A Taste of Heaven (Billionaires' Secrets Book 3)

by Jennifer Lewis

  A flash of pain almost blinded her. How would he know that she craved the challenges of parenthood as much as the photo-album moments people raved about?

  She tried to keep her breathing steady. “I thought you didn’t want kids.”

  “I didn’t know what the heck I wanted until I met you, Sam.” Emotion darkened in his voice and shone in his eyes.

  Her insides churned and she felt her grip on reality growing more fragile.

  “This is insanity. Why are we standing here with no clothes on?”

  “I don’t have any clean clothes.” He looked at her, eyes glinting. “And I don’t think yours would suit me.”

  Sam blinked. Swallowed. “Some of Tarrant’s are still in the other closet.” She pointed to the door. The air was so thick she could barely breathe. “Help yourself.”

  She collapsed against the rack of clothes as he opened the door and slipped out.

  Her heart rattled like a runaway train.

  Why did the craziest things seem possible with him around?

  Get dressed. She didn’t want to be standing around in a towel when the police came to the door with their sniffer dogs searching for an intruder.

  Especially since she was harboring one.

  The racks of couture originals usually comforted her, the rich colors and fabrics a balm to her spirit. Today they seemed to hang around her like carcasses.

  I bet you’d look cute in a pair of Levi's.

  Louis crept into her consciousness. Of course there weren’t any Levi’s to be found. There was one pair of Frame jeans folded up on the top shelf. A gift from Fiona that she’d never found occasion to wear.

  Sam pulled them down and climbed into them. She tugged on a fitted black shirt and buttoned it, fingers shaking. Maybe she could just stay in the closet all day and not go out to face the mess that she’d made of her life.

  Or Louis.

  “Are you still in there, or is there a secret tunnel to Barneys?” His voice resounded through the wood door.

  Sam smiled. “I wish there was a secret tunnel.”

  She braced herself as the door opened. He stood there in a pair of pale linen pants and a loose shirt. She couldn’t recall ever having seen Tarrant in that outfit, which was no surprise since he’d had almost as many clothes as she did. “You look nice,” she stammered, to cover the awkwardness she felt.

  “I am nice.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “I want to spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

  He reached for her hand, but Sam shrank back. “Be sensible. They’re looking for an intruder, remember?” Suddenly her mind was clear and clicking. In crisis mode. “We’ve got to get you out of here somehow. Now, how can we do it without the staff seeing you?” She pressed a hand to her temple. “Maybe we can get you down to the underground garage and into the car with the tinted—”

  A high-pitched noise made her jump. “My phone.”

  She ran forward and snatched it off the dressing table. “Where the hell have you been?” cried Fiona, the moment she pressed it to her ear. “I was pounding on the door. I figured maybe you went out on the fire escape or something. What’s going on?”

  Sam gulped. “We...I...” She didn’t dare look up at Louis.

  “On second thought, I don’t want to know. I’ve been trying to find you because Dominic and Amado are here.”

  Sam’s heart stopped.

  “They’re out in the street arguing with the reporters. Turn on your TV to Channel Five. Or heck, just open a window.” Sam ran past Louis, grabbed the remote from her dressing table and flicked on the TV above Tarrant’s dressing table on the opposite wall. It reflected into her mirror right next to her own startled expression.

  In a surreal montage, her own front door floated above her cosmetics bottles, decorated with a familiar network logo. Dominic stood on the steps, his proud features rigid. “This rumor is ridiculous, and neither Hardcastle Enterprises nor the Hardcastle family will take it lying down.”

  His face loomed as he neared the camera lens. “If you don’t retract this ludicrous story about my stepmother, Samantha, having an affair with my brother Louis, we’ll sue you for libel.” His lips settled into a hard line.

  The reporters exploded into a blur of sound and motion. Sam staggered back, heart pounding. “Oh, no. We’ve got to stop them.” She murmured into the phone. “How can we get him inside?”

  Just then an incensed Amado took a swing at a reporter who’d shoved a microphone in his face.

  Worry propelled her out of the room, phone still pressed to her ear. “Beatrice, open the front door!” she shouted down the wide stairs as she shoved out into the hallway.

  “We can’t. The mob will break in.”

  “Dominic and Amado are out there. They could be hurt.” She ran down the stairs, bare feet cool on the limestone.

  If no one else around here was brave enough to open the door, she’d do it herself.

  “Madame, don’t go out there!” Beatrice and Sam’s assistant Kelly mobbed her in the front hall.

  She pushed past them, single-minded, tugged on the heavy brass locks and yanked the door open, then blinked as light flooded in from the street outside. “Dom, Amado!”

  She couldn’t even make them out in the throng of bodies. Microphones and cameras thrust toward her. Voices and clatter and commotion rose into a roar of sound that assaulted her ears. Is it true? Are you having an affair? What about the photographic evidence?

  The clamor assaulted her ears and she shrank back. “Dominic, Amado, where are you?”

  Dominic’s dark head thrust through the crowd. “Sam, thank God you’ve come out to defend yourself. I won’t let them treat you like this. Tell them it’s a lie.”

  Sam’s mouth opened, but no words came out.

  To tell that it’s a lie would be...a lie.

  “Come here, Sam.” Dominic stood right in front of her on the top step now, his face dark with anger. “Tell these vultures that you won’t put up with their bull anymore.”

  “I...I...I...”

  Amado pushed through the crowd, looking disheveled and irate. “This is a crime. An assault on an innocent woman in her own home. These people should be behind bars.”

  Dom and Amado flanked her, and she felt their strong hands holding her up. “Go on, Sam, tell them.”

  Silence throbbed as the gathered throng waited for her reply. Even the birds seemed to stop singing, and the traffic on Park Avenue ground to a halt.

  “Come on, Sam, defend yourself,” murmured Dominic.

  She hesitated, blood pounding in her brain. “I…I…I can’t.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sam turned and plunged back into the house. She heard Dominic and Amado, pressing the reporters back. They both managed to get through the door and closed it behind them.

  All of them stood, panting, in the hallway for a split second.

  Then Dominic moved forward and put his hands on her shoulders. “Sam, what do you mean?” She shivered under his forceful touch.

  Her voice wouldn’t come out. She dragged in a shaky breath. “I can’t deny it.”

  “Why not?” His dark eyes peered into hers.

  “Because it’s true.”

  Shock washed over Dominic’s face. “It can’t be.”

  He pulled his hands from her shoulders, a move so sudden it made her flinch.

  Confusion contorted Amado’s handsome features. “What do you mean, Sam?”

  The entire household staff gathered in the hallway; Beatrice and Kelly, the cook and her assistant, even Raul the ancient repairman who’d been with the house since its previous owner. Fiona stood behind him, her familiar headphones unplugged from her ears and her face pale.

  All hung on her reply.

  “Louis and I have…have—” She cursed herself for being unable to form a whole sentence.

  But what was a polite—or even halfway decent—way to tell them what had really happened?


  “We’re in love.” A deep voice resonated along the marble hallway.

  Sam looked up and saw Louis at the top of the stairs.

  Something hot and unfamiliar swelled inside her.

  She crushed it down, angry that he’d made a public declaration even though she’d made it clear she couldn’t marry him. Some things weren’t meant to be.

  Dominic and Amado stared at each other, then back at Sam.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to them. They were both so traditional, so worried about honor and the family reputation. They made her feel safe and protected.

  And she’d betrayed them.

  “Is it true?” Amado took her hand.

  “I—” What exactly was he asking? Was it true that she was in love with Louis?

  Panic surged through her. She was recently widowed and still grieving her dead husband, she had no idea what she felt about anything.

  “It started by accident,” she stammered. “When we first met I had no idea who he was, and I tried to stop, but—” The words jammed in her throat.

  “But we couldn’t.” Louis materialized beside her, tall and self-assured.

  He shrugged, maybe a hint of apology in his expression as he looked at Dominic and Amado. “We should have told you earlier, so you didn’t waste your energy arguing with the rabble out there.”

  His casual “we” stirred a warmth, mingled with fury at the way he spoke so easily for both of them. Couldn’t she even express her own thoughts without someone jumping in to put words in her mouth?

  She glanced at Dominic. His face would make quite a painting. A baroque mask of horror somewhere between Goya and El Greco.

  Her stomach curled into a knot.

  Then he started to laugh. The sound boomed through the wide marble entrance hall and up the stairs. Contagious, it rippled first to Amado, then Fiona, then to the junior staffers.

  Louis joined in, then even Sam found herself unable to control the explosive release of tension.

  “They are going to love this.”

  “It really isn’t funny,” gasped Sam. Horrible, breathy bursts of laughter exploded from her throat. Hysteria. Everything was moving too fast, going all wrong.

  “It is, though,” Dominic’s often serious face bore a huge grin. “And it’s wonderful. I thought you had a mysterious glow ever since you came back from New Orleans. I figured it was because you were so excited to find Louis, now I can see it was a little more than that.”

  Sam wrung her hands. “I didn’t want anyone to find out.”

  “Why? You’re not related,” said Amado. “It’s a family tradition to fall madly in love with the wrong person. Look at Dominic, getting involved with a corporate spy planning to sue his father, and me, crazy about the woman who showed up to destroy my family.” He grinned. “Welcome to the club, Louis.”

  Louis, standing calm and unruffled, smiled and glanced at Sam. “You okay?”

  “I have no idea,” she said honestly. She suspected not. There was an unpleasant pulsing sensation in her left temple and her heart kept beating faster. “What about Tarrant?”

  Fiona stepped forwards. “He’s probably laughing his head off somewhere. You know he wanted you to live a full life after he died.”

  Sam wrapped her arms around herself as grief cascaded through her, cold and painful. “He said that, but I know he didn’t really mean it. I promised him that he’d be the last.” She tried to keep her breathing steady, to remain standing as her legs grew shaky.

  “And he told me to make sure he wasn’t.” Fiona winked. “If I know my dad, he’d be on the phone trying to hook up an exclusive deal to sell the story for a million bucks.” She glanced at Dominic.

  “Don’t look at me.” Dominic narrowed his eyes. “I took over his role in the company, but I didn’t turn into him.”

  Fiona bit her lip. “What about Sam’s charities? We could sell the story to raise money for Save the Children or something.”

  “Hey, that’s not a bad idea.” Louis half smiled.

  Sam’s ears rang with all these lunatic suggestions. The hallway had started to pulse and throb with color. The floor had grown wobbly and unsteady under her and she wasn’t sure she could keep standing much longer.

  Her train was going off the tracks.

  “You’re standing here talking about my personal life like I don’t even exist.” Her high-pitched wail rang through the hallway.

  She gasped for air, a sob rising dangerously in her throat. She stared right at Louis. “I’m a grown-up. I can make up my own mind. I don’t need anyone to tell me what to do.” Even as she tried to convince them that she was rational, her mind seemed to be shattering, thoughts and sensations clashing and colliding into a kaleidoscopic nightmare.

  She needed to get away. “Please, don’t follow me.”

  As tears clouded her eyes, she ran for the stairs.

  “Sam.” Louis’s voice vaguely penetrated the roar of blood in her ears as a wave of hurt and anger crashed over her. Now she was crying in front of Dom and Amado and Fiona and all the staff. She’d wanted so badly to be a reassuring mother figure to them all, nurturing them and supporting them, instead she was a hysterical wreck. A source of scandal and humiliation.

  She flew up five flights of stairs, right to the top of the house. She paused for breath, hands gripping the polished baluster.

  No one followed. Good. At least they had some sense of decency not to hound her in the supposed privacy of her own home.

  She unlatched the door to the roof deck, flung it open and plunged outside into the bright sunlight. The sky crouched over her, bright and clear. She gulped air, trying to stop the horrible sobbing sounds racking her body and escaping through her trembling lips.

  One minute everything was okay. Fine. Wonderful even. The next minute the world was crashing in. She didn’t seem to have any control over her own body, or even her own thoughts. She couldn’t live like this.

  She wouldn’t live like this.

  If she continued on this course, the tabloids were quite capable of hounding them for years, of disrupting all their lives and damaging the company’s reputation.

  It hadn’t been easy to transform herself into Samantha Hardcastle, wife of one of the most powerful men in the world. She’d achieved considerable success, raising money for charities, cultivating friendships with people who were important to the company, helping to promote Hardcastle Enterprises and enhance its reputation in everything she did.

  And most importantly, she’d worked hard to build the Hardcastle family and sustain it now that Tarrant was gone.

  Her selfish, personal desires could not be allowed to draw hostile attention and ugly innuendo to her private circle.

  Sam dragged in a long, shuddering breath of air. Her pulse rate slowed and the jagged edge of tears started to subside.

  Good.

  She’d made her decision, and this time she was sticking with it.

  Louis pushed open the door to the roof. Sunlight blinded him and he raised a hand to shield his eyes. Sam stood, a frail figure in her skinny jeans and dark shirt, silhouetted against the bright sky.

  Of course she was upset. He understood. Once he held her, she’d—

  “It’s over between us.” She hurled the words at him like a handful of stones.

  “Relax, Sam. You’re just upset because of the press.”

  She held his gaze, her blue eyes bright. “I’m not upset, or overwrought or hysterical. I’m perfectly rational, and I’ve made the right decision.”

  Irritation rippled through him. “For who?”

  “For me. And despite what you and all the other men in my past might think, I’m quite capable of making decisions for myself.” She crossed her hands over her chest, defensive. “Or do you disagree?”

  She’d issued a challenge. If he did disagree, he was no better than the other men in her life who’d tried to tell her what to do.

  He spoke softly. “I think you should take
some time to reflect. We could go to Europe for a while, Barcelona, perhaps. I have business to do there and we could...”

  Sam squeezed her eyes shut. “No! I’m not running away. I don’t want to go to Europe or anywhere else. I just want to stop this crazy affair that’s going to derail all of our lives if we let it.”

  How could he make her see sense without proving that he didn’t respect her? For once words seemed to have deserted him, so he simply took a step toward her.

  “Stop! Don’t push me, Louis. I’ve made up my mind and all I ask is that you respect my decision.”

  Her delicate features now formed a mask of determination that echoed in her stern voice.

  She was shutting him out and bolting the door.

  A wave of desperation unleashed a tide of anger. “There are two of us in this relationship.” His voice emerged as a growl.

  “No. There is no relationship.” Her expression didn’t alter. She’d morphed into the polished society matron smiling from the party pages in the magazines. “It’s all over. Now I’d appreciate you leaving me in peace.”

  He stared at her, his mind reeling. He'd offered her his heart...his whole life.

  He planned to raise a family with her, something he’d never imagined doing, but that he now wanted with a painful and unfamiliar urgency.

  He’d offered her everything he had, and now she replied with a haughty dismissal.

  A steel band of emotion tightened around his chest and his muscles ached and throbbed.

  But he wasn’t going to beg.

  Without another word, he turned and strode for the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Samantha, darling, you’ve outdone yourself! Everyone—simply everyone—has been talking about this party for days. Who did the flowers? Marcel? He’s such a talent, such an artist...”

  Sam kept her smile in place while Cecilia Dawson-Crane exclaimed over the lilies. She should be glad. She put a lot of effort into getting those damn lilies just right.

  So why did she feel like such a fraud standing here? The grand ballroom was abuzz with chat and laughter. She was surrounded by two thousand of her closest friends, all of whom had paid hundreds of dollars for the privilege of joining her for an intimate gourmet dinner.