by A. C. Arthur
Landry, who was wearing a lovely blush-colored sundress with a lace hem, folded her arms over her chest and stared at Sam seriously.
“I didn’t accept anything,” Landry told her. “The attraction was instant and way too hard to ignore. I figured we’d just go with that in the beginning, and then it would wear off and we’d both move on. I was so wrong about that.”
“So it’s normal for the physical desire to be...almost breathtaking?” That was the only word Sam could come up with to describe how she felt each time she was near Gary.
“It had better be,” Landry replied with a chuckle. “If not, Kris and I did it all wrong. We were definitely into the physical way before our emotions got all tangled up in the process. But I think that was our foundation.”
Sam nodded as if she understood, but she was still wondering if what she’d allowed herself to do with Gary made any sense at all.
“Every relationship needs a foundation to build from, Sam,” Landry continued. “And no relationship builds with the same blocks. Love has no rules and no guidelines. You get there whatever way works for you. Does that make sense?”
Landry was smiling at her and Sam was about to shake her head, but then she got it. She really felt like she got every word Landry had just spoken to her.
“It does.”
“Okay, good.” Landry laughed again. “The important thing is to just follow your instincts. You’re an intelligent woman and you’re the only one who can say what is right or wrong for you.”
“I’ve spent a long time being Grand Serenity’s goodwill ambassador,” Sam said, looking out the windows again. “Haven’t really thought of myself as a woman in a while.”
“That needs to start now,” Landry said. “You are more than this title and its responsibilities. Kris had a similar issue that I presume each of you harbor because of the life you were born into. But if there’s one thing I know from being one of six children, it’s that you have to find your own road and walk it with your head held high. Nobody or no circumstance should dictate how you take those steps.”
Landry was probably going to say more but her cell phone rang at that moment. “Sorry,” she mumbled as she answered the phone she’d been holding in her hand.
“Oh, no, no problem,” Sam insisted as she moved a little farther away to afford Landry some privacy.
It gave Sam a few minutes to think of what Landry had said and of what it meant to her.
She wasn’t sure how things would go between her and Gary today, or the days following, for that matter. When she’d finally managed to fall asleep last night she still wasn’t certain that she should have allowed him into her bedroom yesterday. What she was sure of was that the pleasure he’d brought her could easily be addictive. She’d thought about it often this morning, even after scolding herself for doing so.
“Hey, I’ve gotta head to my office and attempt to take care of a minor catastrophe back in the States. I do like this space and I want to continue our conversation, so can we meet up in an hour or so?” Landry asked.
“Sure. No problem. I’ll be around all day, just give me a call when you’re ready,” Sam said.
“Great.” Landry leaned in to hug Sam. “And trust yourself,” her sister-in-law whispered. “Trust what you feel and what you want.”
Sam nodded. “I will,” she said and actually vowed to do just that.
Setting the file of papers she’d been carrying down near the windowsill, Sam continued to stare out at the beautiful summer day after Landry had left the room. The sea stretched for as far as she could see. A vision that used to amaze Sam when she was little. The first time she’d sailed from Grand Serenity to Miami she’d been certain they would get lost in the long stretch of blue water. Now, each time she thought of traveling from the island, she did so with enthusiasm to see what else was out there.
Now, she wondered, what else was there for her to see and learn where Gary Montgomery was concerned?
“Nobody believes you’re really having an affair with an American.”
His voice was raspy and cut into her thoughts like a dull knife. Sam turned to see Morton Javis standing just a few feet away from her.
“I’ll admit to being taken aback by that kiss the other night, but I must say, after hearing you talk about him, I’m more disgusted now. But don’t worry, darling, we can still work things out.”
He’d moved a step closer to her and the white polka dots on the hot-pink tie he wore seemed to get larger. Morty was an average-size guy at about five feet, eight inches tall. He had a honey-brown complexion, a bald head and suspicious eyes. Today he wore a black suit with a white shirt and that bright tie. The handkerchief in his lapel pocket was a shade of lighter pink. But what really stood out was, always, the way he looked at her. Like he was dissecting her slowly. It creeped her out, but she refused to look away.
“You don’t take hints well, do you, Morty?” Sam asked. She hadn’t seen him since the ambassador’s dinner, but she knew that her father had spoken to him about the things Morty had said to her. Gary said he’d denied everything, hence the reason they hadn’t fired the sneaky bastard yet.
“What hint should I have taken?” he asked, his small lips turning up into a devious grin. “If you mean kissing that ex-soldier, I didn’t believe that for one minute. Now, as for your ‘fooling around’ comment about him... Like I said, I’m a little disappointed about that. But I’m ready to make a true offer to you, Samantha.”
“There’s nothing you have to offer that I want, Morty. If I were you, I would actually be spending my time doing my job instead of pursuing this pointless endeavor.”
He took another step closer and Sam felt her personal space being invaded. She could step back or even move around him to put distance between them, but, damn, she did not want to give him that satisfaction.
“Not pointless,” he told her before licking his lips.
He was staring at her mouth and Sam actually felt like she might vomit in response.
“Just requires a little more finesse than I’ve been able to provide. But now I know exactly how to get what it is I want,” he told her.
Sam crossed her arms over her chest at that point because she felt like she should do something to protect herself. It wasn’t much, but at least if he stepped too close she’d be ready to push him back.
“I don’t care what you want and I have no intention of giving it to you,” she snapped.
“Oh, you’re going to care, Samantha. You’re going to care very much if I decide to publish the rest of those pictures of you from Paris three years ago.”
Sam swallowed.
“Yes, I see you know exactly the ones I’m referring to,” he continued. This time as he moved closer to her, he lifted a hand to touch her hair.
Sam was too stunned to move or block him.
“Apparently there were some the reporter had purchased that he hadn’t had the opportunity to publish before the royal solicitors swooped in to save your pretty ass.”
The crass way in which he’d said the last words had her rapidly blinking and she swallowed again. Then she leaned to the side, just far enough so that his fingers were no longer touching her hair.
“You’re disgusting,” she told him.
Morty shook his head. “No, my dear. That would be you. I’ve seen all the photos and paid that photographer a pretty penny for them. So you see, the choice is now yours. You can either accept my proposal of marriage or I will go straight to the press with those pictures. Now, what do you think Daddy and your two big brothers are going to say when they see their darling princess in such a compromising position?”
“They’re going to kick your ass,” Gary said from across the room. “But they’ll have to stand in line because I plan to do a little damage myself first.”
She hadn’t heard
him enter. From the direction he was walking, he must have used one of the side doors. But how had he known she was in there? How had he known that Morty would be there, too?
Morty turned and began shaking his head. “I don’t think this is what they paid you for, Mr. Montgomery. But if you’d really like to act like your American counterpart...what was his name? Oh, yes, G.I. Joe,” he continued with a chuckle, “then you should really request a higher salary.”
Gary was in his face by that time, grabbing his pink tie and wrapping it around his fist before Morty could even consider defending himself.
“I’m going to tell you this once and you’re going to listen because I kind of think you like breathing,” Gary told Morty as he dragged the man across the floor and slammed his back against the wall.
Sam didn’t know what to do. So much was happening and she knew she should say something, do something, but her body hadn’t caught up to her mind just yet.
“Let me go!” Morty coughed. He was flailing his arms, attempting to punch Gary, but Gary was at least six inches taller than Morty and much broader. Morty’s punches looked like slaps falling against Gary’s pronounced biceps.
They were more prominent today because he wore a T-shirt that looked like a second skin and cargo pants that made him appear even more like a soldier out of an action movie.
“I’ll have the guards...arrest...you,” Morty tried to continue.
With each word it looked as if Gary was pressing his fist tighter against Morty’s larynx, causing the sounds to come from him to be a lot less coherent than she knew Morty had intended.
“You’re going to get your blackmailing ass down to your office and pack up all of your stuff because today is your last day working here,” Gary said gruffly.
“You...don’t...have...authority. You...can’t,” Morty gasped.
“He’s right,” Sam said when she’d finally crossed to stand beside Gary. “You nor I have the authority to fire him. Only my father can appoint and dismiss royal staff. In the event that he’s not available, Kris can do it.”
“It will be done!” Gary yelled into Morty’s face. “I’m a witness now, so that’s all we need to make it effective immediately.”
“I’ll...the pictures... I’ll,” Morty tried to say.
Gary pushed harder, until Morty’s eyes bulged.
“Stop it,” Sam said. When he didn’t, she grabbed his biceps, felt the steel stiffness of his flesh, but ignored it. “I said stop, Gary. Let him go.”
“You’re a piece of scum,” Gary said. “The kind that I take great pleasure in squashing.”
With that he released Morty and the man crumpled to the floor. “I’m calling the guards,” Gary said as he turned to Sam. “You go to your room and I’ll go talk to Kris.”
Sam opened her mouth to tell him that she wasn’t a fellow soldier or a member of his team. In fact, she outranked him, but he’d already started talking into what she figured was some hidden microphone. He was loud as he ordered the guards to come to the atrium ASAP and to escort Morty to his office to get his things.
When he finished speaking, he looked as if he was actually surprised that she was still standing there.
Guards came running into the room and before she could tell him what she’d been waiting to say while he was on the phone, Gary simply looked at her and said, “To. Your. Room.”
He stalked across the floor, grabbed one of the guards and instructed him to take her upstairs. He was gone then, moving quickly out of the room while activity swirled around her. When the guard approached her, Sam yelled, “I don’t need anybody to escort me anywhere! This is my house!” She felt like stomping her feet but remembered who and where she was and instead tilted her head upward and walked regally, on her own, to her room.
* * *
“I have news! He threatened her, man! That should be enough to fire his ass without any notice or risk of being sued,” Gary said the moment he burst through the door to Kris’s office.
Kris was nodding as Gary approached his desk. “Just got off the phone with Salvin. He gave me a quick run-down of what just happened.”
“So you can fire that bastard right now, can’t you? I mean, you should have heard him basically telling her that she would agree to marry him or he would blackmail her. She was right, he did intend to drag her and the family’s name through the mud. I should have bashed his face in!”
He was pacing back and forth, adrenaline buzzing through his bloodstream like a potent drug. He’d gone to her room when she hadn’t come down for breakfast, wanting to make sure she was okay with everything that had happened yesterday—the shooting and the aftermath between the two of them. But she’d been leaving with Landry just as he’d turned the corner in the hallway.
Gary didn’t know what had made him follow her. Hell, he’d already known her schedule for the day. There had been no need to trail her like some lovesick puppy, or worse, a stalker, especially with Landry in tow. But he was neither and had calmly reminded himself that they were pretending. The affair they wanted the world to believe they had was just for show. Regardless of how good she’d felt to him yesterday. It was a façade that would soon melt away in the shimmering island sun.
He was going home to his cabin by the lake and his fishing boat. He wouldn’t see Samantha again unless it was on the cover of a magazine or on some news broadcast. So he’d followed her because, for now, she was close enough for him to touch when he wanted to, kiss when he needed to and...
When she and Landry had begun to chat, he slowed his pace. Gary knew better than to ever intrude on conversations with women and he’d received a call at the exact moment the two of them had gone into the atrium. He’d hung back and taken his call, hating afterward that he had, especially when he went back to the atrium and could hear a male voice.
“He was up in her face like he owned her, like at any moment he was going to just take what he wanted,” Gary continued, ignoring Kris’s steady gaze in his direction. “I wanted to toss him right out that window for daring to upset her.”
“She was upset?” Kris asked.
“Hell, yeah, she was. So upset she couldn’t react,” Gary stated and then dragged a hand down the back of his head. “But if she hadn’t stopped me, man, I don’t know what I would have done to that scumbag!”
“You said he was trying to blackmail her,” Kris mentioned as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “With what? Everything Sam does is in the public eye, all the time. What could he possibly have on her?”
That stopped Gary in his tracks. He’d heard Morty talk about pictures and, from the second he’d mentioned them, Gary had known exactly what the man was referring to. He was trained in reconnaissance and in forward observing. Before stepping foot on this island he’d done thorough recon on each person in the palace, including Malayka Sampson. Of course, he’d spent more time on Malayka since he and Kris had specifically discussed the woman’s past. But there’d been a day or two that he’d spent sitting on his back porch reading everything he’d pulled on Samantha DeSaunters, including the three years she’d lived in Paris and the three months she’d dated Miguel Lopata.
“Probably nothing,” Gary replied. “A bluff, most likely, designed to frighten her.”
He didn’t tell Kris the truth.
“He’s going to be fired regardless,” Kris stated evenly. “His contact with Sam today was out of order and harassing. Along with whatever else we find on him, that alone is enough.”
“I’m going down there to make sure he leaves the palace for good and that he knows he’s not to say anything against her or this family,” Gary said and headed for the door.
“Wait a minute.” Kris spoke. “I’ve got some news, also.”
Gary wasn’t in the mood for any more news today. He wanted to get this situation with Morty taken c
are of so that Samantha could have some peace in that regard. Still, he turned slowly and looked at Kris because there was something in his tone. Something that Gary knew wasn’t going to be good.
“What news?”
Kris didn’t hesitate to reply. “Amari Taylor escaped from prison.”
Chapter 10
“This is kidnapping,” Sam said when Gary slid in beside her on the backseat of the car.
“No,” he replied in that cool and aloof manner of his. “It’s a dinner date.”
Sam looked out the window and tried not to frown. “A person would have to be asked to go somewhere for this to be considered a date. You jumping into my car and directing my driver to go someplace else? That’s kidnapping.”
“You’ve been dodging me for the past week, so there was no time to ask you” was his stiff reply.
She sensed he was doing the same thing she was, staring out the window to avoid looking at her. That made this scenario all the more annoying.
“Your claim of ‘dodging’ is false. I’ve seen you every day in the past week,” she said after a few seconds of silence. Why she didn’t want him to have the last word, Sam couldn’t say. She picked up her purse, opened it and pushed things around. What was she looking for? She didn’t know; it was only imperative that she did something with her hands. Or she might just strangle him. Or would she let her hands fall to his strong shoulders and glide slowly down his arms?
How many times this week had she thought about touching him? How many times had those thoughts had her on the brink of going to his room? Too many to count and too many to be comfortable with.
“That was business,” he told her simply.
“And what’s this?” she asked and then—because she couldn’t help it, his words had surprised her—she looked at him. “If this isn’t business, what is it?”
He moved slowly, turning his head and using his fingers to smooth down the dark hair of his mustache. It didn’t need smoothing, neither did the wavy hair on top of his head or the thick brows that would make any woman jealous. Gary was a soldier with a distinct male-model look about him. There was the gruffness of his tone, the preference for casual attire and those damn boots that were more than out of place as he walked around sunny and humid Grand Serenity. Then there was the swagger that announced his presence the moment he entered a room. It didn’t matter that his cargo pants and T-shirts were the exact opposite of what every other male in the palace wore, those garments suited him perfectly and kept anyone in proximity staring at him.