“This is outrageous.” Sam jerked her hand free and wiped it on her skirt.
She marched up the path toward the house, conscious of the man’s hard eyes on her back. Storming into the dining room, she slammed her palms down on the end of the table and glared at the two people sitting there. “Bennett, what’s the meaning of this? I’d like to leave. Right now.”
“Darling, you can go as soon as we’ve finished lunch.” Rising from his chair, Bennett came around the table and laid a hand on her shoulder. Sam shook it off with a shudder of loathing.
“Samantha, we’ll leave now, if that’s what you want.” Aunt Olivia’s hands fluttered agitatedly.
The look Sam cast Bennett was murderous. “Good. I’ll wait outside.”
On the front step she paused, her shoulders sagging as the anger that had buoyed her died. Behind her she could hear Bennett and Olivia talking in low voices, about her aberrant behavior no doubt. A new flare of rage sped briefly through her. Did he really think he could keep her a prisoner, or force her to cooperate with his devious plans?
She sank down on a bench next to the door, clenching her hands in her lap. What was Bennett after? Her money? He stood to get very little of it, whether they were married or not. Besides, hadn’t he said business was booming?
She heard footsteps on the tile floor, the voices coming closer, still low but suddenly she heard Olivia mention Tony. “He could be a problem. Sam—”
Bennett interrupted, his tone soothing. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
They came out onto the step and Sam stood up, her pose defiant. “Oh, there you are, Samantha,” Aunt Olivia said calmly, her poise restored. “Shall we go?” She turned to an impassive Bennett. “Thank you, Bennett. You’ll be in touch?”
Bennett smiled faintly, a marginal relaxing of the muscles around his mouth. “You can count on it. Goodbye, Sam. You’ll think about what we discussed, won’t you?”
“I don’t need to think,” Samantha snapped. “You already know the answer. It’s no. N-o—no.”
Bennett shrugged in apparent unconcern. “Give it a day or two, Sam. You might change your mind.”
Fat chance, Sam thought as she and Olivia walked down the path to the waiting car.
The drive back to the Etoile was uneventful. Sam stretched her stiff muscles as she got out of the car, working out the cramps they’d developed from tension.
Going up in the elevator, Aunt Olivia made yet another attempt to soothe Sam’s feelings. “Samantha, if you’d rather, we can go back to London tonight. I can change the tickets if there are seats available.” She frowned. “That may be a problem, though.”
“Let me know if there’s anything,” Sam said. “I think the weekend’s been spoiled for me.”
Olivia touched Sam’s arm. “Samantha, please. Bennett means well. He needs you.”
“For what?” Sam said more coldly than she’d ever spoken to her aunt.
But Olivia didn’t answer, merely saying, “Give him a chance, Sam. That’s all I ask. And that’s all Bennett asks.”
“Later, Aunt Olivia.” Sam exhaled noisily. “We’ll discuss it later.”
In her room she went straight to the telephone. She was under no illusion that leaving would be simple. Bennett would try again. She dialed the manager’s office, expecting to find Tony there. The phone was picked up almost at once. Sam didn’t wait for a greeting. “Tony, I need your help.”
A man’s voice, strongly accented, answered. “I’m sorry. Monsieur Theopoulos is not in, but we expect him momentarily. Is there a message?”
Sam thought quickly. By the time she packed Tony would probably be back. “Tell him Sam called. Ask him to meet me at the front door of the hotel. Oh, and please have my bill ready.”
“Mademoiselle.” The man sounded shocked. “You’re not leaving already.”
“I have to,” Sam said. “I’ll be down shortly.”
Within five minutes she was back in the lobby, handing her Visa card to the desk clerk. Shifting from one foot to the other she waited in an agony of impatience while he processed it and gave her the slip to sign.
Where was Tony? She scrawled her signature, her eyes panning the entrance to the dining room, the segment of hall that she could see, the front door.
“Voilà, mademoiselle. Merci.”
She tucked the card and her copy of the slip into her handbag. Still no Tony. Picking up her bag, she headed for the door. She would just have to hail a taxi outside.
The door had barely closed behind her when she saw Bennett running toward her, closely followed by the man who’d driven their car. Damn, Bennett must have followed them back to the city.
Running to the curb, she dashed between the parked cars and put out her hand for a taxi, waving desperately. From the corner of her eye she could see Bennett coming nearer. She stepped farther out. A speeding Mercedes swerved to avoid hitting her. The driver leaned on his horn and threw her a disgusted look.
Bennett had almost reached her when a tiny gray Peugeot roared to a stop in front of her, nearly crushing her toes. Tony. Relief flooded her, but before she could move, a heavy hand grabbed her arm. “Samantha, you’re coming with us.”
“No.” She struggled against Bennett’s hold. “You said I’d have time to think about it.”
“You’re running away again.”
“I’m only going out for a little while,” she insisted, but the overnight bag she carried was silent evidence of the lie.
She heard Tony shouting at her from the open passenger door of the little car. “Quick, Sam, get in.”
Bennett tightened his grip. Even when she swung the bag and kicked at his shins, she couldn’t get free.
The traffic roared by, almost skinning the paint off the driver’s side of Tony’s car. Teeth grinding in frustration, he tried to open the door, to get out and go to her.
“Tony.” He heard her thin cry, fragile as a thread. The two men were pulling her back, toward a black car parked three cars ahead. Damn, wasn’t there anyone on the street who could see what was happening and help her?
With a twist of his body, he scrambled over the gear lever and burst out from the passenger door, painfully barking his shin and nearly crashing onto the pavement in the process. Limping, he lurched toward the other car.
Incredibly Sam had broken free. “Sam, here,” Tony yelled.
“I wouldn’t.” Bennett’s voice dripped with menace.
Sam’s terrified glance bounced from Tony to the gun in Bennett’s hand. She hesitated, her eyes wide with horror.
“Sam, quick.” It was a risk but one he had to take.
He grabbed the bag she still held, and her hand. Together they raced back to his car. Tossing the case into the back seat, Tony pushed Sam in, slamming the door. Leaping over the hood, he yanked open the driver’s door as an approaching car screeched to a stop.
Shoving the little car into gear, he floored the accelerator. The force of the start banged his own door shut and in the moment before the stopped car could get moving, Tony executed a wild U-turn. Behind them the man with the gun shook his fist, but he didn’t shoot. Smiling grimly, Tony turned his attention from the rearview mirror to the road.
“I take it that was Bennett.” He stopped for a traffic light, shifting gears and accelerating as it changed to green. “What the hell’s he doing here?”
Samantha’s breath rushed in and out of her lungs, a raw agony in her throat. “Don’t know—for—sure. Following—me—I think.”
“How’d he know where you were?”
She slumped down, pulling the seat belt across her chest and clipping it into place. “Aunt Olivia took me to see him.”
“Uh-huh, so she’s in on it, too.”
Samantha’s brow creased. “I’m not sure. She seemed to be doing only what she thought would be best for me.”
Tony made a rude noise. “Come on, Sam, you can’t believe that. You’re an adult.”
“Well, she’s always b
een like a mother to me,” Sam said defensively. “She wants me to be settled. And she likes Bennett.”
“Which doesn’t say much for her taste.”
Sam stared at the traffic-clogged street. “To her, Bennett is every woman’s dream, good looking, successful, rich.”
“And if he married you, he’d be richer.”
The implications of what Bennett had said suddenly hit her like a punch in the stomach. “Tony, he says he can make it look as if we are married.”
“What?” Tony made a right turn that must have inconvenienced several drivers, judging by the shriek of brakes and the blare of horns behind them. He slammed the little car to a halt on a quiet side street. “Tell me exactly what he told you.”
Her voice shaking, Sam explained about the certificate.
Tony drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel. “It’s possible, if he knew the right people. But I don’t know if it would stand up in court. I wonder what he’s after.”
“He wants to make the marriage a real one, but I don’t see why.”
“Your money.”
Sam banged her fist on the armrest next to her. “Damn it, Tony, can’t you quit harping on that? He doesn’t stand to gain that much.”
“Still, it seems the only viable motive at this point. What does your aunt have to say about all this?”
“She wants the same as Bennett.” Sam gnawed on her lip. “In fact she practically begged me to go along with Bennett, if only for a little while.”
Tony turned toward Sam, drawn by the desolate note in her voice. He could understand what she was going through. The fright of the attempted abduction—or whatever Bennett had had in mind, the lack of support from her only living relative. She must feel betrayed on every side.
He took her hand in his. It felt cold, lifeless. “What did you tell her?”
“I told both of them no.” She looked at Tony, her eyes dark and stricken. “Bennett wouldn’t take that for an answer, but she made him agree to give me some time. It’s obvious Bennett must have changed his mind.”
“Probably didn’t want to act in front of your aunt. Which means she’s probably not in as deep as she could be.”
“No, I don’t think she is. But she seems different, nervous somehow. Oh, Tony, what can I do? I don’t know who to trust any more.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, resting his cheek against her hair, breathing in the fragrance of it. “You can trust me, Sam.”
“Can I, Tony?” she asked sadly.
His embrace tightened fiercely. “Yes. You can. Believe it, Sam.”
The clean woodsy scent of him seeped into her. Under her cheek, his heart beat steadily. She felt safe with him, an oasis of peace in the nightmare day. She clung to him as if he were the only buffer between her and hellish reality.
Trust me, he’d said. There was no one she could trust, but for a moment she needed to believe.
“Yes, Tony, I trust you.”
Chapter Twelve
“Okay, Sam, here’s what we’ll do.” To Sam’s surprise, Tony let her go and moved back to his own side of the car. He scanned the street.
“I’ll go to that phone booth and see if we can get a flight back to London.” He briefly touched her cheek. “Wait here.”
“I got lucky,” he said when he came back. “There’s seats on a flight this afternoon. But we have to get there as quickly as possible.”
“Bennett’s bound to realize we’ll head back to London. He wouldn’t be on the same flight, would he?”
Humor flickered through his eyes. “Why? Scared he’ll hijack the plane to get even with you?”
Sam didn’t smile. She’d had too bitter a taste of what Bennett might be capable of. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Tony restarted the car, letting it idle for a moment. “Don’t worry, Sam. I checked it out with someone I know down at the booking office. Bennett’s not on any flight in the next two days. And the seats they gave us were only available because of last minute cancellations. So unless he booked under an assumed name, which wouldn’t be very easy to pull off because of security regulations, we’re safe.”
“Until he catches up with us again.” Sam thought of the snatch of conversation she’d overheard. “Tony, why don’t you let me go on my own? As long as you’re with me, you’re in danger. Aunt Olivia mentioned you to Bennett, and he said he’d take care of it.”
“That’s hardly a threat,” Tony scoffed, putting the car in gear. “Did they know you heard this?”
Samantha wrinkled her brow. “They might have, although they didn’t look too put out when they saw how close I was.”
“That’s just it, Sam. Has it occurred to you that they’re trying to intimidate you? Even to the extent of implying a threat to me.”
“But they don’t even know that there’s anything between us.” Heat ran up Sam’s face and she turned her head. “Not that there is anything,” she said, backtracking.
“Isn’t there, Sam? Your aunt saw us together. She’s not blind.” Amusement laced his voice as he turned back into the traffic. “Sam,” he added gently, “I’m not going to let you go this alone. Whether you like it or not, I’m going to help you.”
“Even if it’s dangerous?”
A reckless grin curved his mouth. “Especially if it’s dangerous. You need someone to help you get to the bottom of this. Besides, I—” love you? He caught the words in time, the thought startling, too sudden to take in. “I care about you,” he amended hastily.
It was rapidly becoming much more than that, he knew. Over the past week his admiration for her courage, his attraction to her beauty, even his sometimes frustrating impatience with her stubbornness, had begun to fill his mind and heart. Was he ready to love her? He turned over the idea in his mind, testing it. The concept was too new to assess at this moment, he realized. Once the conference was over…
“Do you think Bennett is looking for us right now?” Sam asked, breaking into his introspection.
“Probably. How well does he know Paris?”
“I don’t know. He’s come here on business in the past. But there’s always the chauffeur. He might recognize this car if he saw it again. That reminds me,” Sam added. “I haven’t thanked you for coming to my rescue.”
Tony grinned at her. “No thanks necessary. I got your message that you were leaving the hotel, and I figured you must be in some kind of trouble.”
“But where did you get a car so quickly?”
“It belongs to the hotel, for running errands. Quite a run we’ve taken it on.”
They were cruising along Boulevard Saint-Germain when Tony, who’d been keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, asked, “What color was the BMW?”
“Blue. Medium blue,” Sam said. “Why?”
“Because I think it’s behind us.”
Sam craned her neck to look back. A white Renault followed them and behind it came a blue BMW.
“Well?” Tony said, braking for a light. “Is it the one?”
“I can’t see it clearly. Wait, he’s catching up. Tony, it’s him. I can tell by the gold-rimmed sunglasses.” She frowned. “But he’s alone. Where’s Bennett?”
“Who cares? Hang on, Sam. We’re going to lose this guy.” His hand gripped the gear lever. “As soon as the light changes.”
“How did they find us? The car they were dragging me to was facing the other way.”
“That car was black. They must have parked the BMW on the other side of the street and followed us. The bootlegger turn we made caused enough confusion that the driver could have run across the street and reached the car.”
Sam braced her hand on the dash as the light changed. The car snarled across the intersection. “We stopped in the side street—Tony, watch it, you just went through a red light.”
“So did the BMW.” The two-note cadence of a siren rose behind them. “Oh, oh, here come the cops.”
Instead of slowing down, Tony sped up, nipping in front of a
delivery truck that was slowing for a turn. He whipped the steering wheel around and sent the little Peugeot down a narrow lane, then made a quick left turn, followed by a right. The scream of the siren faded in the distance.
A short run the wrong way down a fortunately deserted one-way alley brought them into the parking lot of a large hospital. Tony downshifted and pulled sedately into a parking space. He turned off the engine, his breath coming in uneven spurts.
“Now what?”
Turning his head he looked at Sam. Like him, she was breathing hard. Excitement and an excess of adrenaline painted bright color over her cheeks. Instead of shivering with fear, she looked ready to take on Bennett, his thugs, and the entire Parisian police force.
Tony felt as if a fist had clenched his heart and then let go. “Sam, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, hardly aware of what he was saying.
Passion ignited within her, sending incandescent sparkles through her body. She leaned into the hand that Tony lifted to her cheek, nuzzling it with a soft, open-mouth kiss. Was danger arousing? She’d never felt like this.
“Sam, you’re so sweet.” His breath kissed her lips just before his mouth came down on hers. She savored the scent of him, the heat of his lips.
“If only we had time,” he muttered, pulling away much too soon, and with obvious reluctance.
His fingers trailed a hot path down her throat before he jerked them down to the ignition switch. Disappointed, Sam closed her eyes, her limbs heavy with a lassitude almost as profound as the aftermath of love.
Tony drove out of the parking lot, keeping to little-used alleys and side streets until they reached the highway that would carry them to the airport. There was no sign of pursuit.
“I’ll phone the hotel about the car,” Tony said as he found a parking spot. “They’ll send somebody to pick it up.”
Their flight was already being called when they entered the busy terminal. A short time later they were taxiing down the runway.
* * * *
London greeted Sam and Tony with stormy clouds and gusts of rain that beat on the windows of the train they took into the city.
Past Tense Page 14