“Mr. Elliott has taken some time out of his calendar to answer any questions you may have about the photographs or his work. Please feel free to chat him up, and remember, ladies: Opening reserve is set at five hundred thousand dollars, so be sure to encourage all your friends to bring their checkbooks to the gala on Saturday evening,” Hannah reminded them with a wink and a smile before leading Wes to a group of women eager to make his acquaintance.
Had Hannah told her about Wes putting photos in the auction? Samantha vaguely recalled discussing details about the gala over the past few weeks, but she’d been so focused on her own worries and tribulations, she must have missed the part about Wes donating half a million dollars in photography toward the cause.
Sam listened to the trill of excited chatter as Wes traversed the terrace in a slow revolution, smiling, meeting, and greeting like a pro. Hannah remained at his side, working him like a handler so he was never stuck in once place too long. It was kind of her, considering how many of the women there would have loved to monopolize his time.
She drank down another glass of Champagne, her eyes returning to the pictures he’d taken of her when they were young and in love. The shock had worn off by now, giving way to a slow, incendiary resentment at his betrayal of some of their most intimate moments. Those were pictures of her, even if no one else knew it. They were pictures of their love, even if what they had burned to the ground years ago. They were hers and his. These pictures belonged to no one else. It felt like auctioning off secrets—their secrets, their intimacy.
Samantha stood, meeting Wes’s gaze across the terrace. He must have seen the heat in her eyes, the burning fury just beneath the calm façade. She excused herself from her table as he and Hannah made the loop toward her, feeling too vulnerable and exposed to talk to him, too angry and hurt to trust herself in polite company. She limped as quickly as she could across the terrace, eager to find a little privacy in the cool recesses of the penthouse, wondering if she could get away with leaving altogether.
Get a grip of yourself, she thought furiously. We’ve been over for so long, why should it matter? And there was the matter of Jack now… But God, why did it still hurt so much? It wasn’t just animosity and bitterness. It was the sting of scraping an unhealed wound.
Alejandro moved to follow but she held up her hand and shook her head. “I’m just going to use the ladies room,” she lied, heading down the hallway toward her bedroom.
A hand wrapped around her arm before she even made it halfway.
“Going somewhere?” Wes said into her ear, his voice warm and more sensual than it had a right to be.
Sam jerked her arm from his grasp, glaring at him. “Yeah. I’m going away from you.”
He smirked at that, like the notion was laughable. “You still mad at me for last time, or are we onto something new yet, Sammy?” he asked, his voice teasing. “Because it seems like no matter what I do, you’ve got a burr under your saddle.”
“You’ve got a big set of brass balls to come back into my life,” she hissed, careful to keep her voice low as caterers passed by carrying trays of dessert. Alejandro stepped into the hallway, but she lifted her hand, warding him back.
Wes’s eyes narrowed. “I told you I was back and I meant it. Not my fault I had to do something a little flamboyant to get your attention. All I ever asked of you was to hear me out.”
“Flamboyant?” she parroted incredulously. “How dare you? You pushed your way in right when I didn’t want you, and you started digging up more shit than any one person can handle. Then you have the goddamn nerve to sell photographs of me that—that—” she found herself at a loss for words suddenly, the emotion roiling up too much for her to articulate.
“Use your words,” he cajoled.
“Fuck. You. How about those words?” Sam snapped back.
Wes gripped her elbow and steered her toward her bedroom.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, trying to yank away from him.
“The things we have to say to each other are meant to be said privately,” he informed her. “I won’t have our past be fodder for Houston society for the next year, so quit hollerin’ at me until you can do it behind closed doors.”
Wes found the suite of rooms she stayed in like a heat-seeking missile, opening her door and steering them both inside before locking it shut.
“You were saying?” he asked, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door.
“Why the hell are you doing this to me?” Sam all but shouted, unable to contain her pent-up emotions. “And how could you sell those pictures of me? Those are private!”
“No one but us knows that,” he replied calmly. “Besides, I had to find a way to get your attention after you kicked me to the curb a few weeks ago.”
“Well, you got it,” Sam crossed the room before she turning to face him again. She needed the distance. “You’re a selfish motherfucker, you know that? You left me. Do I really need to remind you of that, Wes? Then you force your way back into my life at the worst possible time and start dredging up my most painful memories, and for what? Attention? Are you serious with this shit?”
“As a heart attack,” he replied, unwilling to back down. “When are you going to stop hating me long enough to see that everything I do these days is because of you—for you—and because I love you more than I care about anything or anyone—especially myself.” He ran a hand through his hair, gripping the back of his neck in frustration as he heaved a sigh. “Sam, I haven’t worked in months. I’m up all night calling from here to Timbuktu trying to figure out what the hell went wrong for your family that night, and I’m so goddamn hung up on you, I can’t even think about other women, much less bother with them.”
“Then why are my naked pictures sitting outside for everyone to see?!” she shouted, losing her temper. Wes was the only person in the world who could get her riled up this way. Before she knew it, she picked up a book off the nightstand and threw it at him.
He dodged the throw narrowly. “What the hell—?” Wes ducked as another book went sailing past his head to thud hard into the wall. “Will you quit it?!” he shouted back, striding toward her and grabbing her by the arms before she could throw anything else at him. “Yeah, I picked those photos especially because I knew they’d get your goat, Sammy—but ultimately, I didn’t do it to hurt you,” he told her, shaking her a little, rattling her cage like she had his. “Christ, I’ll take them back if you want. Give Hannah something else of mine to sell. She can auction off the Pulitzer for all I care.”
Wes pulled her into his strong body, his familiar, spicy scent assailing her, taking her back to a time when she would have folded herself into his embrace willingly, intoxicated by her own need for this man.
But this was masochism.
Allowing herself to feel anything for a man like Wes was like standing at the edge of paradise, experiencing just enough of the pleasure to know you could never get enough of it. Being with him, Samantha was aware he could so easily push her past her limits, overwhelm her into almost anything, and she’d let him, because with him, she so desperately wanted to be overwhelmed and overcome. Wes was the kind of man who got under your skin and charmed you out of your good sense. His raffishness and inherent rebelliousness had always been the source of his incredible allure, and for a girl who’d played by so many rules—who’d met every expectation—Wes was the embodiment of a walk on the wild side. He didn’t play by rules. He lived fast and loose. Traveled through the world lightly. But in the end, those were exactly the reasons he hadn’t stayed. And even though her romance with him had been fleeting in her lifetime of experiences, merely the memories of her long-ago feelings for this man resonated with powerful intensity, so powerful at times, she’d have given nearly anything to get him back—risked anything.
But she couldn’t make him stay. Not then. Not now.
Sam recognized in that moment that Wes, for all his earnestness, was having a brief liaison with the notion of
permanence. He could vow to her up and down that he’d changed. He could swear to her that he’d never walk away from them again. But change was the human condition, and as much as she knew he believed she was it for him, there was a difference between emotional yearning and the kind of fortitude required to make the long haul.
It was a realization Jack was coming to as well.
God, Jack… had she kissed him just this morning?
“When are you going to forgive me?” he asked, voice low as he pulled her closer.
“I forgive you,” she gritted out. “Now get out.”
“Liar.” Wes pushed a tendril of hair behind her ear. He looked at her like he could see into her heart. “You wouldn’t be so spitting angry with me if you didn’t still care, darlin.’”
She hated the unerring accuracy of that statement.
“Come on. Admit it,” he cajoled. “I only picked those photos because I wanted to see if they’d get a rise out of you. If you didn’t care, then I’d know for sure we were over and done with. But either way, I needed to know.” He ran his calloused fingertips down her hot cheek.
“Just because I’m angry that you shared intimate photos of me does not mean that I’m the girl in those photos anymore, Wes,” she countered. Samantha slid her hands up his chest, feeling the solid, reassuring thud of his heart, the hard planes and musculature that her fingertips recognized from a different lifetime. She pushed him back, slowly, purposefully. The silence between them crackled with electricity as he looked down at her and saw the truth in her eyes.
“Sam—don’t—”
She took a deep breath and said the words: “I’m not in love with you anymore, Wes. I haven’t been in a long time.”
Wes’s expression hovered between shock and utter pain. It was the look of a man who’d been shot when he least expected it, right through the heart. She would know. She’d watched men fall to their knees, holding a hand to the wound like they didn’t understand how it could have happened or what they could do about it. Wes had the look of a dead man who hadn’t fully realized or accepted that the jig was up. He stood very still, staring down at her with those intense golden eyes. Then he surprised her by stepping away, moving toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. He gazed out at the skyline in front of him for long, silent moments.
“You remember the last time we stood here together?” he asked, his voice so low she almost didn’t hear him.
Of course she did. They’d been so young, so unencumbered back then, just at the cusp of their adult lives, each barely in their twenties—back when their love was real, but tender. Too tender to survive what was coming. Back when they were too naive to differentiate hope from intention.
“Has it occurred to you that you’re the one here who’s trapped in the past?” he asked her, turning to face her.
Sam slanted him a look. “This from the guy who’s still wearing my dog tags?”
Wes unbuttoned his shirt, the striking, albeit angry lines of his face illuminated by the sunlight gilding the room. She saw the edge of his tattoo as he yanked off the necklace, holding the metal tags out to her.
“I don’t wear these because I’m stuck on some loop, dreaming about a nineteen-year-old girl who used to love me, Sammy. I walked away from that fantasy a long time ago, and I knew what the hell I was doing when I did it.” Wes shook his head. “No, I wear these because you inspired me. You always pushed me to do all the things I didn’t even realize I was capable of. You made me want to be a better man—a braver man—because you were brave.” He gripped the chain, the light glinting off the tags dangling in front her. “You didn’t have to love me, Sam. You didn’t even have to be near me. Just having these, just wearing these made me feel close to you. Because I knew you were out there. I knew you existed. I knew you were cutting through the world, changing it, flowing over obstacles, making things happen.”
Wes walked toward her, picked up her hand. He curled her fingers around her dog tags. They felt foreign and familiar at the same time, a piece of her history returning to her like a ghost, still warm from his skin.
“I imagined you, Sammy—so many times,” he continued, gazing at her. “During my best moments, my darkest hours, late at night, early in the morning—it didn’t matter. You meant something to me. But seeing you again after all these years, I realized you’d brought out the best in me because you have always been the best person for me. You understand me better than I get myself sometimes. You saw the man in me—the man I’d become. You helped make it happen. I just wasn’t ready for it then. We were too young. We had too much living to do on our own first.”
Sam shook her head. “It’s a beautiful sentiment, Wes, but that’s all it can be between us—a bittersweet memory.” She moved to step back, but Wes didn’t let her go.
“I’m not interested in the past. It’s done. Can’t change it. I want to move forward.”
“Then why the hell have you been so focused on how my family died?” she asked. “Why did you say I’m living in the past when you’re the one digging through all the skeletons?” she pointed out, stung by the pinpoint prick of his earlier remark.
Wes pressed his forehead gently against hers. “Because you’re still messed up over it, darlin’,” he whispered. “No man in his right mind wants to see you hurting by yourself. I know you’re strong enough to do damn near anything, but sometimes we can’t do the hardest tasks by ourselves, because it requires more of us than we can bear alone. You’ve been holding onto this hurt for so long, you almost can’t bear the agony of letting it go. If I can help you lance this wound—if I can help you heal it—even just a little bit—then I will. Regardless of what happens between us.”
The pressure of tears built up behind her eyes.
“You’re not that selfless,” she countered, even as he pulled her closer to him, back into the shelter of his body, her arms slipping around him of their own volition.
She felt the shape of his smile against her forehead. “You’re right, I’m not. I’m throwing everything I’ve got at this to show you I’m the guy you knew I could be. The difference is I’m ready now, Sammy. I’m ready for you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not, Wes. You were my greatest failure—the mess that colored everything and everyone else afterward. You’re the reason I can’t have an open and honest relationship with another man.”
He touched a finger down her cheek, smiling gently. “Forgive me if I ruined you for anyone else, but it seems only fair. I haven’t loved anyone since you. Never wanted to.”
They held each other loosely for a while, each lost in their own thoughts, listening to each other’s heartbeats, assuaged by the simple comfort of holding and being held by someone familiar. Samantha realized what she’d been holding onto so tightly was her memory of him; it felt like a dark, closely-kept secret. One she’d held so close to her heart for so long, she’d been afraid to let it go. But it was time. It was time to move forward for them both.
She stepped back, smoothing her hair back as she took a deep breath.
“Wes, you’ve got terrible timing and you’re over a dozen years off, but you have been right about one thing.”
“Well, I’ve been waiting over a dozen years to hear you admit I’m right about anything,” he drawled, crossing his arms. “About what, though?”
Sam sat down on the edge of her bed. She told him about her meeting with Morrissey—the evidence that Wes’d been right about her dad.
“How do you feel about that?” he asked.
Samantha ran her fingertips over the silk of her dress. “I guess I’m realizing how little I ever really knew about him. My dad had this whole other life—an alternate persona he created after my mother died. I never saw him until I was older, and by then it was too late. I was too angry about the slights. And even though we sort of made our peace, I always kept him at arm’s length after that.”
“Makes sense,” Wes said. He pushed a hand through his hair. “So maybe now’s a good time for m
e to admit that I never stopped the investigation.”
Sam frowned. “I told you to drop it.”
Wes shot her an amused look. “Here’s the thing, Sammy: I’m not one of your boys. You don’t get to order me around. I do what I want.”
Sam crossed her arms. “I may not be the boss of you, but your defiance is killing any chances at reconciliation.”
Wes shrugged. “You just said you didn’t love me anymore. I’d say that just about killed any chances I had anyway.”
“Then drop this.”
He cocked his head. “Well, see now I’m curious. Because I’ve got two men with motive, and I’ve already told you I’m going to help you whether you want my help or not, because the sooner I solve this, the sooner you can move on, Sammy—to me, preferably,” he added pointedly.
“Who are the men with motive?” she asked, unable to help herself.
He waited a moment, debating. “You won’t like it.”
“I haven’t liked any of it,” she replied. “Hasn’t stopped you before.”
“Mack McDevitt inherited the lion’s share of the power when your daddy died.”
She crossed her arms. “Because I allowed it.”
“He knew you didn’t want it, Sam,” Wes countered. “Heading up one of the biggest and most powerful energy companies in the United States speaks to motive. Plenty of men have killed for less.”
She turned away from him, unwilling to believe it. “Mack didn’t harm my father and brother any more than Uncle Grant did. He was the one who broke the news to me.” She looked around the room, recalling those old ghosts. She could almost see him standing there, pain in his eyes. She remembered Rita’s arm sliding around her shoulders, shaking with sobs so hard she thought she’d fall apart. “You can’t manufacture that kind of pain, Wes. You can’t fake it.”
“You want to hear about the second man, then?”
Did she? Did she really want to go down this road? As awful as it had been to unearth the past and hear the truth about her father from Morrissey—was she really willing to go there?
Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three Page 41
