Double Dealing (36 page)

Samantha thought with horror about Gabriel’s friend Emil
Fortune. At this point even Drew Buchanan probably didn’t realize how lethal a
weapon he held. If he did reopen the old scandal and imply that Gabriel was involved
with his father’s questionable friends, how long would it be before his
relationship with Emil Fortune came to light? Even if Gabriel could escape the mud
which had once been slung at his father, how could he ever explain away his
relationship to Fortune?

Furthermore, by involving Gabriel in Eric’s mess, Samantha
had unwittingly caused Gabriel’s association with Fortune to become even more
awkward.

Shit!

“You really are one hell of a bastard, aren’t you, Drew?”

He laughed on the other end of the line. “And you’re a
soft-headed little fool who won’t have the heart to let her lover take the flak
off this scandal. I’ll crucify him, Sam. I’ll nail him to the wall, and it will
ruin him. No one will do business with him again. No reputable concern will
want to borrow money from a possible mob associate. No one except the type who
normally deal with that kind of lowlife anyway. He won’t be a venture
capitalist any longer, Sam. He’ll be a frigging loan shark. Quite a comedown,
hmmm?”

Samantha slammed down the phone, shaking from head to foot.
As quickly as she did it, it wasn’t quick enough to prevent her from hearing
Drew’s satisfied laughter on the other end of the line.

She paced the house for the next hour, frantically searching
for a way out. But there was not a way out. Buchanan had neatly closed the
trap, and the only way she could free herself was to sacrifice Gabriel.

Sacrificing Gabriel was unthinkable.

Samantha came to a halt beside the potted palm in the living
room, staring blindly out into the Seattle mist. Unthinkable.

She couldn’t hurl Gabriel Sinclair to the wolf because she
loved Gabriel. Loved him far more than she loved the idea of proving herself in
the eyes of her mother. Loved him far more than proving to Buchanan that he couldn’t
treat her the way he had three years ago and get away with it.

Her taste for revenge was as nothing next to her commitment
to Gabriel. She had more or less coerced him into her life, and once there he
had proceeded to dominate it. Compared to her feelings for him, revenge played
a pretty poor second. Samantha closed her eyes on that thought and then opened
them again, suddenly able to see everything very clearly. The only really crucial
factor in this whole mess now was saving Gabriel. The decision was made with an
abrupt and absolute conviction, the kind of intuitive certainty which left no room
for doubt. She would protect Gabriel whatever the cost.

Only yesterday she had been planning ways of talking her
angel into giving the relationship more time. With all the time in the world
ahead of them, it had been easy to be hesitant, to want to be sure. Samantha
shook her head wryly.

Buchanan had just taught her that there was no question of
her feelings for Gabriel Sinclair. None at all.

With grim resolution she picked up the phone and asked for
the number of the Buchanan Group’s headquarters in Miami. When Drew eventually
came on the line, she didn’t give him a chance to speak.

“You can have the restaurant for a hundred thousand,” she
told him dully.

“I thought you’d see reason. I’ll have my lawyers draw up
the purchase agreement this afternoon. Look at it this way, Sam. I could have
made you hand it over for virtually nothing. I’m being generous under the circumstances.
For old times’ sake.”

“You’re going to rot in hell Drew.” She put the phone gently
down in its cradle, and then she lifted the receiver again and dialed her
travel agent.

“No, I’m not going back into that damn spa! Just get me on a
plane to Santa Barbara. I’ll arrange my own accommodations for the night.”

News like this had to be explained in person. She wasn’t
going to tell Gabriel over the phone what she had just done. It was far too
complicated. And she couldn’t stand to wait until the next day, when he would
be returning to Seattle. She would go crazy overnight.

The travel agent phoned back a few minutes later to tell her
she was booked on an early afternoon flight to California.

***

The house on the coast was just as she remembered it.
Secluded, sheltered by its heavy landscaping, open only to the sea, it provided
Gabriel with the peace and the solitude he craved.

She had brought him very little of either, Samantha thought
sadly as she parked the car in the drive and sat staring at the iron gates for
a moment. He’d been awfully patient with her, considering how little he cared for
upsetting factors and surprises. She’d blown his placid routine to smithereens,
and she had almost shattered his hard-won privacy for good. If Buchanan had gone
through with his threats, Gabriel would have gone through hell watching his
parents’ life vandalized again by the press and he, himself, would have lost
the low profile he had worked so hard at maintaining. He would suddenly have a
reputation hanging over his head, one that would undoubtedly have crippled his
career.

And it would have been all her fault.

Samantha shivered at the thought and climbed out of the car.
She was almost at the gate, preparing to ring the bell, when he opened the
front door and stared at her in astonishment.

“Samantha! What in the world…?”

He started toward her, and Samantha took in the sight of
him, loving every solid, conservative, stubborn inch. Tears pricked at her
eyes, and her lips quivered as she clung to the iron gate with both hands.

“Oh, Gabriel, I’m so sorry… “

“Oh, s-s-
shi
…
shi
. Damn it to hell! Samantha, I warned you. I can’t take
much more of this. What the hell is going on this time?” He flung open the
gate, and Samantha almost went with it, remembering at the last minute to
release her grasp on the curving bars.

And then she was in his arms, holding him fiercely, whispering
his name over and over again as she buried her face against the solid
reassuring warmth of his chest. His wonderful, huge hands soothed her with
infinite care, threading through her hair and massaging her tense shoulders.

His words, however, were anything but soothing. “Jesus,
woman! Let me have it quickly. The waiting is killing me!”

“I sold the restaurant to Buchanan for a hundred thousand.”

There was a suspended moment of total shock from the man
holding her, and then his voice came in a low snarl unlike anything she had
ever heard from him in the past. “You did what?”

She was seized by the arms and held far enough away from him
so that his gaze could burn into her. Samantha swallowed rapidly, knowing the
moments of comfort had evaporated.

“I had no choice, Gabriel. Buchanan pulled the one trick he
knew would work on me.” She attempted a small, shaky smile, pleading for
understanding with her eyes.

But there was no understanding in Gabriel’s expression, only
cold, implacable anger. “What trick?”

“You.”

“
Me!
” He looked
thunderstruck. “Samantha, what the devil are you talking about?”

“He knows, Gabriel,” she whispered. “Somehow he found out
about your father and the scandal a few years ago. He knew everything, and he
was going to resurrect the whole mess and give it to the Arizona papers.”

“Oh, my God!” He shook his head dazedly, and then he shook
her. “Samantha, you folded because of that threat?”

“What else could I do?” she asked simply. “He knew so much
that could hurt you and your family. What if he’d dug farther and found out
about your friendship with Emil Fortune? Don’t you see? We’re lucky to be out
of it with the hundred K.”

“You spent three years plotting this deal.”

“I wasted a lot of time, didn’t I?” She half-smiled. “No, I
take that back. If I hadn’t gone after it at all, I would never have found you.”

“Was finding me so important?” he asked unsteadily.

“Finding you is the most important thing that’s happened to
me out of this whole mess, Gabriel,” she told him gently. “I love you. I
realized that this morning when Drew called. I suddenly knew what was really important
in this whole mess.”

He uttered an inarticulate sound and hauled her back against
him, wrapping her so tight and close she knew she would feel the ache in her
muscles when he released her.

“Samantha!” He buried his face in her hair, and she felt the
tremor that went through him. “Samantha. Oh, my God, lady, you are the only
person on earth with the power to completely traumatize me. Life was so peaceful
before you came along.”

“I know. I know, Gabriel. I’m sorry.”

“Samantha, if you apologize one more time I s-s-shall probably
beat you. Just s-s-shut up, will you?”

“Our partnership would never have worked anyway. You’re
always giving me orders. It’s just as well the business arrangement between us
is over. Sooner or later I would have gotten tired of taking orders.”

“You never did take them very well. Samantha, are you aware
of what you have done?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take into consideration the thought that you might
have called me for a consultation before agreeing to Buchanan’s price?”

“No.”

“Did it occur to you that Buchanan made the threat to you
instead of me because he knew I might not go along with it?” Gabriel grated.

“Yes. Drew is very adept at reading people. He knew you
would have stuck by me to the end, regardless of the threat.”

“But you, on the other hand, caved in at once. Because you
love me.” He sounded as if he were trying to get all the facts straight, to put
all the pieces of the puzzle together before dealing with the issue at hand. Typical
Gabriel Sinclair approach to a problem. Methodical.

“Yes.”

“Samantha, was I really more important to you than having
your revenge on Drew Buchanan? More important than proving yourself your mother’s
daughter?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t take it in. That you gave up everything you’ve
worked for during the past three years for the sake of what you feel for me.”
He hesitated, as if mulling it all over in his head. “Oh, hell, it was that damn
promise I made you swear that night, wasn’t it? Oh, Samantha, I’m the one who’s
sorry. How could you think I ever meant that oath to force you to give up everything
you’ve been working for?”

“I didn’t even think about the promise. I just knew I couldn’t
do anything to hurt you.” She lifted her hands to cradle his face. “Stop
worrying about it, Gabriel. I’m not going to regret this. Some things I’m
absolutely sure of. And I’m sure that I’ll never regret falling in love with
you. Although,” she added as a whimsical afterthought, “you may very well regret
it. Darling Gabriel, I’m not exactly right for you, am I?”

“You’re absolutely perfect for me.” He breathed heavily. “And
you must know by now that I love you.” He wrapped her closer, molding her to
him as if afraid that she might somehow evaporate.

“Do you, Gabriel?” Samantha surrendered to the enveloping
embrace. “Do you really love me?”

“Come inside and I’ll show you.”

She laughed up at him, happier than she had ever been in her
life. “Are you going to make mad, passionate love to me on the floor in the
living room?”

“No, I’m going to make you the best pasta primavera you’ve
ever tasted in your life,” he vowed, pulling her against his side and starting
toward the door.

“And then?” she prompted happily.

“And then I will make love to you. But not on the floor in
the living room. This time I think we’ll use the bed.”

The thing about Gabriel Sinclair, Samantha reminded herself
for the hundredth time, was that you could trust him completely. And he’d said
he’d loved her.

***

A long time later, after the incomparable pasta and the even
more incomparable lovemaking, Gabriel lay with Samantha cradled in his arms and
gazed thoughtfully up at the ceiling of his bedroom. Tucked in his arms, she
slept peacefully, her leg entwined with his and the tip of one breast pressing
lightly against his chest.

She loved him.

He still couldn’t quite believe his luck. He realized vaguely
that he must have fallen in love with her almost from the beginning. What else
could account for his crazy actions? Where was the line between desire and love?
Not that it mattered. He’d crossed it long ago with Samantha.

She’d walked away from three years of stalking and planning
just because of that bastard Buchanan’s threats to the man she loved.

Sweet idiot.

No, that wasn’t fair, he told himself indulgently. There was
nothing lacking with her brainpower. She simply had a set of principles that
sometimes got in her way and a sense of loyalty which did the same. He’d seen what
she would do out of loyalty. Her determination to help Eric was evidence and so
was her confession the other morning about the real reason behind her plot against
Buchanan.

He knew he could trust her. But he hadn’t dared to dream
that the mutual trust they shared would grow into love. He’d had no right to
expect so much.

He shifted slightly, rolling over onto his side. Samantha mumbled
a sleepy protest and snuggled more closely against him. For a long moment he
studied her as she lay beside him tangled in shadows and sheets. She was a
woman he would be able to trust for the rest of his life.

He knew in that moment that he would do anything for her.
She was truly his, and he would take care of her, even when she didn’t
particularly want to be taken care of. A smile edged the line of his mouth as
he considered what living with Samantha was going to be like.

But there were other matters to be cleared up first before
he informed Samantha that she was moving in with him.

“Samantha,” he whispered huskily.