Double Dealing

by Jayne Castle

  “Nice to know you still appreciate what the little guy has to go through struggling to survive these days,” she said conversationally.

  “Oh, I do, Sam. I do. Which brings us back to the basic question. Where did you get the spare cash to buy a fifty-thousand-dollar restaurant in Phoenix?”

  “You don’t really believe I’m going to tell you any more than I have to in order to complete the deal, do you, Drew?” she demanded sweetly. “That was another thing I learned from you. Never provide unnecessary information to the opposition.”

  “Are you afraid the information in this case might be used against you?” he countered swiftly.

  “Not at all. I’m just following your own general policy of not going out of my way to hand out details.” Which was the truth. Gabriel preferred to keep a low profile simply because that was the way he operated. He didn’t invite attention. But there really wouldn’t be anything Drew Buchanan could do even if he did discover that Gabriel Sinclair was her financial backer. Gabriel was simply involved in a business deal. There was nothing which could be used against him.

  Drew sighed, his eyes momentarily hooded and gleaming with a malevolent intent he couldn’t quite hide. “It would appear I’m at your mercy.” He didn’t sound as if he believed it, however, and Samantha took warning.

  “So it would appear. Care to write out the check right now?”

  “Ah, Sam. You always were impetuous. One doesn’t conduct deals of this magnitude quite so hastily.”

  “Unseemly?” she hazarded brightly.

  “Very.”

  “How does one conduct them?”

  “Over dinner. Will you have dinner with me tonight? For old times’ sake?”

  “I love that charmingly wistful note in your voice. Just the right touch. God, you are really an incredibly good actor, Drew. Perhaps you missed your calling after all. Then again, I suppose you find the skill very useful, don’t you? You’ll find it even more useful as you move into your new career of politics.”

  For the first time she managed to catch him slightly off guard. He recovered almost instantly. “You really have been paying attention to my comings and goings during the past few years, haven’t you?”

  She shrugged, saying nothing. His association with a politician named Galloway hadn’t been hard to turn up. The fact that Galloway had a tremendously effective political machine which he had inherited from his father had also soon come to light. Buchanan, if he could insinuate himself into that machine, could probably easily take control of it. After that there would be little to stop him. It didn’t surprise her that Drew had developed a taste for power on a large scale. It was bound to come with success. Wasn’t she herself rather enjoying the feeling of power she had today? Perhaps the stuff was addictive!

  “Dinner, Sam?” he prompted very softly, a husky, deeply masculine note in his voice.

  She had known this was coming, of course. It was obvious that one of Buchanan’s approaches would be to try a little seduction. After all, he had been so eminently successful at it three years ago. Men like Drew who had no reason to question their technique with women tended to mobilize that sort of approach first. It was the easiest as far as they were concerned.

  And she had fully intended to let him try it just for the satisfaction of stringing him along a little further. Yes, it would be wonderfully satisfying to laugh at him as he practiced his sophisticated, superficial sensuality.

  So why was she hesitating over the dinner invitation?

  Because, she realized with a new, very distant sense of dismay, thoughts of Gabriel were starting to infiltrate her thinking. Thoughts of Gabriel and the strange promise he had bound her with were pouring out of nowhere into her mind. Ridiculous! She wasn’t about to cheat him either out of his half of the deal or by going to bed with Drew Buchanan. In fact, the last thought was decidedly unpalatable, almost more so than cheating Gabriel out of his share of the money would have been! Good God! How far gone was she in her relationship with Gabriel Sinclair that the notion of sleeping with another man was deeply abhorrent?

  A sense of rising unease stirred in the pit of her stomach. For the first time since Drew had walked in the door, Samantha began to lose her sense of being totally in command of herself and the situation.

  But she was in charge of both, she reminded herself fiercely. And she was in no danger of breaking her promise to Gabriel even if she chose to linger over her victory by having dinner with Buchanan.

  She swallowed, unwillingly aware now that what was really starting to bother her was a distinct feeling that somehow she would be violating the pledge she had made to Gabriel, that she had already violated it.

  Damn it. What was the matter with her? She had done nothing which required either an explanation or an apology or a sense of guilt. Still, the first nibbling of panic could be felt at the edge of her mind. What would Gabriel say if he knew she had dinner with Drew Buchanan tonight? What could he say? What right would he have to say anything at all? She certainly wasn’t contemplating actually going to bed with their opponent!

  Suddenly Samantha found herself wishing she’d explained her own, personal motivation in this deal to Gabriel. Things would be so much simpler now if he knew the full story.

  Only he probably would never have agreed to get involved with her financially if he had known the full story. Catch twenty-two.

  Well, shit. It was too complicated to sort out while she sat here staring at Drew Buchanan’s wryly amused face. She needed to think, and she couldn’t do that with her enemy here in the house.

  “I’m afraid dinner isn’t possible,” she murmured politely. “Even for old times’ sake. I have other plans.” Like getting out a frozen pizza!

  “Plans that are more important than discussing a great sum of money?” he mocked, and she could have kicked herself. He was choosing to interpret her refusal to dine with him as cowardice. The dismaying thing was that he might be right in a way!

  She smiled, the expression every hit as false as his own. “Dear Drew, we both know you have no intention of discussing terms this evening. You only want to see if you can get me into bed. Frankly, I’ve got more interesting ways of spending the evening. Why don’t you run along now and let me know for certain when you’ve decided to make out a check?” She got to her feet as a means of encouraging him to leave and also because she was beginning to feel uncomfortably restless. She wanted him out of the house.

  But her unexpectedly hasty dismissal must not have fit in with his plans at all. Another chunk of the facade slipped as he stood up quickly and reached for her.

  “I wonder why I never realized until this week what a little bitch you are,” he said coldly. His hands bit into her shoulders.

  Samantha lifted her head, unflinchingly meeting his icy expression. “But, Drew, you’re the one who taught me everything I know.”

  “And I always knew you didn’t have enough of that ruthlessness to make it to the top, love.” The polished seducer was back in charge as he lowered his mouth to take her lips. “You’re soft, Samantha. Baby soft. Don’t you remember?”

  She stood still for a moment beneath the touch of his mouth, curious to see how different his kiss would be for her now than it had been three years ago. There was nothing. It was all too contrived, too jadedly sensuous, too deliberately provocative. There was none of the elemental power that captured her so easily when Gabriel took her in his arms. And there wasn’t any indication that Drew was more than superficially involved in the caress. With Gabriel there was never any doubt but that he was succumbing to the passion of the moment just as he forced her to surrender to it.

  Gabriel. What the hell was she doing standing here in Drew Buchanan’s arms? Even if the embrace meant nothing, she had no business letting this man touch her.

  A strange kind of panic seized her. The overwhelming need to free herself of the spurious caress drove her into sudden, wild protest. She threw up her hands, pressing furiously against Drew’s chest, and
at the same time snapped her head away from his.

  “Get out of here, Drew. Don’t bother contacting me again until you’re ready to sign a check! Get the hell out of my house!”

  He had the nerve to smile. It was a slow, cool, satisfied smile, which told exactly how he was viewing her actions.

  “Don’t you trust yourself to even kiss me, baby?” he murmured smoothly, stroking his fingers along the line of her shoulder. “Are you so afraid of finding out that the old magic still exists?”

  God! He thought she was fighting him because she was terrified of losing her control. The monumental ego of the man. But none of that mattered as much as getting him out of her home. She should never have let him in the front door. It was all wrong. She had violated the spirit if not the letter of her midnight pact with Gabriel, and the feeling of revulsion was almost sickening.

  “Get out, Drew,” She kept her voice utterly calm, stepping away from him and striding toward the front door. “Don’t come back. Why don’t you have one of your assistants contact me for the final details? That way you won’t have to disturb your busy schedule any further.”

  His smile became even more satisfied. “You’re running scared, baby, and I know you. You’re the one who just told me how perceptive I am, remember? I’ll keep pushing buttons until I find the one that works.” He moved slowly toward the door. “And I will find it. You know I will. I always do. You haven’t got a chance of standing up to me, Sam. You of all people should know that.”

  “Get out!”

  “I’m going. But I’ll be back. Believe it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He strode outside to where his car was parked as if he hadn’t a concern in the world. As if he had Samantha in the palm of his hand.

  Samantha watched him leave, beginning to breathe normally now that he was off the premises. Running scared, was she? He didn’t even have an inkling of how unsettled, how nervous, how scared she really was! But even if he had deduced the truth, he was going to tell himself that it was because she was terrified of her own reaction to him.

  The only terrifying thought was how she was going to explain all this to Gabriel Sinclair when he arrived in the morning.

  Chapter Nine

  “It’s about time you got here!”

  Samantha came down the front porch steps with quick, restless steps as Gabriel’s rented car pulled into the drive. The explanations were clearly outlined in her head and had been ready for hours. After a night spent tossing and turning as she tried first to talk herself out of the strange guilt and then, when that effort failed, tried to figure out how to convince Gabriel she wasn’t really guilty of anything, Samantha was not in a good mood.

  Gabriel perused her slowly as he climbed out of the sedate car. Samantha could literally feel him taking in every aspect of her from the overbright sheen of her eyes glittering at him from behind the lenses of her glasses to the tension in her figure and the hectic flush on her cheeks. The bad night’s sleep showed, she thought disgustedly. Then, after absorbing the evidence of her obvious agitation, Gabriel’s eyes moved deliberately to the rounded curve of her hips tightly sheathed in jeans.

  “Nothing like a warm welcome from his woman to make a man forget this damn rain,” he drawled as he paced through the mist toward where Samantha had come to a stop on the bottom porch step. She stared at him, astounded that he could tease her even a little when he must realize something awful had happened. Her mouth tightened at the sardonic expression in his eyes when she made no move to kiss him hello.

  “Oh, Gabriel, I’m sorry!” Samantha groaned.

  “About what? The rain or the unencouraging greeting I’m getting?” He reached her side and leaned down to take her mouth in a brief, hard kiss.

  “I have to talk to you.” She stepped back nervously, leading the way into the old house.

  “About what?” he asked again, sounding more patient than ever. He set down his leather travel bag and followed her toward the warmth of the kitchen.

  His very calmness fed her anxiety, Samantha thought irritably. It was annoying to be so keyed up, so tense, and have the object of all that tension acting as if he were some kind of salesman home after a week on the road.

  “It’s very complicated, Gabriel.” She sighed. “Sit down. I’ll get you some coffee.”

  “Tea sounds more soothing. You sit down, Samantha. I’ll make it.” His large bands descended on her shoulders, and she was pushed gently but firmly onto one of the kitchen chairs.

  She watched morosely as he set about collecting all the things he needed for tea and then began making it in his careful, precise way. God, she couldn’t even make tea the way he liked it, let alone cook or keep house or conduct business in a fashion of which he approved. Self-pity hovered in a dark cloud over her head.

  “You should have picked another woman, Gabriel.” He didn’t pause as he methodically warmed the china pot with hot water, but Samantha thought the broad shoulders tensed a little beneath the conservatively cut pinstriped shirt he wore.

  It was funny, she thought vaguely, both Drew and Gabriel wore conservatively tailored clothes but for entirely different reasons. Buchanan chose the look because it fit the image he strove to maintain of respectable corporate power. Gabriel chose it simply because it suited his personality. Samantha couldn’t imagine him dressed any other way.

  “One who can cook?” he jibed in response to her mumbled comment.

  “This isn’t a joke, Gabriel. Buchanan’s here. He arrived yesterday,” she snapped back baldly. “And he’s coming back here today.”

  Gabriel’s hand stilled for a moment before he went through with the action of putting the kettle on the burner and switching on the heat. It was typical of the man, Samantha realized. He never let anything put him off course. She felt a sense of wistful admiration for his deliberate, unhurried ways. He always finished what he started, even something as small and insignificant as putting the kettle on the stove. Despite the shock of her announcement, nothing impeded the flow of the tea-making ceremony.

  There was something wonderfully reassuring about Gabriel Sinclair. Why the hell had she tried to finesse the business arrangement between them? This wasn’t the kind of man a woman wanted to manipulate or finesse. This was the kind who should be treated as an equal and dealt with openly and honestly.

  “Oh, Gabriel,” she whispered raggedly, “I’m sorry.”

  He turned slowly to face her, leaning back against the counter and folding his arms across his chest. His face was an unreadable but infinitely calm mask. Too calm. It wasn’t human to be that calm. It wasn’t even particularly angelic. Samantha’s nervousness increased considerably.

  “Okay, Samantha. Tell me about Buchanan.”

  “It’s so damn complicated!”

  “Probably not as complicated as it seems to you at the moment,” he retorted dryly.

  “You’re right,” she admitted quietly, bringing herself back under control. “It isn’t really complicated, it’s just rather messy. Gabriel, there’s something I haven’t explained to you about this business deal of ours. Something I didn’t think really mattered because it didn’t have anything to do with the financial arrangements between you and me. It still doesn’t,” she added insistently.

  “Who are you trying to convince, honey? Me or yourself?”

  “Myself. Gabriel, three years ago I was engaged to marry Drew Buchanan.” She lifted her eyes defiantly as she waited for the angry explosion. Gabriel just looked at her, his gaze pensive.

  “I see.”

  She took a breath, “Do you? What I’m trying to explain is that I had other motives for concocting this deal than the ones I explained to you. I’m not just out to make a quick financial kill.”

  “You’re out for revenge.”

  “That’s the part that gets complicated.” She groaned. “I am out for revenge but not the sort Drew thinks.”

  “And what, exactly, does Buchanan think you want?”

  He sounded so u
nmoved and so unalarmed she thought wonderingly. Didn’t he see how she had misled him? Wasn’t he furious that an emotional motive like feminine revenge was at the heart of her whole plot? He had to be annoyed, to say the least, to find out that he hadn’t been given the whole picture right from the start.

  “He thinks I must still be carrying a torch for him. He sees me playing out the role of a woman scorned.”

  “And you’re not?”

  Her eyes hardened. “Of course not. He’s not worth three years of plotting and planning and research!”

  “Who is?”

  “My mother.”

  “I think,” Gabriel noted calmly as he turned to the stove in response to the teakettle’s whistle, “that I’m beginning to see a light at the end of this crazy tunnel. Keep talking, Samantha.”

  Her shoulders moved in an uneasy shrug. “There’s not much else to explain. I’m in this because I’m trying to show Vera Maitland that she didn’t raise a failure and a fool of a daughter.”

  “Are you sure that’s how she thinks of you?” He poured the hot water into the warmed pot.

  “I saw the look in her eyes after my fiasco of an engagement was broken up by my father,” Samantha said bitterly. “It was as if I had betrayed every tenet she had taught me by making a fool of myself over Buchanan. It’s been three years, Gabriel, and I can still see that expression in her eyes. I didn’t turn out strong and independent and brave like my mother. I turned out to be a weak little idiot who managed to let herself be blinded by a slick, sophisticated playboy who uses everyone, including women, for his own ends. When I saw him yesterday,” she went on in a lower tone, “I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid three years ago. My mother was right to be appalled at what happened.”

  “So this whole elaborate maneuver down in Phoenix is solely designed to prove to your mother that you, too, can be as hard as nails?”

  Samantha’s eyes narrowed at the cool mockery in his words. “I think I’m trying to prove it to myself, too. I want Vera to know I can take care of myself, and I want to know I can do it. I won’t be stomped on.”