He looked back at Desmond. You still haven’t answered my question.” He closed his eyes and when he opened them again there was hatred shining in them.
“When I found out what they did, I hated them! I left the company and moved to Australia. I could not deal with my part in what they did. I loved you, Sammy! I would never have … if only I had known!” He had tears in his eyes and Samantha moved towards him, but Nicolas hauled her back.
“NO!”
“Nic …”
“She has to go. I will tell you, but not with her here.” Nicolas turned on him, anger flashing at him.
“You have no right to demand anything!”
“Then you can beat me to a pulp, but I will not tell you, unless she leaves!” Nicolas glared at him, but noticed the rigid determination in his gaze and knew he meant every word he said.
He turned to Samantha. “You heard the man. Go and wait in the car … please? This is the only way we will get to the truth.”
“Promise you won’t hit him again?”
He looked at her, feeling his heart contract. How empty his life has been without her in it! He nodded, kissed her softly and turned her towards the door. He watched until he saw her climbing in his car before he turned back to Desmond, pushing his fists in his pockets. His eyes were hard as spiked granite.
“I’m waiting.”
The name churned in his head, over and over and he still could not believe it. His face was expressionless and his jaw rigid. Samantha glanced at him worriedly.
He had not said a word since he got in the car and drove away. The expression in his eyes ripped her heart into pieces; hurt, regret, wariness, uncertainty, disbelief and then fury washed it away.
She placed her hand on his thigh and stroked his leg, watching him. He dropped his hand to hers and gripped it so tightly she winced, but he did not even realize the strength with which he grasped her hand, and she knew he needed to hold on to her. She knew he was trying to sort through the scramble of emotions in his mind and she grew more and more terrified.
What did Desmond tell him? What was so terrible that it turned this man into stone, shutting her out completely?
When he switched the car off, he turned to her and looked at her with haunted eyes. How could anyone be so cruel towards another human being? Someone so beautiful, so innocent and so naïve, even at twenty one. Her eyes pierced his questioningly, but her lip was caught between her teeth. He realized he was scaring her and he sighed, forcing a small smile on his lips.
He got out of the car, walked around to open the door for her and pulled her into a tight embrace. So tight, she battled to breathe; he rested his face in her neck and lifted her feet off the ground to hold her even tighter against him. It was a natural movement to wrap her legs around him and gather him even closer against her heart and he moaned in her neck. She felt the moisture on his cheek pressed in her neck and she drew a tortured breath. What in God’s name spooked him so much? His voice cracked and he hugged her tighter.
“I am so sorry!”
Chapter Fifteen
“Samantha, honey please. I already told you, I will resolve this soon, and until I find a way to get the guilty party’s full admission to the part they played, I am not going to discuss this with you.”
“It’s not fair that you are carrying the burden on my behalf! Whoever it is and whatever Desmond told you, is haunting you and I have the right to know! I am the one that suffered!”
“Yes, you are and because of that I will not allow you to suffer any further.” Nicolas pulled her on his lap and hugged her close. “Please be patient a little while longer. I need to think this through and make sure there will be no further attempts to discredit or hurt you.” He kissed her softly on her temple, then pushed her off his lap and gave a soft slap on her buttocks.
“I have a meeting at Excellence in fifteen minutes, and if I don’t leave now I will be late.”
Samantha turned to him, still very worried and now, scared.
“Are you saying I am in danger? Whoever this person is, is out to hurt me further?” Nicolas stood up and walked around his desk to pull her in his arms, his eyes serious.
“I am not prepared to take any chances and maybe I am being over protective and cautious, but I was not there for you six years ago and …”
“You were not responsible for me then!”
“But I wanted to be! I wanted to be from the day I met you. I wanted you, even when you were seventeen years old! But I bided my time, and decided the moment you returned my kiss, on your twenty first birthday that I had waited long enough. I was livid to find you in his bed, livid that I misjudged you and that you were as wild and as promiscuous as everyone claimed.” He pulled his hands through his hair and sighed.
“I kept looking at you, wanting you to deny everything you father called you, needed you to! But all I saw in my mind’s eye was how sexually satisfied you looked when we found you, you looked … satiated … so damned sexy … and when you didn’t deny anything, I believed it too. The things that didn’t make sense at the time forgotten, because by your actions, I agreed that you went looking for it!”
Her face was as pale as the white wall behind her and she swallowed painfully.
“Do you … do you still believe that?”
He looked at her for so long, her heart started cracking, then his hands folded around her face and his eyes were clear for the first time, his voice warm and soft.
“Thinking back, I don’t think I even believed it then. I knew why you flirted with him and in a way it warmed my heart. I went looking for you to put a stop to it, but by that time … No, honey, I knew you didn’t, it was just my ego that were bruised that you chose someone other than me.”
“That is just it! I chose you, the day I met you! But I knew you were too old for me then and that Daddy would never allow a relationship between us. I was in the clouds when you kissed me, but then you flirted with all the other girls and ignored me. As you said, I was naïve and I should have seen it for what it was and not retaliated by flirting with him. To this day I still don’t know why I chose him! There were so many other young guys there!”
He drew her close and hugged her tight. “Shh … it’s okay, you don’t have to explain.”
“I need to. I stopped defending myself, not because of what Daddy was saying, but because of … how you looked at me. It broke my heart. The one person I needed to believe me thought I was a … slut. I loved you even then, and nothing else mattered after I saw that look in your eyes.”
His eyes turned nearly silver and were filled with regret.
“I never thought that of you! You made a mistake yes, but I never thought of you as a slut!”
He shook her slightly to reiterate his point. “And don’t you ever think that again!” His head lowered and he kissed her so deeply and passionately she completely relaxed against him.
He groaned. “I am late for my meeting, honey, I really have to go. Shall we go out to dinner tonight?”
She smiled and nodded; her emotions still in turbulence and uncertainty milled through her mind. She had told him numerous times she loved him, yet the only thing he admitted to, was that he wanted her. Was that all he felt for her? Desire and guilt for what happened to her?
Samantha groaned when she walked into the house and found her mother on the patio waiting for her. She avoided her since she came back and with her emotions in such turmoil she really did not have the energy for a confrontation.
To further delay the impending confrontation she went upstairs to dress in a cool sundress, hoping Nicolas would arrive in the meantime. No such luck however, and she took a deep breath before she walked out to the patio.
“Mother,” she nodded in greeting. Shona looked at her sadly. She had missed her so much and was ecstatic when she accepted all the conditions in the testament and moved back. She cried in her heart. She has hardly seen her however and needed to clear the air between them.
“Samantha, you
look lovely! I hope you don’t mind me just dropping by?”
“Of course not. This place is part of the family legacy, so to speak.”
Her voice turned bitter. The more she thought about it, the more she saw the bequeathals from her father as pay off. Pay-off to appease his guilt for chasing her away.
Shona winced. “How … how have you been? We’ve not really had an opportunity to talk.”
“What do you want, Mother?”
“Have you read your father’s letter?
“No.”
“Why not? Sammy, I need to …”
“Because nothing he would say now would matter. In line with the excessive inheritance he gave me, let’s take a guess. My dear Samantha, I am so sorry for chasing you away. Eventhough you were a slut, I should not have …”
“Samantha! What did I tell you this morning?” She stiffened when Nicolas thundered behind her, but her eyes remained trained on her mother, who had gone as pale as a sheet. Nicolas placed his hands on her shoulders and greeted Shona over her head.
“Shona, it’s good to see you. What brought you out this way?”
“I … thought,” she sighed, “Sammy, please can we not try and talk about it? I missed you so much!”
“Talk about what, Mother? About how you threw my clothes at my face, screaming at me to get my cheap, little whore’s body out of your house?”
She smirked at the stricken look on her mother’s face and ignored Nicolas’s hands that tightened like clamps on her shoulders, his indrawn breath loud in the sudden quiet.
“I never … I can’t remember … oh God, no Sammy! Please, I never would have said something like that to you! Never! I was disappointed and angry yes, but I never …”
“Oh, but you did! You know what they say. In anger does the truth come out. Let’s see, how about how you knew I would be a disappointment to Daddy the day I was born? Or about how you denounced me as your daughter?” Her voice rose higher, was shrill and hoarse at the end.
“No, no, no! I would never have done that! You were my first born! I loved you!”
“Yes, so much so that I overheard you tell Uncle Jamie how you regretted having me. How I should rather not have been born at all!” Her voice had lost all feeling.
“You … that … how can you remember … I … no!” Shona was devastated. She remembered the incident well, and has regretted ever uttering those words.
“Why not? Because I was only twelve years old? Why do you think I acted and rebelled so much? If you said that, it must mean that Daddy felt the same. So I set out to do just what you wanted … first I was a tomboy and when you all accepted that as a normal phase, I became what I was … at least that got some reaction from you and him! At least then you paid attention to me! No, mother dear, if there is one thing you will never convince me off, it is that you love me!”
At this point she was sobbing and tears streamed down her cheeks, but she did not even notice. She swung around and only then realized Nicolas was standing behind her, as still as a statue, an expression of loathing on his face as he looked at Shona. His voice quivered in his anger.
“I think you better leave.”
“Please listen to me. I didn’t mean those words! You must have only heard part of the discussion! No! Listen Samantha! Go and talk to Jamie! Please, please go and talk to him. He will tell you!”
She realized that nothing she said at that point would matter. Both of them were too upset. She jumped up and ran to her car, sobbing earnestly.
Nicolas has never felt so deflated. How much more were there Samantha had to work through on her own? Samantha stood gazing towards the hills, her shoulders shaking. He pulled her back against him, his arms folding around her. She folded her hands around his arms and held on tight. They stood like that for a long time, neither one saying a word, the only sounds the small forlorn sobs from Samantha every now and then.
He kissed her softly on her ear, whispering passionately. “One day … one day soon, there will be no more tears. I promise you that!”
That night Nicolas made love to her so sweetly and tenderly the tears flowed again, and every time he kissed them away. He spend most of the night consoling and loving her, drawing all her hurt and pain into himself, giving her only joy and pleasure, saturating her mind with new memories.
Nicolas looked at the woman sitting on the other side of the desk, his face expressionless. He could not understand how they could be sisters. Elaine had a cruelty and an emptiness that were more and more pronounced the older she became. She was bemoaning the fact again that she needed more money and he sighed. Why the devil Alexander ever put him in charge of her money he would never know.
His eyes sharpened as a thought flashed through his mind and he smiled sardonically at her. “Here is a thought. Why don’t you come back to work? It was never Alexander’s intention that you become a spoilt heiress.”
“I told you I do … on the other hand … maybe you are right. It is a brilliant idea, it serves me no purpose to have all that money and I can’t spend it. Sitting around without money is no fun. So, where will I fall in? Back in Sales?”
He appeared thoughtful. This was the ideal opportunity to get to Jason Wieldman. However, he needed to be sure his suspicion was correct. She accepted his suggestion too eagerly and quickly. Clearly she was up to something.
“No, I think your project management skills are ideal to run our latest R & D project. You do understand how highly confidential this is and you are at least trustworthy not to leak information.”
“Of course! You know you can trust me! So, I’ll fall in on Monday?” At his nod, she jumped up, barely able to contain her excitement. “Now, you’ll have to excuse me, I have a lunch appointment.”
He nodded and turned to his laptop before she even finished talking, taking notice of her gleeful smile as she walked out his office. He watched her until she disappeared into the elevator; he jumped up and ran to his private elevator, praying to beat her to the ground floor. The anger that had been shimmering inside him since Harris told him everything, he knew was close to erupting, and he had to force himself to remain seated when she walked into his office.
He was already sitting in his car when she got into hers, talking on her cell phone. He started his car and followed her and was not surprised that she drove straight to Wieldman Enterprises. He was surprised however to see Wieldman himself waiting for her at the curb and getting into the car. His jaw ached he ground on his teeth so hard. The fury in him escalated with each passing kilometer that he trembled by the time they parked next to a restaurant in Rosebank.
It took all his self-control not to jump out of his car and pound the life out of the man he has come to hate with a deep putrid fury. He cursed violently and with disgust when Elaine pressed herself against him and Wieldman grabbed her chin in his hand; pressed his fingers on either side of her mouth to open it wide, then kissed her ramming his tongue down her throat.
Now there was one woman who deserved to be called a slut and a whore! His mouth was pressed tightly in a straight line when he pulled away from the curb, his mind swirling with the all the details of what needed to be done to set his plan in motion.
Samantha was grumbling with every piece of clothing she folded and packed in her weekend bag. Insisting on going away now! They should be working on a strategy to break Wieldman’s business. Not go gallivanting to who knows where for five days! She walked back into her closet and stared at her evening wear. She tsk’ed and stalked over to Nicolas’s room.
“How am I supposed to know what to pack if I do not know where we are going? Do I need to pack anything for the evening? Cocktail dresses? Jerseys?”
Nicolas gave an elaborate sigh and zipped his weekend bag closed.
“Woman, how can it be a surprise if I tell you where we are going? Pack as if you are staying at home. We are going to relax. Remember to take those three triangles you call a bikini. Now go … I want to be on the road in ten minutes.”
“Oh, and honey,” he walked up to her, hugged her and drawled wickedly in her ear, “leave your bras at home!” He laughed again at the red flush spreading over her cheeks.
They drove north and no matter how hard she tried, he refused to tell her where they were heading. “You will realize soon enough,” was all he gave her.
It was one of the best road trips she has ever been on. They chatted, sparred, debated and laughed. Oh, how they laughed. Nicolas could not get enough of her natural laughter, so pure, so full of enjoyment and he exulted in her happiness.
Eventually she realized they were heading towards Thabazimbi, where Nicolas’s parents owned a game farm within the National Park. She turned to him excitedly.
“Nico! We are going to visit your parents? Oh, that is wonderful! Thank you! Thank you, thank you.” She leaned over and kissed him repeatedly on the cheek as she thanked him
He smiled at her pleasure, relieved that she was excited about seeing them. They always loved and spoiled her. She used to spend many of her school and varsity breaks there. She loved taking some of the guests on game drives, and even bred some of their horses for them during one summers break. He only understood why she always insisted to visit them on breaks, after the confrontation with Shona the other night. It was her haven, where love was given unconditionally.
He winced as he remembered his father’s anger the night of her twenty first. He has never seen his father so angry or so disappointed at him. Disappointed, because he allowed Alexander and Shona to chase her away and because he himself believed everything so easily and readily.
“Oh no! Nicolas, your fiend! How could you!”
He frowned at her distress.
“What?”
“You told me to leave my bras at home,” she wailed and he burst out laughing so hard he had to concentrate to keep the car on the road.
Love me if you dare Page 15