Double Dealing

by Jayne Castle

  “Tell me about that engagement, Samantha,” Gabriel ordered quietly as he carried the tea things over to the table and set them down. He sank heavily into the chair across from her and began to pour, his eyes on the pot.

  He had a right to know, she decided grimly. So she told him as concisely and as honestly as possible. She even told him exactly how it had ended. “Vera called in my father, who did his duty and bailed out his daughter before she actually found herself married to Drew Buchanan. He did it in a typically Victor Thorndyke fashion, naturally. No holds barred. Walked into Drew’s office and told him I wouldn’t inherit a dime if he married me. Drew was no fool.”

  “He called off the engagement?”

  “With his usual finesse and style. I hardly knew what was happening, only that things were changing between us. Very quickly it was all over, and I was forced to accept the fact that I’d made a fool of myself.”

  “And the worst aspect of the whole situation was that you hadn’t lived up to Vera’s image of a daughter?” Gabriel sipped his tea, seemingly only casually interested in the answer.

  “Or my own image of Vera Maitland’s daughter! My mother has never made a fool of herself in her life. And certainly not over a man,” Samantha noted proudly.

  “Sounds like an amazon.”

  “She is.” Samantha smiled obliquely. “I was raised on tales of amazons.”

  “And you’re out to prove you’ve inherited the mantle.” There was a long silence while Gabriel sipped tea before he finally spoke again. “Well, that does fill in the missing piece of the puzzle,” he murmured.

  Samantha eyed him cautiously. “What puzzle?”

  “I never could quite figure out what was going on behind the scenes in this little deal of ours. There was always a piece missing.”

  She frowned, “You knew I was holding something back?”

  “Let’s just say I knew I didn’t have all the pertinent facts. I’m coming to accept that as normal with you, honey,” he told her coolly. “You’re just full of little surprises.”

  The tip of Samantha’s tongue moved briefly across dry lips as she continued to watch his unreadable face. The man could certainly play poker if he ever wanted to and play it well. She couldn’t even begin to tell what he was thinking.

  “You don’t seem overly concerned about that fact,” she finally ventured, genuinely puzzled now. “I mean, I rather thought this little confession scene today was going to have a slightly different effect on you.”

  “Really? What sort of effect did you expect it to have?” She didn’t like the placid way he asked the question.

  “It did occur to me,” she retorted, “that you might be a bit upset about the whole thing. Angry, perhaps. Absolutely infuriated, in fact!”

  “Why should I be infuriated?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “Because you’re not the sort of man who likes little surprises! For God’s sake, Gabriel, why are you taking this so calmly?” Her hand clenched into a small, frustrated fist. This wasn’t going the way she had imagined it would at all. But, then, things rarely did around Gabriel. When was she going to realize that?

  “Well, I can’t say I truly enjoy having a lot of little rabbits pulled out of hats when I’ve invested a reasonable sum of money in the lady magician,” he said wryly, “but I covered the situation by taking out insurance.”

  “Insurance!” She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Gives a man a lot of peace of mind,” he explained equably. “More tea?”

  “Gabriel, what the devil are you talking about? What insurance?” She ignored the offer of tea.

  He sighed at her slowness, helping himself to another cup of tea. “Samantha, what made you decide to tell me all this today? Why do I arrive in the rain after a boring flight to find my business associate greeting me with the mea culpa routine?”

  “I told you! Buchanan came to see me yesterday!” Why was he being so dense?

  “And?”

  “And I realized I hadn’t been completely straightforward with you,” she mumbled, subsiding back against her chair. “There were reasons, you know,” she went on defensively.

  He nodded, as if understanding perfectly. “You were afraid I wouldn’t go through with the deal if I knew there were emotional rather than purely business motives involved.”

  “Well? Would you have gone through with it?” she challenged.

  “Once I realized you were going to go through with it with or without me, yes. I wasn’t operating with a purely business attitude either, I’m afraid. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  She slanted him an assessing glance through her lashes trying to figure out his meaning. “If you’re talking about the fact that we’ve slept together,” she said stiffly, “then that doesn’t make any sense. You and I both agreed that the physical side of this relationship was totally unconnected with the business side.”

  “I lied.”

  Samantha blinked in astonishment and then in gathering anger. “You said you weren’t backing me just for the dubious benefit of sleeping with me!”

  “I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I can divorce the business side of this from the bedroom. Can you?”

  “Of course I can!”

  “Then why are you going through this grand confession scene?” he asked again, endlessly patient.

  “Gabriel, you are deliberately confusing me,” she shot back accusingly. “I’ve told you that Buchanan came to see me yesterday!”

  “And that event made you decide to confide all your motives to your business partner?”

  “Well, yes, in a way…”

  “In what way?” he persisted.

  Samantha was almost out of patience. “Because I realized when Drew tried to seduce me that I was in a somewhat untenable position!” she gritted.

  Something very unangelic moved in Gabriel’s eyes at the word “seduce,” but he simply concluded the confession for her. “You realized that you were suddenly very close to violating the promise you made to me last week.”

  She stared at him. “How did you know?”

  “That promise of loyalty I got out of you that night was my insurance, Samantha.”

  “Your insurance!”

  “I knew that the one way to be sure I didn’t find myself facing one surprise too many was to shackle you with your own sense of integrity. You live by your own rules, apparently, but you do stay within them. I had been through a lot that night, I’m afraid, and I decided I’d better make sure things weren’t going to get worse. I needed the reassurance.” He half-smiled in grim memory.

  “You put a hell of a lot of faith in that oath you forced on me!” she crisped, feeling abused and outmaneuvered.

  “The only thing I want to know, Samantha,” Gabriel went on with a dangerous softness in his voice, is which line you were suddenly afraid of crossing. Tell me about the seduction.”

  “You want to know which it was in, business or bed, that I found myself on the verge of betraying you, don’t you?” she muttered resentfully.

  “Just tell me what happened. Buchanan figured he could play on your old attraction? Thought he could handle you by seducing you all over again?”

  “You don’t have to sound so matter-of-fact about it!”

  Gabriel lifted one broad shoulder. “It sounds like a logical approach for him to try under the circumstances. Was it in danger of working? Is that why I’m getting this little scene today?”

  “How can you be so damn cool about all this?” she stormed, incensed.

  “Sorry. I thought you realized I tend to be rather unexpressive in my reactions. Am I making this all too dull for you? Would you rather I beat my chest and then beat you? Shall I do a bit more kicking and screaming?”

  Quite abruptly Samantha found herself stifling a small surge of sardonic humor. “You don’t have to liven things up for me, Gabriel,” she muttered dryly. “I’m quite aware of the fact that I should be grateful you’re taking all this so calmly. It was the
business end of things I started to get nervous about yesterday.”

  “Not the bedroom end?” He was still watching her with that imperturbable, assessing gaze.

  “Definitely not!” She smiled very coldly. “But I had planned to let Drew try his little games. I wanted to string him along a bit; let him think I was still attracted. Ah, Gabriel, I had such plans for that confrontation with Drew Buchanan. After three years of working toward it, I had intended to wring the most out of it. Instead, when he asked me out to dinner, I suddenly realized I was beginning to panic. All I could think about was that I hadn’t been completely honest with you. That I had used you, I guess. I couldn’t get him out of the house fast enough. So much for three years of scheming!”

  “What about the business end? Did you give him your price for the restaurant?” For the first time she thought she detected satisfaction in his voice.

  “I, uh, upped it a bit from the one you and I had discussed.” She eyed him warily, remembering the plan to set a five-hundred-thousand-dollar tag on the land.

  He closed his eyes, clearly begging a higher authority for patience. “How much?”

  “Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  That brought his eyes open in a hurry. “Seven hundred and fifty!”

  “That’s what Drew said,” she drawled. “And in exactly that tone.”

  “I’ll bet. You’re probably lucky he didn’t do something more drastic than try to seduce you! Three quarters of a million. You’ve got nerve, honey, I’ll give you that. Jesus! One more s-s-shock like that and probably collapse!”

  “I guess I got carried away.” But that was the one aspect of the situation for which she didn’t intend to apologize. Damn it, she had a right to salvage something from the grand scheme which had gone grandly haywire.

  Gabriel saw the glint of defiance in her eyes and decided not to push the matter. The damage had already been done. He would just have to keep an especially close eye on Samantha now because Drew Buchanan wasn’t going to take kindly to the notion of being truly fleeced. He might have accepted something around the three-hundred-fifty-thousand to half-a-million figure with a certain fatalistic business equanimity. He’d have made a few attempts at applying some pressure, but in the end he would have decided it wasn’t worth fighting. Not when he realized Samantha wasn’t involved in this alone. But the outrageousness of asking for a lot more was going to make the man furious. People got unpredictable when they got emotionally involved to that extent, he reminded himself laconically.

  Just look at his own behavior!

  “Gabriel,” Samantha said hesitantly, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Hmmm?”

  “You don’t seem especially upset, and while I’m grateful for small favors, I find myself asking why I’m getting off so lightly.”

  His mouth lifted reluctantly upward at the corner. “Like I said. Nothing like a little insurance to give a man peace of mind. I’m sitting here thanking my lucky stars that we had that midnight chat last week.”

  “The only difference it made was that I decided against having dinner with Buchanan!” she pointed out in annoyance.

  “I happen to consider that a major difference.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and Gabriel could have kicked himself. He had been handling her all right up until now. Now things were threatening to get sticky. She was like a stick of dynamite this morning, he decided uneasily, trouble looking for an excuse to explode.

  “I can see that you do consider it important. Which brings up something I’m beginning to think we need to discuss, Gabriel.”

  Hell. He’d let her off the hook, and now she was going to push her luck. He could see it coming. With an inner groan of dismay, Gabriel poured himself another cup of tea and waited patiently for disaster. “You got a good scare last night, didn’t you?”

  “Drew didn’t scare me. He left when I told him to.”

  “I don’t mean Buchanan scared you. He’s got more sense than to rough you up. That’s not his style, from what I know of the man.” Gabriel pushed that notion aside. “What scared you was how you found yourself reacting.” He tried to think of a way to defuse her uncertain temper. “That’s what you want to discuss, isn’t it? The way you found yourself feeling bound to me? So much so that you were unable to deal with Buchanan the way you had planned to deal with him?”

  “It was a very awkward sensation, Gabriel,” she told him flatly. “I think we need to define our relationship a little more closely. I should have felt free to deal with Buchanan anyway I wished last night, and instead I lost control of the situation because I started worrying about what you would think! I shouldn’t have had that feeling, Gabriel.”

  He looked down at the cup of tea cradled in his hands, searching for a diplomatic way of saying what had to be said. Diplomacy, unfortunately, was not one of his strong points. He didn’t take well to tiptoeing around an issue. “It’s too late, Samantha” was all he could think of to say. He said it as gently as possible, but it was like lighting the fuse of the dynamite.

  “It is not too later” she exploded, leaning forward intently. “Gabriel, we are going to set some reasonable and highly explicit ground rules for this relationship of ours, or else we are going to call the relationship off! Do you know what I felt last night? I felt as if you had claimed some sort of territorial rights over me! As if I shouldn’t be making a move, without consulting you! I felt as if I were your possession or something! Believe me, that’s not the sort of relationship I want with a man; any man. And it all happened because of that vague promise you had me make. I want that promise clarified, Gabriel. I want both of us to know exactly where we stand and what we can expect from each other. I don’t want this nebulous, all-encompassing feeling that I somehow belong to you!”

  He shook his head, knowing nothing he was going to say would pacify her. She had indeed had a scare last night. She had come face-to-face with the conflict between her passion for revenge and her passion for him.

  “What do you want me to say, honey?” he asked softly. “That we can conduct our affair as if it were a business contract? Do you want me to say that yes, there are loopholes and you’re free to take advantage of them? I’m not going to say that, Samantha. I’m not leaving you any loopholes. I’m not going to release you from the promise you made me the other night.”

  “Damn you, Gabriel, you’re deliberately taking advantage of a promise I made at a time when I was very emotionally involved!”

  “Honey, that’s the only way you ever are in a situation. Very passionately involved. You’re passionate in your revenge, in your business dealings, in your feelings of loyalty, in your sense of honor. You’re also very, very passionate in bed. Do you really expect me to give up all that now that I’ve got it?”

  For a moment she simply sat, stunned by his bold claim. Gabriel could feel the simmering fury in her and thought about pointing out another of her passionate traits. Then he decided it was not the best time to discuss her far from placid temperament.

  “Of all the outrageous, chauvinistic, pigheaded, masculine things to say!” she finally managed, jumping to her feet. “You don’t own me, Gabriel Sinclair! Do you hear me? If you want a relationship with me, an affair with me, then it’s going to be on my terms! I won’t be caught again in the situation I was in last night!”

  He looked up at her incensed expression. “You mean you don’t want to find yourself having to put our relationship ahead of your thirst for revenge?” he asked calmly. “I can’t help you there, Samantha. The relationship comes first. Ahead of everything else. I want you and I have you. I won’t release you.”

  The teacup left her hand and went sailing past his head, landing with a shattering crash against the kitchen wall. She hadn’t really been aiming at him, Gabriel realized, or else she would have hit him. He was sitting too close for her to miss. The action was a grand gesture of frustration and fury at the trap in which she found herself.

  “The hell you have
me!” she hissed, her hands on her hips.

  Gabriel wasn’t sure what he would have said next, probably nothing especially helpful. But the words died on his lips as the old brass eagle sounded on Samantha’s front door. He watched the impotent look of outrage cross her face as she realized the grand scene toward which she had been building was going to be delayed. If he hadn’t had a fairly sure idea of who was probably at her door, Gabriel would have felt vastly relieved by the reprieve. As it was, he had to act quickly to get control of the situation.

  “Samantha, listen to me. That’s probably going to be Buchanan,” he snapped, leaning forward to plant his hands flat on the table between them. “He’ll have some new tactic in mind, and this time he’ll find out he’s dealing with me as well as you. Leave it to me, do you understand? I’ll handle him.”

  “I set this whole thing up! I’m the one who’s going to handle him!” she got out tersely, turning on her heel to stride for the door.

  He caught her just as she reached the hall, clamping a sure hand around her arm and pulling her to a halt. “Samantha, you and I can have our battle in private later. Right now we have to stand together, no matter how annoyed you happen to be. Is that clear? Everything’s going to ride on convincing Buchanan that he hasn’t got a chance in hell of pressuring us.”

  “And you think you can do a better job of convincing him than I can?” she mocked savagely.

  “Frankly, yes.”

  She struggled for a moment longer, and then he saw the recognition of the reality of the situation hit her.

  “Later, Gabriel,” she warned him stoutly as she shook herself free of his grip.

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Later,” he agreed with a sigh. But nothing was going to be different later, didn’t she realize that? He had a claim on her, and he wasn’t relinquishing it regardless of what happened between them later.

  Now there was Buchanan to deal with. Buchanan, who thought he was about to be held up to the tune of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Buchanan whom Samantha had once loved. Christ! What a morning.