Double Dealing

by Jayne Castle

  But today she wasn’t concentrating with her usual precision. Gabriel had phoned last night and said he would be in Seattle the day after tomorrow. Samantha recognized the curl of intense anticipation in the pit of her stomach and wondered at it.

  How had such a man managed to invade every area of her life so thoroughly? Stupid question. Gabriel Sinclair was a very thorough sort of man. She shook her head bemusedly as she prepared the individualized research reports for mailing.

  She should be thinking of the next stage in her plans for revenge. By now Buchanan must know who had swiped the restaurant out from under his nose. If he didn’t find out this week, she would be astounded. She’d worked long enough in his offices to know just how good his own sources of information were.

  Gabriel had left the day after the confrontation with Kirby’s men. He’d gone back to California to set the wheels in motion which would provide the cash needed to buy the restaurant in Phoenix. To be on the safe side, he’d told Samantha he would have the actual purchase concluded by a lawyer he knew in Phoenix. Samantha’s name was the one listed as purchaser. Gabriel preferred to continue his habitual practice of maintaining a low profile in such arrangements.

  “Which does not mean I consider myself a silent partner,” he’d warned her once again as he’d prepared to take his leave a week ago.

  “No.” She half-smiled as she stood beside the Buick and watched him feed the key into the ignition. “You’ve been anything but silent during this whole process.”

  “Self-defense,” he explained succinctly. “I feel like I have to stay one step ahead of you for both our sakes!”

  “Do I really scare you, Gabriel?” she murmured wistfully.

  He hesitated instead of switching on the ignition. Then he reached out a massive hand and dragged her head down to his level. Leaning through the window he kissed her soundly. “You terrify me, witch. I feel like I’m riding a tiger. I don’t dare get off, and I’m not at all sure what my fate will be if I stay on! But at least I know now that I can trust the beast.” And then he grinned his rare, shark’s grin. “Besides which, there are times when the ride is very pleasant, indeed. Goodbye, Samantha. I’ll call you tonight.”

  He’d called her every night since he’d left. Samantha had come to look forward to the phone calls with the greatest anticipation. It was true that Gabriel almost always discussed business, telling her the state of the Phoenix situation and related details. But before the conversation ended, he always managed to remind her of the claim he had staked on her body. No matter how subtle the remarks Samantha always hung up the phone with vivid memories in her head of how it had been to lie in his arms.

  The day after Gabriel had left, Eric had decided to go back to California long enough to make peace with his family.

  “They’ve stopped calling every day,” Samantha pointed out when he told her of his decision. “And at least you managed to keep Vic from sending a private detective to my door.”

  “Only by telling him I’d be back by the end of the week.” Eric grunted. “God, if he only knew what I almost did!”

  “He doesn’t ever have to know,” Samantha told her brother stoutly. “No one ever has to know. Some things are better kept to oneself.”

  “I’ve hardly kept it to myself! I managed to involve you and Gabriel and somebody named Emil Fortune whom I have the distinct impression I’d rather not meet face-to-face!”

  “Actually, he’s rather nice face-to-face.” Samantha chuckled. “A sweet little man who looks like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Very gallant, too.”

  “International arbitrage, hmmm?”

  “That’s what Gabriel says.”

  “Well, I for one am not going to ask how some international financier knows who to call to get a character like Jackson Kirby off my back! I’m just going to be grateful from a distance. Sam, what did Gabe mean the other morning when he said you’d agreed to pay my tab?”

  “He was just being deliberately cryptic,” Samantha assured him, clearing the table of the remains of the hamburgers she and Eric had been eating. How could she explain that pact she had made with Gabriel Sinclair? She wasn’t even certain herself exactly what he had been asking of her.

  He had wanted to know she wouldn’t cheat him in bed or in business, but she had the feeling it was more far-ranging than that. But until she knew herself what the contract meant, she certainly wasn’t going to try to explain it to Eric.

  She only hoped she hadn’t bound herself in a way which would someday come to haunt her in a way she couldn’t yet foresee. Gabriel had been so intense that night. And she, caught up in the emotional turmoil of gratitude, passion, and sympathy, probably would have promised him anything he asked at that point.

  It occurred to Samantha as she generated address labels from the computer that Gabriel was astute enough to recognize just how vulnerable she had been that night. Gabriel Sinclair was not a stupid man. He simply insisted on moving at his own pace and doing things in his own thorough way. He was, in fact, quite brilliant. And, too, there must be a streak of ruthlessness in him somewhere or how else could he have gotten as far as he had?

  Angels were not always easy to understand. They were proving to be full of surprises and perhaps even dangerous.

  Samantha chewed on that thought for the remainder of the afternoon.

  It was as she crawled alone into her bed that night that Samantha realized she had spent a great deal more time lately thinking about her relationship with Gabriel Sinclair than she had about her plans for the Buchanan Group. The knowledge was astonishing. How had Gabriel managed to overwhelm so many aspects of her life so suddenly?

  The next morning, however, when she opened the door to find Drew Buchanan on her front porch, everything fell rapidly back into perspective. Reality came thundering in on her.

  It was raining, as usual, when the old brass eagle on her door sounded commandingly throughout the house. Samantha, sitting at her terminal, started a little. She had been concentrating intently on the Soviet grain harvest reports outlined on the screen, and the sound of the old eagle jerked her almost violently out of her study.

  Gabriel was not due for another day. Eric, as far as she knew, was still placating the other Thorndykes. A neighbor?

  Even as she walked down the hall to open the door, Samantha’s intuition went into high gear. By the time she unlocked the door, she was already half-prepared for who she would find on her doorstep.

  “Well, Sam, you finally managed to do it, didn’t you? You took me by surprise.”

  She looked up at him, and a hundred memories together with the tangled emotions surrounding them crashed through her head. He was as handsome as ever, the pleasant, terribly deceptive all-American look enhanced now with a touch more of the distinguished gray at the temples. For her the charm had been turned on, she saw at once, the easy, laconic smile in place, rueful amusement in his eyes. The elegantly tailored suit he was wearing emphasized his height and the leanness of his body. She guessed he still worked out religiously at a health club, as he had when she last knew him.

  As she stood there taking in the sight of him, letting herself taste the first hard, bright morsels of victory, a part of Samantha insisted on noting the physical difference between Drew Buchanan and Gabriel Sinclair. It was an easy difference to summarize. Drew was lean, dynamic, polished, and sophisticated.

  Gabriel was… Gabriel. Solid, hard, dependable. He was just there, taking up more than his share of space and quietly forcing the world around him to accommodate itself to him wherever he happened to be.

  “Hello, Drew,” she drawled with exquisite politeness. “How nice to see you again. Here on business?”

  “Ah, Sam.” He sighed wryly. “I can see you’re determined to get your pound of flesh out of all this, aren’t you?”

  “Actually, I was thinking more in terms of seven hundred and fifty thousand. Money is so much more useful than flesh.”

  “Seven hundred and fifty!” For just an ins
tant the indulgent amusement faded a bit in those charming eyes. For a fraction of a second, Samantha saw the cold, emotionless man behind the facade, and she shivered a little at the enormity of what she had undertaken. Gabriel had been right when he’d accused her of playing out of her league. But when the stakes were high enough, a woman played the game that had to be played.

  “Seven hundred and fifty,” Drew repeated, this time on a dry whistle of admiration. “You’re really going for the top, aren’t you? I was thinking more in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty thousand. Half a million, max.”

  “What’s another few hundred grand when you’re already into a project for seventy million?” She smiled brilliantly.

  He shook his head in seemingly rueful amazement. “You always were pretty good at research. Where’d you get that figure, Sam?”

  “Oh, it took some calculation. I had to add up a lot of little figures to get it. Close?”

  “Seventy million for the Phoenix job? Oh, yes. Quite close. Are you going to keep me waiting out here in the rain, Sam, while you negotiate?” He gave her that wonderfully endearing smile that was supposed to make a woman see the little boy beneath the surface. It made her realize that Gabriel’s rare shark’s grin was a lot more honest.

  “Come in, Drew. I wouldn’t want you to get those lovely shoes wet.” Italian leather, probably a few hundred dollars for the pair. No, he hadn’t changed at all.

  He stepped through the door as she moved aside, and his eyes slid, lingeringly the length of her body. She was clad in jeans and a western-style white shirt, the rolled up sleeves and open collar giving her a rakish air. The brown mass of her hair was held back behind her ears with two red clips.

  “Interesting, but not quite the way I remember you.”

  She tilted her head slightly as she led him into the living room and waved him to a chair. “How do you remember me, Drew?” The question was as cool as she could have wished, as if she didn’t give a damn about the answer.

  Which was, Samantha realized on a strange tide of relief, very close to the truth. It was only then as she sank into the overstuffed chair across from him, her legs casually outstretched and crossed at the ankles, that Samantha acknowledged to herself she’d been hiding a sense of unease about this confrontation. She hadn’t wanted to admit consciously that when she finally came face-to-face with Drew Buchanan again she might still find herself attracted to him.

  Now the moment had arrived, and she was discovering that her most secret fear had no real existence. How much of her freedom from that danger was because of Gabriel? When a woman had lain in an angel’s arms, the devil was no longer much of a temptation, she thought whimsically. She owed Gabriel more than his share of the profit on this deal. She owed him something for having made sure in his own, overwhelming manner that when the final confrontation came she would have no lingering attraction for Buchanan to weaken her resolve.

  All at once Samantha felt marvelously in control; an avenging huntress or an ice-cold, righteous goddess. She was going to restore the pride that had been in tatters around her three years ago. Something of her unalterable intent must have shown in her eyes or in the set of her chin, even, perhaps in the flickering smile which edged her mouth because Drew Buchanan was studying her rather intently before responding to her question.

  “I remember you in neat little suits and leather pumps. You used to wear your hair in a no-nonsense little coil at the nape of your neck, as I recall.” His eyes gleamed with deliberately seductive reminiscence. “And I also recall how pleasant it was to remove the pins.”

  “That was the interesting thing about our relationship, wasn’t it, Drew? It never got beyond the pleasant stage for you. You save your passions for more important things, like business, don’t you?”

  “I don’t remember you complaining about my passions three years ago,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing faintly.

  Samantha could feel his assessing gaze as if it were a physical probe. He was sizing her up after three years, looking for the weak spots, seeking out the old ones and trying to reactivate them. Why hadn’t she been able to see this man so clearly three years ago?

  “Three years ago I was less perceptive about some things,” she remarked dryly, answering his comment and her own question at the same time.

  He hesitated and then said calmly, “Did Thorndyke ever tell you what happened that day in my office when he played out the outraged father scene?”

  “Oh, yes. He told me that he’d warned you I wouldn’t receive a dime if I married you. That was all it took, apparently, to convince you that I wasn’t the bargain you had first thought.” The words came easily, considering they formed part of the motivation for a passion as strong as revenge. Why was it that today she could sit here and admit to both of them that she had simply been younger and dumber three years ago?

  “By not marrying you, I helped make sure you got your inheritance, Sam. Doesn’t that count for anything? Isn’t it conceivable that I may not have wanted to deprive you of what was rightfully yours?”

  She grinned suddenly. “I never did get the money, you know.”

  He looked momentarily startled. “You didn’t? Thorndyke really did decide to leave his sweet bastard daughter out of his will? I’m surprised. What did you do? Turn around and run of with some other unacceptable suitor?”

  “I turned the money down. There was a lot of it, too. But it was worth it … though I certainly don’t expect you to understand.” Did that condescending little laugh really come from her?

  He shook his head in mock dismay. “Still the same impetuous, go-to-the-wall-over-a-principle Samantha. What an idiot you are,” he added in amusement. “How have you managed to survive in the real world for the past three years?”

  Her mouth kicked upward again at the corners. “Well, lately I’ve had a guardian angel. Very useful.”

  He frowned, sensing that something besides flippancy lay behind the remark. “An angel?”

  “Umm. Never mind about that, however. Tell me how you plan to talk me out of fleecing you over that restaurant,” she invited complacently. “I can’t wait to hear your strategy.”

  “You’re so sure I have one?”

  “You wouldn’t be here otherwise. You really could afford to simply pay up and chalk it off to experience, you know. But instead I find you standing on my doorstep within days of learning who now owns a certain taco stand in Phoenix. You must have some plans.”

  “You seem equally sure they won’t work.”

  “They won’t.” She shrugged.

  “I’m not going to simply shell out that kind of money to you, Sam,” he told her gently. “And not because I can’t afford it.”

  “But because it would gall you unbearably to succumb to what is essentially blackmail. Blackmail from someone you once thought you could control completely. I understand perfectly, Drew. Quite perfectly.”

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself. It must have taken you months of planning to pull off this coup. Were you that badly hurt three years ago?” He leaned back in his chair, watching her face intently.

  “Oh, the pangs of unrequited love died quite quickly, as a matter of fact,” she told him musingly, thinking about it.

  “But the feeling that I’d made a fool out of you didn’t die so quickly?”

  “You always were very perceptive about other people, Drew. It’s one of the reasons you’re so successful. You know how to strike just the right notes from them. But you play them for your own pleasure and advantage. You’re not a very nice man, Drew Buchanan.”

  “And you’re hoping that you’re going to teach me a lesson? Show me the errors of my ways?” he drawled.

  “I don’t delude myself that what I’m doing will cause you to change your ways. I just want you to know that you can’t trample over everyone and get off scot-free every time. Some of us will fight back, Drew.”

  “Because of your pride.” He nodded.

  “Something like that. It wou
ld be difficult to explain to you.”

  He moved his head in a negative gesture. “No, it’s not. Don’t you think I understand pride?”

  “A man’s pride, perhaps. Not a woman’s,” she told him simply.

  “Is it so very different?”

  “It takes a slightly different form in every woman. And it’s a more flexible thing, I believe.” She smiled. “Some women will banish it completely for a man, for example.”

  “But not you?”

  “No, not me.” When you had a woman like Vera Maitland for a mother, you couldn’t banish pride. Especially not for a man.

  “So I’m going to have to pay through the nose to soothe your ravaged pride,” he concluded with a nod that was entirely too understanding.

  “I’m going to make sure you remember the occasion,” she agreed dryly.

  “Where did you get the cash, Sam?” he asked abruptly.

  “The cash?”

  “That restaurant was purchased for cash. I’m just curious about where you got that much of it. I understand the asking price was fifty thousand dollars. If you turned down your father’s money a couple of years ago and spent the time since you left the Buchanan Group building up a business from scratch…”

  “Your sources are very good.”

  “You should know. You used to work for me. You used them, yourself, quite frequently, as I recall.”

  “One of the many things I learned from you,” she agreed pleasantly, “was how to build an information network. I took that basis of information and expanded it considerably with a computer. Now I am in the information business.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said, the faintest edge of impatience to his voice. He’d realized, apparently, that she’d just sidestepped the question. “As I said, I’m told you’ve been building up your little business, and I realize what it takes to keep even the smallest of businesses going through the first two years.”