Bride by Chocolate (Death by Chocolate)

by Alexis Lusonne Montgomery

  “It sounds wonderful,” she said, tracing the tip of her tongue across his full bottom lip. “But you must be tired, and it’s too late to go all the way across town for dessert.”

  “All astute observations. That’s why I had it delivered to the office and brought it home with me. It’s in a box on the credenza.”

  “Oh, Sam.” She took his face in both her hands, ready to bestow a kiss worthy of such a kindness.

  “I was thinking,” he said, “coffee, dessert, a fire in the fireplace, and the view of the lights on the bay.” He raised an eyebrow in question. “But I guess it can wait until we go hunt down Glenna and Jean-Paul—”

  “Jean-Paul who?” Bebe scrambled off Sam’s lap and made a beeline for the living room. “Finish your dinner, Sam. Your chicken will get cold. I’ll get dessert and light the fire.” As she slid to a stop and reached for the pink box with the Aventine logo, she could hear Sam’s laughter.

  Did he think the way to a girl’s heart was through her stomach? Clever man…

  …

  “You awake?” Bebe ran her fingers ever so lightly through the mat of hair covering Sam’s very impressive pecs and slid her thigh across his leg.

  “Now I’m awake.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  His big hand slid slowly over the curve of her hip and came to rest on her butt. The other tucked the satiny sheet around her shoulders. A gentle squeeze had Bebe snuggling closer.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Well, since you’re awake, I wanted to see what you thought.”

  His chuckle rumbled under her ear. “Okay.”

  “Tonight Jean-Paul asked me if what Freddy had told him was true.”

  “About what?” Sam slowly moved his hand down her thigh.

  “That’s what I asked him.” His rough palm against her bare skin was an erotic friction, and for a moment her mind couldn’t raise anything but thoughts of how incredible his touch made her feel.

  “And his reply?”

  “What?”

  “What did Jean-Paul say when you asked him what Freddy had said?”

  “Oh.” She eased her thigh up and across Sam’s leg, with a wanton thought of how she could encourage Sam to explore further—after she’d questioned him— “He said Freddy told him I was having trouble with my suppliers. That he’d heard rumors I wasn’t meeting my shipping dates.” Bebe twined a chest curl around her finger. “How would Freddy know that? Nobody knows that.” Sam’s hand came up to wrap his hand around hers. “And why would he blab to Jean-Paul? Of course, he was always a tattletale. Especially when we were little.”

  “Somebody obviously talked. Didn’t you say you saw Angie and Freddy in a huddle at the gala? Maybe she mentioned you were having trouble?”

  “Angie hates Freddy. She knows what a blabbermouth he is. She wouldn’t tell him to yell fire if his butt burned to a cinder.”

  “Did Jean-Paul say anything else?”

  “No. I told him everything was fine, Freddy was an idiot, and changed the subject. I don’t want Jean-Paul to tell Papa there are rumors.”

  “I know, sweetheart, but we really need to know where Freddy came by his information, or if he was just feeding it to Jean-Paul to cause trouble. He knows Jean-Paul would notify your parents.”

  “You’re right. I’ll ask Jean-Paul what else Freddy said.”

  “We can both ask him—later—much later….”

  Sam’s moving his hand slowly up the inside of her thigh drove all thoughts of Freddy, Jean-Paul, and Papa to a back burner while her need for Sam’s touch flared out of control.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Bebe’s entire body felt electrically charged. Like she could ignite every light in San Francisco with a wave of her hand, or power trolley cars at freeway speed up the city’s angular landscape. Even if their affair ended this minute, she promised herself not to regret one moment in Sam’s arms.

  Pouring the egg mixture into the omelet pan, she looked around the black-and-white kitchen. Having spent a great deal of quality time in this room recently, she decided it could be saved with a little accent color. She was especially fond of the shiny black marble countertops…

  Sam, at the moment taking his morning shower, might rethink his attraction to seven-foot Nordic blondes and decide he preferred short redheads who could cook.

  She’d definitely reconsidered her own priorities. Big could work.

  And if she were looking at this as a business merger, it couldn’t get any better. She and Sam had more in common than she’d originally thought. Sam appreciated her input on the business and financial issues they’d discussed. They both loved their families and took family obligations seriously.

  Sam had made a huge effort to win over Tweety. Serious male bonding over honey sticks had done the trick.

  In the bedroom, champagne and fireworks. Of course this last observation could stem from a serious lack of experience on her part, but still, if Sam felt half of what she did, he had to be just as amazed as she was.

  But best of all, he’d said they were a team, that they’d find the hacker/vandal together. Partners. This could be the kind of relationship she’d always dreamed of, but never expected to find. It could happen. It could. Really.

  The omelet mixture sizzled and popped in the melted butter. The bacon, mushrooms, fresh spinach, and Gruyère cheese were ready to fill half the pan so she could flip the top side over. She’d set Sam’s stark white dinnerware on the black marble tabletop and used the poppy-red place mats she’d found tucked in a drawer to brighten things up. The lavender freesia still looked perky in the vase, and she’d already poured the orange juice into crystal goblets. She was turning into a regular domestic goddess.

  The shower was still running. If she weren’t making breakfast to feed the inner man, she might have gone to see how the outer man looked with water sluicing across all those muscles. The instant response her own body had to that image made her shake her head. She was proof of Pavlov’s theories. Wave Sam under her nose and she’d salivate, anytime, anywhere.

  When the phone rang, she picked it up without hesitation, and then did a mental “oops.” What if it was one of the women on the List? Should she commiserate on how they weren’t going to get another box of chocolates? No one had so far. Maybe she’d prove to be the exception to Sam’s rule.

  And maybe she’d pretend to be the cleaning lady and avoid that particular conversation altogether. “Hello. Sugarman residence.”

  “Bebe? Is that you, child?” Gracie’s shrill voice came over the phone like an air-raid testing.

  “Yes, it’s me. How are you? Have you spoken to the doctor today?”

  “I’m going nuts in here. My butt’s numb from lying in this bed for so long, and I’ve run out of palms to read. Doctor says I can go home in a couple more days. If I have someone to stay with me. So much for his promise of an overnight observation.”

  “Don’t fuss, and don’t worry.” She wiped butter spatter from the black enamel stove top. “I’ll be there when you get home, and Sam’s already had a computerized bed put in your apartment. It’ll sit up, lie down, read to you, and order takeout on command—and its intercom is wired to my apartment.”

  “Land’s sake, leave it to Sam. That boy takes my breath away, he moves so fast.”

  “Um, yes, he certainly can move.” The hot blush rushing to her cheeks made her thankful Gracie couldn’t see her reaction to that particular image.

  “Has he found the dirty skunk that’s sabotaging your shipments?”

  “Not yet, but Felix says they’re getting closer.”

  “What does Sam say?”

  “He says don’t worry.”

  “Well, you should trust him. He’s not going to let anything happen to you. Or to Waterston’s.”

  “But it’s my problem, Gracie, not Sam’s. I can’t dump this all on him. I have to do my share to make this right. It’s my responsibility to take care of Waterston
’s.”

  “It only makes sense to use the help God throws your way. Don’t look a donkey in the mouth—or is that a horse? A gift? Whatever. Anyway, Sam has those wonderfully broad shoulders, the better to carry the weight of the world, or at least your small portion of it. Now you listen to me. You stay put and let Sam and Felix find this maniac. Why, he could have killed both of us, shoving us down those stairs like he did.”

  “But what if the guy hacking into my computer isn’t the same guy who broke into my apartment?”

  “You mean there are two of them? I don’t know, I didn’t see that in the cards. Hmm. It’s possible. Hmm. I’ll check the cards and call you back.” Click.

  Bebe set the receiver back in the wall bracket. She probably shouldn’t have worried Gracie with the possibility of there being two culprits, but maybe she would think of something they’d missed. Whether you believed or not, you couldn’t argue with Gracie’s accuracy. She’d never known her to be wrong.

  Something had to give. She couldn’t stay at Sam’s forever. Not under these circumstances, anyway. She needed to move back to her apartment, so he wouldn’t feel obligated to be with her every night.

  And if Sam insisted on coming to stay with her and Gracie?

  That could be interesting. She could work with that.

  The image of Sam, in all his hard-muscled masculinity, lounging lazily in her eyelet-and-lace-frilled four-poster caused another hot rush swirling through anatomy better left cool while cooking, or this omelet could end up a charcoal briquette.

  Forcing her attention back to the task at hand, Bebe dumped the bacon, mushrooms, and spinach onto the bottom half of the omelet, then sprinkled a generous amount of cheese atop the mix and flipped the top lid over. She tossed thin rye bread into the four-slice chrome toaster and pressed the lever down.

  Everything should come out just right. Now if her life could just follow suit…

  She was reaching for her coffee cup when the phone rang again. She hesitated. Then grabbed for it. In for a penny, as the saying goes… “Sugarman residence.”

  “Bebe?”

  “Hi, Angie. What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry to be calling so early. I’m not interrupting anything…important, am I?”

  “No, your timing is impeccable, as always. I’m just making breakfast. What do you need?”

  “We need Sam to find the jerk who’s screwing up the schedules. He’s at it again.”

  Her stomach executed a tuck and roll, and she was glad she hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. “What happened?”

  “I pulled up six orders for shipments that were due in today, and routing has them all going somewhere else. I checked the same six yesterday and everything was fine, so the SOB had to have done it last night or early this morning.”

  A shudder careered all the way to her toes. “Did you alert the shipping company?”

  “The minute I realized what had happened.”

  “Can they reroute the boxes before they’re actually sent to the tampered destination?” Merde, will this never end?

  “They didn’t know. Said they’d get back to me ASAP. Who’s doing this? Who could be this crazy?”

  “I don’t have any idea, but if he ruins our Valentine’s Day, he’s going to get an arrow right through his rotten little heart.”

  “I’ll hold him, you shoot him. How soon do you think Sam will know something?”

  “Oh, Angie. He’s done so much, I can’t bear to keep asking him. Felix is working on it exclusively, and he promised to let us know the minute he comes up with anything. We’ll just have to wait. But maybe, with this current hacking, we can get some new information from the shipping people.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “I’ll be in as soon as I can. Then we’ll see what we can find out.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll stay close to the phone, in case we get lucky. Enjoy Sam—I mean breakfast. See you when you get here.” As Angie hung up, Bebe thought she heard a giggle before the dial tone came over the line.

  She put the toast on a plate in the warming oven and turned the flame to almost nothing under the omelet. She wouldn’t get upset. She’d discuss this with Sam. They were a team. “Come on,” she muttered. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t keep a goddess waiting?”

  …

  Sam rolled his shoulders under the hot water, letting the pounding jets rejuvenate muscles turned to jelly by the best sex he’d ever experienced. Every time he made love with Bebe, it got better. Night, day, and the odd hours between, there wasn’t a second in the day when he couldn’t imagine the two of them having at each other like vampires in a blood bank. If he told her about his fantasies concerning Waterston’s gold ribbon, his office desk, a gold box of cream-filled truffles, and a delivery girl who looked amazingly just like Bebe, she’d blush from now to February fourteenth. She’d blush, but she’d go for it. His pixie princess was a force to be reckoned with, in bed and out.

  Facing into the hot spray, he laughed. In love with a redheaded, hundred-pounds-packed-into-five-foot-two-inch pixie. How had this happened? He’d been certain from the time he understood what marriage meant, he would marry a woman like his mother: look-him-in-the-eye tall, ice blond, and cool under pressure. In other words, the perfect corporate wife.

  Bebe wasn’t any of those things.

  She had a redhead’s temper, inclined to stamp her feet when her patience ran thin, and every emotion played clearly across her features. Watching her never ceased to fascinate him. He liked being able to read her thoughts, and most especially her response to him. He’d never tire of knowing the effect he could create with his own touch on her skin, the brush of his lips to hers, and he’d better get out of this shower before the hard-on he sported turned into a stone prune.

  As Sam popped open the shower door, the wall phone warbled.

  Stepping from the three-sided glass shower enclosure, Sam grabbed the ringing phone and a fat terry towel. “Sugarman,” he said, rubbing the terry down his dripping chest.

  “Sam, sorry to call so early—”

  “Not a problem, Felix. What have you got?”

  “I believe we have the final number where the hacking into Waterston’s computer originates. It’s a Richmond number.” Felix rattled out the digits. “I dialed it. No one answered. Not even a machine.”

  “When will you know whose number and where?”

  “As soon as my friend at the phone company gets in this morning. She’ll verify the number and the routing. I’m checking the address now.”

  “All right. Keep this information to yourself until it’s confirmed. As soon as we find out who it is, I’ll deal with it.”

  “Bebe usually calls me to check on my progress—”

  “I don’t want her worried with this. I’ll handle it.”

  “What should I tell her when she calls?”

  “Tell her you’re still working on it.”

  “She’s gonna be pissed when she finds out we didn’t tell her.”

  “She won’t find out. At least not until we take care of the problem. Do I make myself clear?”

  “But—”

  “Clear, Felix?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll check with you when I get in.”

  Sam dropped the receiver into the cradle.

  Waking this morning with Bebe wrapped in his arms, their legs tangled, her warm breath at his neck, had approached paradise. Being inside her would have taken him over the edge. He’d make sure the radiant smile she’d given him when she finally awoke remained, and he vowed to keep the stress he’d seen haunting her eyes at bay.

  He rubbed the towel over his still-damp skin and thought how much he preferred showering with a pixie.

  …

  A click and a dial tone. Sam had hung up. Bebe replaced the phone with great deliberation. Tears welled uncontrolled. Her fists clenched until her nails threatened to draw blood.

  “He doesn’t want to worry me?”


  She could hardly breathe.

  “Worry me?” She snatched the omelet pan off the burner and slapped it into the sink. The egg mixture oozed over the sides, deflated. “So much for being partners. This is not a team—it’s a dictatorship. And there’s about to be a coup.”

  Besides, she didn’t need Sam to handle this. She knew that number by heart. She’d been calling it since she was old enough to dial a phone.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sam padded barefoot down the hall following the aroma of brewed coffee and smells of breakfast being cooked in his kitchen. Now he understood his father’s satisfied smile when he sat down to the breakfast table every morning across from his mother. And it had nothing to do with breakfast.

  Sam had pulled on briefs and slacks, wrapped the towel around his neck, and gone in search of the chef. He had a powerful hunger, and it had nothing to do with food, either.

  “Bebe?” Sam walked into the kitchen. The delicious smells of the omelet she’d promised had his stomach growling in anticipation. Steam rising led him to discover said omelet facedown in the sink with its filling of spinach, bacon, and melted cheese slithering down the disposal.

  “Bebe!”

  Still no answer.

  Sam checked every room. He didn’t think it was possible to get lost in a twelve-room condo, but he could hope. Anything else made his gut roil.

  Her toiletries were in the guest suite bathroom neatly lined up on the marble counter. Her silk and lace undies were still in the top dresser drawer, and several outfits still hung in the walk-in closet.

  The large leather tote Bebe called a purse was missing.

  In the living room, Tweety chortled in his cage enjoying the breakfast treats Sam had given him this morning.

  Bebe might leave her belongings behind, but she would never leave Tweety.

  So where the hell had she gone? And why had she left without telling him? What could have happened between the incredible morning sex they’d shared and his shower? It sure wasn’t the sex…that still had him stuttering. So what?

  He grabbed his cell phone off the credenza where he’d tossed it last night and pulled up her cell number. It went right to voicemail.