much of a temptation, she thought whimsically. She owed
Gabriel more than his share of the profit on this deal. She owed him something
for having made sure in his own, overwhelming manner that when the final
confrontation came she would have no lingering attraction for Buchanan to
weaken her resolve.

All at once Samantha felt marvelously in control; an
avenging huntress or an ice-cold, righteous goddess. She was going to restore
the pride that had been in tatters around her three years ago. Something of her
unalterable intent must have shown in her eyes or in the set of her chin, even,
perhaps in the flickering smile which edged her mouth because Drew Buchanan was
studying her rather intently before responding to her question.

“I remember you in neat little suits and leather pumps. You
used to wear your hair in a no-nonsense little coil at the nape of your neck,
as I recall.” His eyes gleamed with deliberately seductive reminiscence. “And I
also recall how pleasant it was to remove the pins.”

“That was the interesting thing about our relationship, wasn’t
it, Drew? It never got beyond the pleasant stage for you. You save your
passions for more important things, like business, don’t you?”

“I don’t remember you complaining about my passions three
years ago,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing faintly.

Samantha could feel his assessing gaze as if it were a
physical probe. He was sizing her up after three years, looking for the weak
spots, seeking out the old ones and trying to reactivate them. Why hadn’t she
been able to see this man so clearly three years ago?

“Three years ago I was less perceptive about some things,”
she remarked dryly, answering his comment and her own question at the same
time.

He hesitated and then said calmly, “Did Thorndyke ever tell
you what happened that day in my office when he played out the outraged father
scene?”

“Oh, yes. He told me that he’d warned you I wouldn’t receive
a dime if I married you. That was all it took, apparently, to convince you that
I wasn’t the bargain you had first thought.” The words came easily, considering
they formed part of the motivation for a passion as strong as revenge. Why was
it that today she could sit here and admit to both of them that she had simply
been younger and dumber three years ago?

“By not marrying you, I helped make sure you got your
inheritance, Sam. Doesn’t that count for anything? Isn’t it conceivable that I
may not have wanted to deprive you of what was rightfully yours?”