Foolish Notions (29 page)

“That would have been nice.”
He rubbed a hand across the coarse stubble along his jaw.

“I’m not your girlfriend or
your roommate.”

“No, you were just sleeping with
me and living in my home.” The words oozed with sarcasm.

Samantha flinched as the crudeness of
his words hit her. “I was your employee. You were my boss,”
she pointed out. “The job was over, so I left.” She said
the last words quietly.

“The job wasn’t over.”

“Marie is fine,” she
countered. “I spoke with her this morning.”

James sent her a cautious look. “We
aren’t over.”

“We never started,” she
flung at him.

“We never goddamn ended.”
The back of his jaw clenched tensely.

“I already told you—”

“I hope you’re not about to
remind me that all we were having was sex. That would not be wise
right now, Samantha.”

“You coming here isn’t
wise.”

James’s eyes narrowed
momentarily.

“What do you want, James?”

“You.”

“You want her, too.”

“What the hell are you talking
about?”

“I saw you with her before you
left. I watched her get into the limo with you.”

“What?”

“Like a fool I went after you.”
Tears of utter humiliation clouded her eyes. “I’m not
going to be foolish anymore.”

An intimate look, a look of disbelief,
crept into his dark eyes. “That morning, you—you came—”

“Get out,” she said with a
cold-hearted stare.

“You came for me?”

“Get out.”

“Not a chance.” He took a
step. “Why did you come after me?”

“I said get out.” Her hand
shot to the door. “Leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.
Tell me. I want to know why.”

“Tell me, why is it after we make
love you have to go to her?”

Every muscle in his body reacted. His
fists balled at his sides as his pulse jolted. “Find your
keys.” The words came out as a direct order.

“Excuse me?”

“Get your keys, Samantha. You are
coming home with me.” His peripheral vision remained on her as
he glanced around the room. “Right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere
with you.”

The veins at James’s temple
started to protrude again. He cleared his voice before he spoke. “If
I have to toss you over my goddamn shoulder and carry you to my car,
I will.” He spotted her purse on the kitchen table, retrieved
it, and then pushed it into her hands. “Don’t tempt me
Samantha, I’ll do it.”

“You can’t just pick me up
and cart me off.”

He took a step forward. “You want
to bet?”

Samantha shook her head.

“Good.” He took her hand in
his and headed out the door. He deposited her in the passenger seat
and moved around the car. He looked at her briefly over the hood. By
the end of the night she would know everything that had happened. If
she chose not to stay with him after she heard what he had to say
then he would let her go. His stomach started to churn at the thought
of her leaving him. He tried in vain to disregard the notion as he
slid behind the wheel and started the car.

The ride across town was thirty minutes
of uncomfortable silence. The tires squealed around every corner and
he slid several feet when he stopped in front of his house. He flung
open the car door and met Samantha on the other side of the car. Once
in the house, James gestured up the stairs. “My room.”

Samantha was about to say something,
but the look on James’s face silenced her. She followed him up
the stairs.

James’s hand shot out when they
entered the room. “On the bed.”

“I—”

“Sit on the bed, Samantha.”
The words were said sharply as he disappeared into the huge walk-in
closet.

Samantha sat on the very edge of the
mattress. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder at the bed.
Images of their lovemaking were already dancing through her head. For
some strange reason she felt guilty for thinking about it, for her
body responding to it. Noise from the closet caused her to look up,
relieving her of any more culpable thoughts.

When James quietly reappeared, he
leaned against the wall and stared at Samantha. “That night on
the beach—”

Samantha shot off the bed. “I
don’t want to hear this.”

“I need to tell you what happened
that night.” His voice lowered. “And regardless of what
you think, you need to hear it.”

“No, I don’t.” She
twisted her hands together. She would rather die than hear him admit
that he had been with another woman. “It’s not going to
make a bit of difference. I know what happened. I saw what happened
with my own eyes. I saw her get into the limo and I saw her in the
lobby kissing you.” She looked around the room hysterically. “I
want to go home.”

“You’re being unfair.”

Samantha turned suddenly. Her temper
sparked. “What would you have done if you walked in and saw me
kissing another man the way you were kissing that woman?”

“I’d probably beat the
living shit out of him.”

“And you think I’m being
unfair just because I don’t want to hear all about it?”

He moved across the room and stopped
several feet from her. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

“You never got me back.”
She watched his eyes dart over her shoulder to the bed as he walked
toward her. She knew what he was thinking. “James, I can’t
explain it. My body wants you but my heart won’t let me
forget.” There was no emotion in her voice. She was purely
stating the obvious.

“It’s not just physical,
Samantha. I don’t care how much you try to convince yourself of
that. You wouldn’t have let me make love to you unless you
loved me.”

“It had been over a year since a
man had even touched me. I think that had more to do with it than
anything.”

“Your reasoning isn’t going
to work.” For a moment he stood perfectly still. “I love
you.”

Her blood pressure spiked. She could
actually hear the blood pounding in her head, pushing through her
veins. “How can you stand here and say that?”

“Because it’s true.”

“You lying son of—”

“This is how I can stand here and
say I love you.” He pulled a black velvet box from his pants
pocket. He held it in the space that separated them.

Samantha’s hand went to her mouth
as she watched James open the small box and take out a solitaire
diamond ring.

“I planned to give this to you
the night we made love on the beach.” He tried to control his
voice. “I was going to ask you to marry me.”

She smacked at him wildly. “You
son-of-a-bitch.” Her voice was pure venom as she smacked the
ring out of his hand. “How dare you? How dare you do this to
me?” She pushed his chest hard. “Does she know that you
were going to propose to me?” She shouted in his face. “Does
she know that we made love? Does she know—”

“Stop,” he said as he
gathered her hands. “This isn’t about her, this is about
us. I love you. Don’t you get it?”

She shook her head and felt her lip
tremble as she caught it between her teeth. “I will never
forgive you for this.”

Reaching into his coat pocket he took
out his phone and flipped it open. He dialed a few numbers. “It’s
Taylor. You need to get over to my house immediately. No, it doesn’t
have anything to do with that—this is personal.” He shook
his head briskly. “I don’t care about your goddamn
policy.” Each word seeped through teeth clamped so tightly they
began to ache from the continual pressure. “If you don’t
come here, I’ll come there. Take your pick. I don’t give
a damn about the repercussions.” There was a pause. “No,
that’s out of the question. Fifteen minutes or I’m coming
over.”

When the conversation was over and the
phone was tucked back into his pocket he looked at Samantha. “We
can wait downstairs.”

“I’m going home.”

He reached for her arm. “You’re
going downstairs.”

Exactly fifteen minutes later the
doorbell rang. James shot Samantha a stay-put look and went to answer
the door.

The woman, who was dressed in sneakers,
jeans, and a white T-shirt, was hot on James’s trail when they
walked into the room. Her dark brown hair was pulled gently back into
a long ponytail and a look of hard anger lit her jade-green eyes.

Recognizing her immediately, Samantha
stood and headed for the door.

“Goddamn it, sit Samantha,”
James demanded.

“I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not.” He
grabbed her arm. “Not until you’ve met Alicia.”

Alicia looked directly at James, paying
no attention to Samantha. “I don’t know what in the hell
you think you’re doing. How dare you put me in this type of
position?”

James blew out a long breath. “Al,
tell Samantha what you do.”

“Mr. Taylor, I don’t care
who you are, what company you run, or how much money you pay me—we
have a contract.”

“I understand. However, this is
important. I promise you—”

“I don’t want your
promises. I want you to abide by the contract you signed.” Her
face was an uncompromising stare. “You know how I feel about
this.”

“I can’t let it slide
again.” He had slowly died inside the first time for keeping
his mouth shut. It would kill him he if he did it again.

“That’s not my problem.”

“It is now.”

“You signed a confidentiality
clause which provides for serious consequences if it is ever
breached—”

“Sue me,” James snapped.
“Just tell her who the hell you are.”

“What’s going on?”
Samantha said, desperately looking between the two.

“I don’t care if I lose
everything,” James continued. “She needs to know the
truth.”

“We went over this last time,”
Alicia insisted.

James directed his words to Samantha
but continued to look at Alicia when he spoke. “Al is a former
U.S. intelligence officer. She retired from the Department of Defense
two years ago. She now owns and operates an investigations company,
which specializes in corporate espionage.”

James turned to Samantha. “I
hired Al a year ago when I thought my company was being spied on.”

Samantha felt the color drain from her
face. She shook her head in denial. She couldn’t believe what
he was saying. There was too much at stake if she did. All this
couldn’t just be a simple misunderstanding. “No.”

“Yes, Samantha. I hired her
again, a few months ago, because we have a new product being released
very soon and our competitors were trying to find out what it was.”

“They were trying to steal it,”
Alicia reluctantly corrected under her breath.

Samantha’s eyes were filled with
torment and regret when she looked at him. “But she was in your
arms. I saw the both of you kissing.” The words fell out of her
mouth in dismay.

James looked at Alicia frantically.
“What you say will never leave this room. I swear on my life.
You can’t expect me to do this again.”

“I was undercover,” Alicia
said after a very long and thoughtful moment. “I do whatever it
takes to get the information.” She took a deep breath and
looked over to James and then back to Samantha. “People don’t
know who I am. I have to keep it that way. I pretended to be Mr.
Taylor’s girlfriend.” She lifted her shoulders. “I’ve
also been a janitor, a man, and an opera singer. It’s all a
part of what I do. I take on whatever role that allows me to get the
information I need.” She cleared her throat. “I was the
one who called that evening. I got word that there was a party, which
posed the perfect opportunity for Mr. Taylor and I to get near the
suspect. Trust me, I got an earful when he told me I interrupted what
he said was the most important moment of his life.”

Samantha looked to James when he spoke.
“She couldn’t get into the party without me. I needed to
go,” he explained. “I called her the morning I left for
Europe because whoever was trying to steal information was also
trying to collapse the merger.”

Alicia nodded in agreement.

Samantha began to shake. “Oh my
God, what have I done?”

James tore his gaze from Samantha and
looked to Alicia.

“I’ll show myself out,”
she said as she turned.

“Al—” James began.

She stopped. “I was never here.”

James closed his eyes briefly. “Thank
you.”

* * * * *

When they were alone, Samantha shed
tears that were pure anguish. She had let the man she loved with all
her heart go because of a mistake. Because he was doing his job. The
onslaught of emotions threw her off balance. Would she ever be able
to forgive herself? Would he ever be able to forgive her? “You
couldn’t tell me,” she said in sudden understanding.

“Not if I wanted to keep my job.”
He shook his head. “Why didn’t you trust me?”

They weren’t the actual words
that he said that caused Samantha’s heart to drop into the pit
of her stomach; it was the way he said them. She felt his pain. No
words would ever be able to convey how terribly sorry she was.

“In the beginning all I wanted to
do was make you understand what really happened.” He lifted his
shoulders. “But after a while I got to thinking, what kind of
relationship did we have if you didn’t trust me? I became angry
and started resenting you for leaving.”

“I don’t even know what to
say.” She touched his arm, though she really wanted to wrap her
arms around him and never let him go. “I’m so sorry I
doubted you. How could I have not trusted our love? Your love for
me.”

“When I saw you that first day in
my mom’s room I knew none of it mattered. I didn’t care
that you didn’t trust me. I wanted you back. I wanted to tell
you I was never unfaithful and I never stopped loving you but I knew
you wouldn’t listen. I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

The moment he touched her, she lifted
her head and nestled it into the crook of his neck. “So, now
what?”

He pulled away and smiled. “Angel,
I’m never letting you go.”