by Fiona Brand
Stuffy heat engulfed her as she entered her rooms. Sam fixed the telephone with a narrow-eyed glare, briefly entertaining the cord-yanking fantasy. She was tired, she'd missed lunch, and her stomach was awash with an overload of the too-strong coffee she'd drunk as a sorry substitute for eating. All she wanted to do was have a cooling shower, then relax. Preferably in a horizontal position with her eyes closed.
She dumped her handbag, keys and briefcase down on the hall table, a part of her mind automatically running through what could have gone wrong. Maybe the electrics had finally failed and they had a fire? Maybe another pipe had burst and there was a flood? Maybe the Carson sisters had propagated one tropical plant too many and the whole second floor had collapsed under the weight of the potting mix they kept sneaking upstairs?
With a sigh that was half frustration, half affectionate exasperation for the foibles of the gothic old dinosaur of a hotel and some of its residents, she snatched up the receiver. Despite its many faults, the Royal was her baby. She couldn't not answer.
"They're here," a dramatic voice proclaimed.
Edith. Sam's mouth twitched as she used her free hand to unbutton her jacket. Judging from the sixty-plus receptionist's tone, the Devil incarnate had just signed the Royal's register. "Who's here?"
"That bunch of accountants who didn't show yesterday."
Sam's spurt of amusement flickered and died as Edith began reciting which rooms she'd assigned to the "hatchet team" sent in by Lombards to decide the hotel's ultimate fate.
So, they'd finally arrived.
Sam supposed it had been too much to hope that the new owner of the Royal had forgotten the hotel existed. Fat chance. Lombards was a large, incredibly successful group of companies. It hadn't got that way by forgetting about assets, no matter how old and insignificant they were.
"—as for Lombard, he doesn't look like any accountant I've ever seen."
Sam tuned in on the tail end of Edith's finishing remark. Her fingers tightened on the receiver. "Who did you say?"
"Gray Lombard. I just booked him into the Governor's Suite."
Sam's chest contracted sharply. For long seconds she couldn't breathe. Edith had made a mistake. It had to be a mistake. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure! That man is hard to miss. Big. Dark. Would have been handsome if he'd smiled, but those black eyes of his gave me the shivers. Can't say I like the look of any of that fancy crew he brought with him, come to that. Although, if I was forty years younger…"
"Thanks, Edith." Clumsily Sam set the receiver down, cutting off Edith's crusty chuckle and the graphic outline of forty-year-old seduction techniques that was sure to follow.
Gray Lombard.
Her chest squeezed tight again, and she forced herself to breathe, to think.
Gray couldn't be here; it didn't make sense. He wasn't involved with the hotels. She'd made sure of that months ago, before she'd taken on a job with a company she had vowed never to work for again – a job that wasn't going to do her career any favours. Before she had employed the admittedly desperate strategy of forcing herself to step back into Gray Lombard's world in order to prove to herself that she was finally over him.
Her stomach muscles knotted, and far a moment she thought she was going to be sick, as sick as she had felt months ago in the bleak aftermath of her grandfather's funeral, when she had been confronted with a past she'd thought was tucked comfortably behind her and discovered just what she had done to herself – just how she had deceived herself.
Gramps' death had rocked her. She'd stood beside his grave at the small cemetery where he was being buried next to her parents and her baby daughter, and realised that all the people she cared about now lay deep beneath that crumbly clay soil – still, forever silent, unable to put their arms around her, to laugh or cry, to share her joy and pain.
Several days after the funeral, she had been clearing out his house when she'd picked up the business section of the newspaper she still hadn't got around to stopping. The Lombards advertisement had leaped out at her. She'd stood in the kitchen, still shaky with grief, hot and grimy and surrounded by packing boxes, staring at the bold, black print. Without warning, the past had risen up, breaking over her in a stark wave that had sent her stumbling to the bathroom, gasping, almost blind with tears, her empty stomach heaving.
She'd cried when Gramps had slipped quietly away after months of illness. She'd cried at the funeral. This was different, a keening sense of loss, a raw upwelling of grief and fury and disbelief that she'd let so many years pass her by because a small, stubborn part of her was still waiting for Gray Lombard.
She'd disguised the waiting as fastidiousness, a lack of sexual drive, concentration on her work, anything but the truth. Once a disgruntled would-be lover had told her she was cold, and Sam had readily agreed. After Gray, and in the painful aftermath of the baby she'd lost, she'd been frozen inside.
The result was that she was alone now, so completely alone it hurt. She had none of the things that many women took for granted: a husband she could love and who loved her. A home. Her child.
She was twenty-nine. Almost thirty. Maybe that had had something to do with the sudden suffocating realisation that life was quickly passing her by.
While Gramps had been alive, he'd formed a comfortable buffer of weekly telephone calls, infrequent letters and regular holidays. His wry common sense, his steady love, had been a lodestone, especially when her career had demanded constant changes of location. She hadn't realised how much she'd come to rely on that uncomplicated love.
It had been easier than reaching out for the complicated kind. That would have taken courage, and a willingness to once more expose herself to hurt.
When her stomach had finally settled down, she'd forced herself to pick the paper up off the floor, to read the advertisement, and to consider it. Her head might have been buried in sand so deep she could barely breathe, but no more. Gray Lombard was ancient history, and Sam had decided she couldn't allow him to affect her life any longer.
Her resources had been severely depleted. For the last few months of Gramps' illness, she had lived with him and nursed him full time. The sale of the house had covered the final medical bills and funeral costs, but she'd needed another job and a place to live. She had applied for the manager's position and got it.
She had wanted closure from a relationship that had somehow dragged on way past its use-by date, and now she was getting it with a vengeance.
Oh God. The instinct to run, to simply pack up and leave, was so strong that for long moments she stood, paralysed, her pulse racing. Nothing in her plan had allowed for an actual physical confrontation with Gray.
"Get a grip," she muttered to herself. Her reaction was ridiculous. Women met ex-boyfriends, even became friends with them, all the time. She was an adult. She could do this.
Except that she couldn't imagine ever being friends with Gray. Their relationship had been … extreme, like a wild, out of control roller-coaster ride – dizzying, at times terrifying in its intensity. Friendship had never been included.
Sam stared blankly around her cosy, private quarters. While she'd been standing, lost in the grip of the past, it had started raining. Large droplets splattered loudly against the windows, then cascaded down the French doors, blurring her view of the tiny, drenched courtyard garden outside and the glossy profusion of potted plants that shimmered beneath the steady onslaught. It was late afternoon, and the slow, extended twilight had begun, helped along by full-bellied clouds that blocked out the heat of the sun. The temperature, which had been hot for December, had taken an abrupt tumble.
Although it wasn't cold inside. She wasn't cold. Beneath the layers of her light summer-weight suit and blouse, she was furnace-hot, her skin clammy with moisture.
With fingers that weren't entirely steady, Sam removed the jacket and carried it through to her bedroom, automatically hanging it in the wardrobe alongside ranks of similar suits and dresses.
; In just her blouse and skirt, she felt freer and cooler, although the small flat was still uncomfortably hot and airless. The reason for the stuffiness added to her tension as she pulled pins from her hair, releasing it from its neat chignon.
She'd taken to locking her flat up tight, forgoing all ventilation, after she'd discovered that someone had broken in several days ago. The break-in had been very subtle, and it appeared that nothing had been taken. Most people probably wouldn't have noticed the signs, but Sam had. She was used to living alone, and, while she wasn't neurotic about neatness, her possessions didn't usually move on their own or change the way they were folded.
The sense of violation, of invasion of privacy, had been so intense that she'd actually contemplated shifting to new rooms, until she'd realised what she was allowing. Despite the Royal's constant maintenance problems, she was settled here. She was happy for the first time in months, and she liked her flat. It was situated at the back of the hotel, on the ground floor, and the mellow paint tones, the slightly battered antique furnishings, somehow gave the illusion of home, if not the reality. Since she'd been forced to sell Gramps' house, the only home Sam could remember, that illusion had become all-important.
A spurt of mingled anger and disbelief froze her in the act of finger-combing her hair free of the confining knot. If Gray was part of the Lombards delegation, here to decide the future of her hotel, she would have to work with him, make polite conversation with him. Pretend that nothing of importance had ever happened between them.
Sam stared at her pale reflection, too distraught to shy away from the blunt truth that, for Gray, that was exactly how it had been.
Her fury deepened. How dare he stroll nonchalantly back into her life like this? He had all the sensitivity of a slab of granite. She didn't know if she could even be civil to him.
One of her grandfather's favourite sayings rose irresistibly into her mind, as clear and briskly humorous as if the words had been spoken aloud in his shaky, whisky-deep voice.
"Be careful what you wish for, girl, you just might get it."
Well, she thought grimly, as she opened the French doors with more force than was warranted, too wound up to appreciate the rain-scented air flowing in, she hadn't wished for Gray, but it looked like she was finally going to get him.
Anger still simmering, Sam changed into light cotton pants and a shirt, pulled thick-soled boots and a raincoat on, and stepped outside. When she had locked up, she lifted her face to the rain, which had slackened off to a light drizzle. Just the thought of staying in the hotel, knowing that Gray was staying there, too, made her stomach knot. She would go for a walk, take in a movie, maybe check out the bookshops for women's magazines. She needed advice, and there was no one she could ask about such an embarrassing problem.
Not that she was in any way confused, she allowed. Just inexperienced. Thanks to her disastrous relationship with Gray, she had never had another, and she was quite frankly at a loss as to how to proceed.
Somewhere there would be an article outlining strategies for getting rid of ex-lovers.
*
Hours later Sam walked out of the double feature she'd just seen. It had started drizzling again, and the sidewalk was jammed with people diving for taxis, or pulling on raincoats and flipping up umbrellas. Wisps of steam rose from the pavement and the road that, despite the rain, still retained the heat of the day.
A car cruised by, the horn blared, and a young man hung out the window, swearing his undying love to a group of teenage girls. Sam slipped her raincoat on and belted it, her gaze drawn to a man standing near the teenage girls, who had now become the object of their wide-eyed scrutiny.
He was turned away from Sam, studying the people climbing into taxis, a black leather jacket held negligently in one big hand. Most people were wrapped up against the weather, although it was far from cold. He was distinctly underdressed, and wet, as if he'd been caught in a violent rain shower and hadn't cared enough to seek shelter. The white fabric of his wet T-shirt clung to the broad width of his shoulders and the heavy muscles of his back, revealing the dark glow of his skin where it touched. The taut swell of one biceps gleamed copper as he thrust impatient fingers through his wet mane of black hair, sending a narrow rivulet snaking down the deep indentation of his spine.
But, even motionless as he was, there was no sense of passivity to the rigid line of that back, the tense stance of those long powerful legs. His soaked clothing moulded muscles that were coiled, ready to spring. Most of the people on the sidewalk recognised that dangerous quality, giving him a wide berth, so that he stood like a solitary rock amidst swirling, fickle currents.
Something about the tilt of his head, the wide set of his shoulders, his very stillness in the jostling crowd, made Sam's mouth go dry in startled recognition. She couldn't see his face, but for a heart-pounding moment she was certain it was Gray.
A family strolled past, momentarily obscuring her line of sight. When she saw him again, he'd shifted deeper into the ebb and flow of the crowd, and she caught little more than a fleeting glimpse of that fierce dark head and one broad shoulder as he turned his attention on another section of the rapidly dispersing crowd, systematically scanning, looking for someone.
A breeze stirred, flipping dark strands of hair across her cheeks, and she shivered under the lash of memory. The last image she'd had of Gray had been completely, wholly sensual. He'd been naked. They had both been naked. He'd been shuddering in her arms, his big shoulders damp with sweat, glistening bronze in the lamplight as she'd wrapped herself around him in an attempt to ease the fierceness of his desire, the raw intensity of his release.
She had closed her eyes, unable to bear the shattering pleasure, the primitive beauty of what he was doing to her. Unable to bear the certain knowledge that he hadn't wanted her.
For long seconds Sam remained frozen on the sidewalk, barely noticing the people brushing by. She was caught and held by the image, appalled that it still had the power to shake her.
The breeze swirled against her suddenly hot cheeks, carrying the dampness of the rain. Sam lifted her hand in automatic reflex, smoothing tangled hair from her face. Angry with herself, she turned on her heel and threaded her way toward the taxi rank. Despite the striking resemblance, the man wasn't Gray. Even from the back, he'd looked too wild, too untamed, and there had been an edgy quality to him, an urgency to his search that shouted involvement with someone. Probably a woman.
Gray had never worn his hair long, and he'd only arrived this evening. Besides, any reasons he'd ever had to seek her out were seven years cold and no longer of interest to her.
The last taxi pulled out as Sam reached the kerb, and she was left standing in a queue, waiting for others to pull in.
She glanced back. People were still exiting the big multiplex cinema in a steady stream, but even in the middle of the mass of people, she caught the turn of that distinctive head. He was still searching, his purpose a living thing. She wondered bleakly what it would feel like to be the focus of such purpose, and her hands clenched against a surge of vulnerability so acute that for long moments she felt stripped bare of all defences, her emotions naked and exposed, as tender as a babe's.
No, she couldn't imagine such a thing, and she was crazy even dwelling on it. Abruptly she spun on her heel and walked blindly away, uncaring which direction she was headed.
And she didn't want to see the man's face, no matter how tempted she was to keep watching him. She'd played this game one too many times, although not for years now, and the anguish she'd gone through hadn't been pretty. When she had first left Gray, she'd lost count of the number of times she'd seen his face in a stranger's.
Calling herself every name under the sun for letting the stranger get to her, Sam pulled herself together enough to take some bearings, and fell in behind a laughing group of young people who were amiably arguing about which café they were going to hit next. The teenagers peeled off into a café that brimmed with laughter and light.
The mouth-watering scents of espresso and spicy food wafted from the open door.
Sam debated whether she should go for safety and get a taxi or continue to walk. Her jaw squared. She wasn't going back to the taxi rank.
The Royal wasn't far – about five minutes – and how dangerous could it be? Despite the wet weather the tourist season was in full swing. The streets and cafés were alive with activity.
Turning the collar of her coat up, she started across the road; she had to get a grip on herself, and the sooner the better. Her nerves were strung too tight, had been ever since the break-in. Now she was seeing danger in every shadow.
*
Sam was close enough to the hotel to see a corner of the distinctive Victorian roofline where it loomed, cheek-by-jowl with a squat parking building, when a soft scrape sounded to the side of her. Her heart speeded up. Someone was there. A quick glance showed her nothing but brightly lit shop windows and intermittent shadows that were all the deeper because of the light.
"Heyyy … lady."
Sam's head whipped in the direction of the slurred voice. A youth was slouched in a shop doorway, clutching a bottle and grinning inanely. When she'd looked before, she'd missed him, because the recess was so deep. Sam averted her gaze and walked briskly on. She wasn't alone on the street. There were people ahead of her and people behind. If she needed to, she could call out for assistance. Or run. The boy, because that was all he was, was probably so drunk he wouldn't be able to do more than stumble.
"Heyyy, come back!" she heard the same slurred voice call, then footsteps as he came after her.
She heard a muffled grunt and looked back to see the youth being hauled up and pressed back into the shadowed recess, pinned there by a tall, dark man in a leather jacket.
Another two men materialised out of the shadows, one blond, the other dark. Both were dressed in dark clothing.
Where had they come from? Last time she'd checked behind her there had been two couples meandering arm-in-arm, presumably toward the parking building next to the Royal. There was no sign of them now; they must have turned down another street.