Double Dealing (40 page)

“Have the papers sent to Samantha’s home, Buchanan,” Gabriel
added easily, taking Samantha’s arm. “And remember, the final price is five
hundred thousand.” Suddenly he grinned his deep-sea smile. “You ought to be
grateful to me, you know. If I’d let Samantha have her way, you’d be
s-s-shelling out seven hundred and fifty thousand instead of only five hundred.
You got a deal.”

“Get the fuck out of my office!” Buchanan roared.

***

One week later Samantha opened the door of her home to Vera
Maitland.

“Run this one off, Mom, and never forgive you,” she told the
handsome older woman who stood on the doorstep as she hugged her.

“If I can run him off, he’s not worth having, is he?” Vera
Maitland retorted practically.

“I never run when I can walk,” Gabriel murmured from the
hallway behind Samantha. “How do you do, Ms. Maitland? I’m Gabriel Sinclair.”

He stood patiently beneath the assessing gaze from the eyes
that were so like Samantha’s, and then he smiled. “Why don’t you come on in to
the kitchen? I was just making tea.”

Vera glanced at her daughter as Gabriel turned and walked
away from them. “There’s something rather massive about him, isn’t there?”

“My first thought exactly. Strange, isn’t it? I mean, he’s
not that tall and there’s no fat on him. He’s just sort of there. Very
reassuring at times.”

Maternal anxiety flickered briefly in Vera’s eyes. “Sam, honey,
are you sure you know what you’re doing this time?”

“Wait until you taste his cooking.” Samantha grinned, guiding
her mother into the kitchen.

The shortbread was still warm from the oven, and Gabriel was
carefully pouring tea when Vera and Samantha walked into the inviting room. He
glanced up and smiled complacently. “Lemon or sugar, Ms. Maitland?”

“Lemon,” Vera told him, watching closely. “And call me Vera,
Gabriel.”

He nodded, concentrating on the task at hand as Vera and
Samantha took their chairs. When the tea was properly poured and the pot set
precisely on its trivet, he sat down and picked up the plate of shortbread. He extended
it politely to Vera, who hesitated and then helped herself to a thick wedge.

“You made this?” she inquired cautiously, sampling the warm,
crumbly cookie.

“The man cooks divinely,” Samantha assured her.

Gabriel smiled benignly. “Fortunately. Otherwise this marriage
might be in bad shape. Samantha’s culinary abilities seem to be limited to frozen
pizza, Vera. You did a lousy job on certain aspects of her education.”

Vera gave him a level glance. “I taught her the important
things.”

Gabriel nodded. “I-won’t argue there. Some of those things
you taught her are a few of the reasons I’m marrying her.”

“Why are you marrying her, Gabriel?” Vera demanded coolly.

Samantha winced. Her mother in this quizzing, aggressive mood
could be quite formidable. Gabriel didn’t even falter, however, under that
aggression.

“I’m marrying her because, even though the woman can’t cook,
she has a few other attributes I happen to value.”

“Such as?”

“I can trust her implicitly. She’s utterly loyal, and she’s
one hell of a business partner when the chips are down. I suppose I have you to
thank for teaching her those things.” Gabriel glanced with a sidelong glance at
Samantha, who was munching on her shortbread with delicate greed. “Some of the
other reasons I love her aren’t exactly things you taught her. She was born
with them.”

“Don’t be crude in front of my mother, Gabriel.” Samantha
reached for her tea.

“And some of the things I love about her didn’t come from
you or from genetics. Some talents she just appears to have developed on her
own, like her remarkable ability to fill my life with various and assorted s-shocks
and surprises. It’s been a struggle trying to cope at times, but I realize now
that it does add another dimension to my rather humdrum little world.”

“Don’t let the man fool you,” Samantha advised her mother. “His
world hardly qualifies as humdrum. He’s managed to take me by surprise on more
than one occasion. And I used to think he was such an angel,” she added with
mocking wistfulness. Across the table her eyes met Gabriel’s, and a message of
loving amusement flashed between them.

Vera Maitland didn’t miss the exchange. “I am pleased,” she
began thoughtfully, “that you recognize some of the qualities I tried to
instill in Samantha. I wanted her to grow up with a sense of pride and
integrity. I wanted her to know the meaning of honor and loyalty…” Her voice
trailed off as she glanced at her daughter. “But…”

“But you didn’t expect her to throw all that away on a man,
did you, Vera?” Gabriel asked softly. “You hoped s-she’d apply them to the
worthy causes of this world. But Samantha is not another you, Vera. Not completely.
You commit yourself to great battles; she makes her commitment to people.”

Vera stared at him, her teacup halfway to her mouth. For a
long moment she studied the man her daughter would soon be marrying. “Do you
know, Gabriel Sinclair, you may be right,” she said at last. “You may very well
be right. I never thought of it that way.”

“Of course, I’m right.” He handed her the plate of shortbread.
“It’s much riskier, you know.”

“What is?” Vera asked sharply.

“Committing yourself to people instead of causes. You can
always walk away without too much regret when a cause turns sour. You can’t
walk away from people so easily. Much more of an emotional investment involved.”

“For a businessman,” Vera observed as she helped herself to
another piece of shortbread, “you have a surprisingly interesting grasp of the
fundamentals of human dynamics. If you are right, then I can only be grateful
my daughter has found a man who appreciates what he’s getting.”

“S-she has,” he assured her equably. “And may I say that for
a lifelong radical you have a surprising amount of sensitivity to people.”

“If I could interrupt for a moment,” Samantha broke in with
mock politeness, “perhaps I could have another cup of tea?”

Vera smiled. A wide, brilliant smile that Gabriel had seen
on her daughter on occasion. “I wouldn’t mind another cup myself, Gabriel. And
don’t worry dear,” she directed toward her daughter. “I’m going to accept the
marriage. I get the feeling I couldn’t run Gabriel off if I tried.”

“As I said, Vera,” he murmured, “I rarely run. The only
excess energy I have expended lately has been in pursuit of Samantha. The
effort has quite exhausted me. I won’t be doing any unnecessary exercise for
quite a while.”

***

The move to Gabriel’s house was decided with a toss of a coin.
Gabriel groaned when Samantha suggested that simple technique of deciding which
of them was to move where. When his beachfront home won the toss, he worried
about whether Samantha really would be happy in California.

“I can’t wait to get into that lovely, neat house of yours
and muss it up a little,” she assured him zestfully.

Gabriel groaned again, but there was a gleam of amusement in
his eyes this time. It was going to be interesting to see what Samantha would
do. Maybe, just like his life, his house could use a few surprises.

The keys of the old Victorian were handed over to its new
resident, Eric Thorndyke, and Samantha and Gabriel set off on the drive to
California one cold, rainy morning.

The move had gone with remarkable smoothness as far as Samantha
was concerned, but that was undoubtedly because Gabriel had organized it. It
was true the packing had taken much longer under his supervision, and the
various arrangements necessary for setting up her corporation in California
seemed to take forever, but both were done with a thoroughness which assured they
had been done right.

One hour into the drive south Gabriel asked the question he
had been mulling over in his mind since Vera Maitland had left a few weeks
earlier. “Why didn’t you tell your mother about the coup you pulled on Buchanan?”

A tiny smile edged Samantha’s mouth. “Somehow it just didn’t
seem all that important. I stopped needing the revenge somewhere along the way.
We didn’t wind up going after Buchanan for revenge, anyway. We went after him
to protect our partnership.”

“To protect each other,” he agreed calmly. “I love you,
Samantha.”

“I love you, Gabriel.” Proving herself her mother’s daughter
simply didn’t matter anymore, Samantha thought. She was quite content to be
herself.

Which was, of course, the most important lesson her mother
had tried to teach her. Samantha had learned it on her own.

On their first night back in the seaside home, Samantha suggested
a walk on the beach after dinner. The meal had been superb, as usual, and she
was feeling pleasantly stuffed on trout with caviar cream sauce, a watercress and
cucumber salad, and a luscious lemon meringue pie which Gabriel had insisted on
making in honor of the first meal he had served her.

With her arm wrapped around his waist and Gabriel cradling
her close to his side, Samantha walked in silence for a time, drinking in the
fresh salt air and the moonlit darkness. Underneath her feet the sand was firm
and resilient.

Gabriel’s hand tightened around her, and she was pulled a
little closer to the hard line of his thigh. It occurred to Samantha that in a
few more minutes she wasn’t going to be in a mood to talk. Once Gabriel started
to make love to her, she was really quite helpless to resist, she thought in
satisfaction. Therefore what she had to say had best be said quickly.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” she said
quietly.

“
Ummm
?” Gabriel’s voice was a
rumbling purr of masculine content.

“A business matter.”

Some of the contentment went out of Gabriel’s tone. “Go on.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about the old man down in Phoenix.
The one we bought the restaurant from.”

“And?” She could hear him waiting for the punch line and
smiled to herself. Poor Gabriel. He was already preparing himself for another
bombshell.

“I think we ought to split the five hundred thousand with
him, Gabriel. After all, if it hadn’t been for him, we’d never have made that
deal work.”

“Split it with him!” He swung to a halt and turned to eye
her closely in the darkness. “Split it with the taco stand owner? But,
Samantha, we gave him fifty grand for that place, and it wasn’t worth more than
thirty at the most! He was delighted with the deal!”

“He didn’t know what we knew, though. He didn’t realize how
much the place was worth,” she pointed out. “We sort of took advantage of him,
Gabriel.”

He gave her a very stern look. “Samantha, I think I’d better
explain a few business facts of life to you, honey. When you’ve pulled off a
coup like the one we did down in Phoenix, and when all the moves have been legal
and aboveboard, there’s really no need to go around distributing a percentage
of the take to every passerby!”

She twined her arms around his neck and smiled dreamily up
at him. “We can talk about it in the morning if you’d rather.”

“Samantha…!”

“But we are going to split with him. Don’t worry, Gabriel, I
won’t make a practice of giving away the profits. It’s just that in this case I
think ifs only right to share with that old man.”

“How much,” he asked forbiddingly, “were you thinking of
giving the former owner?”

“Oh, say a hundred thousand. We split the rest between us.”

“You still owe me my fifty thousand investment,” he reminded
her on a growl.

“Gabriel, we’re partners. You’re supposed to think of that
fifty thousand as a mutual investment made by both of us.”

“Strange, mine was the only name on the check.”

“Details,” she scoffed lightly.

“Samantha,” he warned, his large hands slipping around her
waist, “if you’re going to start giving away my portion of our investments,
then you’re going to have to make it worth my while.” His fingers tightened meaningfully.

She frowned. “Gabriel, I’m not ready yet. I’m still talking
business.”

“In a partnership,” he breathed, his mouth hovering an inch
above hers, “you can’t always have everything your own way.”

“Gabriel, wait, I wanted to…”

But the words were sealed in her throat as his mouth took
possession of hers. Samantha gave up the effort to discuss business and
surrendered to the inviting warmth of him.

Gabriel felt the way her body softened against his hardness
and sighed his satisfaction into the honeyed cavern of her mouth. Time enough
in the morning to explain a few basic principles of venture capitalism. Right
now the only thing which was really clear in his head was the need to take his
woman to bed.

He found the fastenings of her leather jacket and undid them
slowly, thrusting his hands inside to find the curves of her unconfined
breasts. He heard her small, kitten-soft moan, and the desire surged through him.
She was his. She would always be his. All he had to do was put his hand on her
at any hour of the day or night and she would smile and come to him. He’d never
had such power or known such extraordinary comfort.

But, then, neither had he ever been held in such thrall
before, either. Because the other side of the coin showed him as deeply in this
woman’s power as she was in his.

“Samantha,” he muttered huskily against her ear, “from the
very beginning I wanted to lay you down and make you mine. Then I realized I
wanted to protect you from your own recklessness and from people like Buchanan.
But I never thought to ask who was going to protect me from you.”

“Do you want protection?” she murmured, smiling up at him
with love.

“No. I prefer to operate under the ridiculous illusion that
I can handle you.” He chuckled softly. He dropped his hands from the warmth of
her breasts and refastened her jacket. Then he caught her wrist and started back
toward the house. “Come home with me, sweetheart. I want to go over some of the
details of this contract we have between us.”