Personal Protection hp-2

by Leah Braemel

  And now they were trying to convince him-while he was bound and forced to listen-to let go of that love? Could you force someone to do that?

  Tying Sam up couldn’t be the way to convince him. If someone did that to her, she’d dig in her heels and stop listening, convinced she was right and they were wrong. Unable to think in any more depth, she shook her head. “So how come you waited eight years before trying so unselfishly to help him.”

  A frown flickered over his face. “I didn’t realize he was still mourning Jill. I thought he’d let go of it years ago. But then Thalia realized what was going on, especially when Sam asked Rosie to move out. That’s when we knew we had to take action.”

  “Action.” Rosie snorted. “Why couldn’t you have just phoned him and told him to get therapy?”

  He snorted in response. “Come on, Rosie, you know Sam as well as I do. Or at least you should if what Chad says about you is true. Can you see Sam voluntarily going to a therapist?”

  No, she couldn’t. He’d have to be bound and gagged and… Oh, right. Except for the gag, that’s exactly what they’d done. “Then why couldn’t you have just… I don’t know, told me right from the start that it was a scheme?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, as if he was considering whether to tell her the truth. “We had to make sure that you wanted Sam as much as he wanted you. And that you were with him for the right reasons.”

  Her lips firmed. “You mean that I wasn’t after his money.”

  Mark nodded. “There is that.”

  Uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, Rosie returned to her position of spectator.

  “Just bring Rosie out here. I don’t have time for whatever game you’re playing.”

  “Don’t you understand, Sam?” Thalia asked. “It’s not a game.”

  Sam’s voice was flat when he replied, “Why don’t you tell me, Thalia? Get this damned charade over with but let me make sure that Rosie’s okay.”

  Wait a minute. If Chad and Thalia were his stalkers…what the hell was this about if not revenge? Why were Cooper and Scott and Andy just standing around helping them?

  “You want to tell me what the hell’s going on here, Chad? Scott found the undoctored photos on your computer.”

  “Jesus, Sam, you got some of the highest scores in Quantico, and you haven’t figured it out yet?” Chad rolled his eyes. “It’s all been a set up, Sam. All of it. There’s never been a stalker. There’s been no threat. And Scott found the photos there because I told him where to look so you’d come running to us.”

  What the fuck? “Is it money you’re after? Or do you think I owe you part of Hauberk? What is it, Chad, because frankly I haven’t got a clue what this is about if not revenge?”

  “Oh, Sam.” Thalia wheeled over to him and put her hand on his thigh. “It’s never been about revenge. It’s been about you getting on with your life.”

  Thalia sighed. “Sam, you need to move on. You need to put the past behind you and not hide out here. You need someone permanent in your life. Any woman with half a brain would consider you a good catch.”

  “That’s about sums up the type he dates,” Cooper rumbled. “Half a brain.”

  Sam sneered. “Maybe you should take a look in a mirror, Coop. Or is this not your suite we’re in? And you could at least let me down from here? I’m starting to lose circulation to my hands.”

  “I don’t think so, Sam, not until you’ve listened to us.” Thalia wheeled herself back in front of Sam, her head tilted back to look up at him. “Everyone knows you loved Jill. And no one would ever try to take her memory away from you or deny your feelings for her. But she’s gone-through no fault of your own, she’s gone. It’s time for you to accept that and move on.”

  Why don’t you stick a hot poker in my gut? That would hurt less.

  He tested the tackle again. A smattering of dust floated over his shoulders. One more good jerk, maybe two should do it.

  “You think you should have been able to save Jill. Well, guess what. You couldn’t. It wasn’t your fault. People get killed, Sam. You can’t save them all. People have car accidents, they get cancer, they get shot. You can’t save everyone, and you can’t shut everyone out for fear of losing them. Let yourself love Rosie. Accept her love too. Don’t destroy this chance at love, Sam. You may not get another one.”

  Damn, she wasn’t just stickin’ the poker in his gut, she was slicing his whole damned intestines out with it. “In case you haven’t heard, Thal, that boat’s sailed. Rosie moved out.”

  “Rosie moved out because you ordered her to.”

  “Because she threw herself over me to protect me. If Robert had been an assassin she’d be dead. We both thought I was being stalked, remember? I figured she’d be safer if she wasn’t in the line of fire. I was trying to protect her, not lose her.”

  Like I lost Jill.

  “Just like Jill.” Chad walked up behind Thalia, put his hand on her shoulder. “Thalia’s right, Sam. I understand that you want to protect Rosie, I do. And maybe we’ve gone about this the wrong way…”

  “Ya think?”

  “We couldn’t think of another way to get you two together after the date we’d arranged went nowhere.”

  He’d wondered why it had been Rosie who had bid on him, but Jodi had said Mark didn’t think it would be proper for Thalia to bid. “How many times do I have to tell you, Chad, Rosie’s my employee. You know I was trying to protect Hauberk from a lawsuit.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. If you didn’t know you weren’t being stalked, if Rosie worked for a different security firm who was protecting you, you’d have still found a way to push her away.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Is it?” With a nod from Thalia, Chad walked behind him. The rope holding Sam’s hands above his head slackened and he lowered his arms with a groan of relief.

  Thalia caught his hands with hers, chaffing them as the blood flooded back. But instead of undoing his handcuffs, she turned his wrists until his right hand was face up and rubbed his ring with her thumb.

  “Then tell us why you still wear this, Sam. The wedding ring Jill bought for you? The one you’ve put on and never taken off since you got out of the hospital.”

  Jeezuz, what more did she want? His entrails spread over the floor like a goddamned rug so she could roll over them? “You know it is, Thalia. Leave it alone.”

  “I can’t. You deserve to find happiness, Sam. You lost more than I did that day, and it left you as crippled as me. But you have the ability to get up and dust yourself off and move on.”

  “In other words,” Cooper said, “it’s time to get off your ass and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Damn it, why couldn’t they see what was going on? “I’m not keeping Rosie away because I feel sorry for myself. I’m doing it because she’ll be safe that way. I won’t see her hurt because of me.”

  “Don’t you see? You are using the stalking as a way to keep Rosie at arm’s length. The same way you use the club. It’s a crutch, Sam. You don’t want to get hurt the way you were when Jill died, and you know that the women you meet here aren’t looking for long term involvement. So instead of taking a chance and meeting someone special, you spend your time here and avoid commitment.” Thalia paused, shaking her head. “Marriage, children, commitment of that type anyway. And the women you date…” she waved her hand toward the door, “…out there. They’re no better. I swear half the ones you date couldn’t find their way out of a hall with one door.”

  “What in the hell makes you think I was looking for commitment? I’ve been coming to the club because I enjoy it. I love havin’ sex without my partner complaining that I’m too kinky. That’s the whole point of the place, isn’t it?”

  “But Rosie’s different, isn’t she? You can see a life with her. And that makes you feel like you’re disloyal to Jill, doesn’t it?” When he didn’t answer, Thalia lowered her pitch assuming her Domme persona, the one that made him respond
without thinking. “Do you love Rosie, Sam?”

  “Yes,” he shouted. “Yes. I love her, all right? But that doesn’t mean she should stick around me. That doesn’t mean she should throw herself in front of a goddamned bullet for me. I don’t want to lose her like that. I won’t lose her like that. I’d rather she stayed safe. That she stayed alive.”

  The door to the back room opened and Rosie appeared, her arms jammed on her hips. He relaxed to see her unharmed, unbound.

  “Rosie, thank God you’re safe.” Desperation mixed with relief filled his voice. “I’m sorry if I got angry the other night.”

  This morning she would have accepted his apology at face value. But she couldn’t now she knew the significance of his ring. That awareness created an ache in her heart, in her soul. Chad moved Thalia back to where Cooper stood so they no longer blocked her from Sam, but Rosie stayed where she was.

  “Now that we know there’s no real stalker, you can move back in and we-”

  “No. Sam.” The ache in her heart became a knife sharp pain. She blinked away the tears and held her head high. “I’m not moving back in with you. At least, not yet.”

  Not while you wear that ring. Not until I come first.

  He shook his head and tugged at the restraints then gave up with a sigh. “Look, I know I’ve been an ass lately. I know I reacted badly the other night but-”

  “I’m not prepared to spend my life with someone who doesn’t love me as much as I love them.” She wrapped her arms about her stomach. Andy put his hand on her shoulder, steadying her. “It hurts too much, Sam. Even if it’s only us in the room, I feel like there’s still going to be another person between us.”

  “I don’t think of Jill when I’m with you, Rosie. You have to believe me, I love you.”

  Why couldn’t you have said “I love you” last night. When you weren’t handcuffed and shackled and under duress?

  “When we were making love,” her voice wavered so she took a couple of breaths before she felt steady enough to continue. “Sam, when you touch me and you’re wearing that ring, are you thinking of her?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you still wear it?”

  He looked away from her. “I couldn’t get rid of it. It’s all I had left of her.”

  “Oh, Sam. Thalia is right. I hoped she wasn’t, but she is, isn’t she? Jill’s been between us every minute of every day. She’s been in every conversation we’ve had and every decision you’ve made.”

  “What do you want of me? I can’t just stop loving someone like you’d flip off a light switch. What would that say of how I feel about you?”

  What did he feel? she wanted to scream. Where am I in your life compared to Jill? Will I always be second? How much longer before you let go of her and see me standing right in front of you?

  “I’ve never lost anyone I care about like that, Sam, so I can’t begin to understand how much losing Jill must have hurt. I’m not expecting you to forget her. But she died eight years ago. If we’re to have a chance, if that’s where we’re headed, you’ve got to put the past in the past. And if you can’t, well, I’m not prepared to come second to a ghost in any relationship.”

  “What are you saying, Rosie?”

  “I’m saying I love you, but I’m not convinced you’re ready to love me the way I deserve to be loved, the way I need to be loved.” She drew another deep breath, shuddering as she did, conscious of how quiet the room had become, of everyone’s eyes on her. “I’m saying good-bye, Sam.”

  Before he could say another word, before she could change her mind, she walked out of the room. Out of his life.

  Chapter Thirty

  It was as if someone had taken a vacuum and sucked all the light out of the apartment, all the air. Everywhere he looked he saw Rosie. If he sat in the living room, he remembered making love to her in front of the fireplace, of her standing naked in front of the window calling him Master. Of watching the football games, Rosie catcalling the umpires if they made a call she disagreed with, doing little dances when her beloved Jets scored a touchdown. How she’d stood in his arms in the kitchen, trembling with aftershocks after he’d made her come. Or even just the times they’d worked in a companionable silence making dinner.

  And his own bedroom? He’d not find another night’s sleep in that bed.

  Even the spare bedroom reminded him of when she’d lain beneath him that night he’d acted on impulse and admitted his attraction. He could still feel her writhing beneath his touch, still taste her sweet honey on his tongue, still hear her moans echoing in his chest.

  He stared at the ring he’d placed on the coffee table. By keeping it, by wearing it, had he used it to keep Jill alive? Had he created his own personal albatross?

  Yet taking it off had been like losing Jill all over again. As if he were to say he hadn’t loved her, that she didn’t matter. And that seemed wrong too.

  The doorbell rang. Must be one of his neighbors since the front desk hadn’t called to announce any visitors.

  He stayed where he was, letting the bell ring twice more. Whoever it was gave up on the bell and knocked on the door.

  “Sam, I know you’re in there. Let me in, buddy.”

  Mark. The traitor who had refused to release him until Rosie had disappeared from his life.

  A key rattled in the lock and the door opened. “Sam?”

  Shit, the bastard must have gotten the master key from the guard. So much for his own security people protecting him.

  He rubbed his palm across his knuckles, the absence of the ring strange after all these years. “What do you want, Mark? Fixin’ to rub more salt in my wounds?”

  “We were worried about you.”

  “Kinda hard to tell considering what you did to me earlier. How you wrecked my life.”

  “Can I turn on a light here, Sam? I can’t see worth shit in this dark.”

  Before he could answer, Mark flicked on the overhead fixture, its light bouncing off the ring.

  “Turn it off, goddamn it.”

  The light flicked off, and a dark shadow appeared beside him. “You okay?”

  “Rosie’s gone. I’ve lost her.” Thanks to Mark’s fucking interference. If Mark had let him down right away, he might have had a chance to catch Rosie before she left. And then he’d discovered Mark had agreed to the plan months before. The bastard had probably been sitting back there in Dallas laughing his fuckin’ ass off during all the conversations they’d had about Rosie. Now Mark would go home to his pregnant wife, while Sam had just lost the woman he loved. Again!

  He surged from the couch, tackling Mark, pinning him face-down to the floor. “You made me lose her. If you hadn’t interfered, she’d be here now.”

  Mark grunted, but didn’t struggle. “I’m sorry. We didn’t think she’d walk out like that. We thought you’d listen to reason and-”

  “She left me! Because of you and Chad and Thalia, and your fucking quack psychology, I’ve lost Rosie.” Fight back, damn it. Fight so I can hit you. Hit me, hurt me so I can concentrate on something other than this god-awful pain in my chest.

  “You’d already pushed her away, Sam. She was talking with Chad about transferring. We had to do something to get you to realize what you were doing.”

  Sam tightened his grip, fighting the urge to pound Mark’s head into the floor. “I was trying to keep her safe. You would have done the same thing with Jodi if you thought she was in danger.”

  “Yeah, I would have, you’re right.” Mark sucked in a breath. “We fucked up, all right? I admit it, everyone admits it. But when Thalia suggested her plan to get you two together, she just thought it was time you settled down. And after what you’d said to me about Jodi, I thought…” He exhaled in a long slow stream. “None of us realized that you were still mourning Jill. I didn’t mean for you to end up hurting again. I was trying to find a way to, I don’t know, thank you for forcing me to see how much I loved Jodi. And it was sort of funny too, to see the tables turned
on you for once. I figured you’d end up hitched. None of us intended for it to turn out this way. We’re sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s too late for apologies, you fucking bastard. Rosie’s gone.” His voice caught in his throat.

  “No, she’s not.”

  “I went straight to her apartment once you let me go. Her neighbor said she’d come home but left ten minutes later with a suitcase. I’ve tried phoning her Berry, but she’s not answering, I’ve texted her. I’ve checked with her friends and either they don’t know or they’re not telling me. I even phoned her parents and they don’t know where she is.”

  “I know where she is, Sam.”

  Sam pushed his knee harder into Mark’s back, tightened his hold on his arms. “Where? Where is she? You tell me now, damn it!”

  “Let me up first.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Sam rolled off of him and leaned against the couch. He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Where is she? And how do you know?”

  “Andy drove her to the airport. She’s gone to visit her brother in Puerto Rico.”

  “I have to go.” Now he had direction again, he jumped to his feet. “I’ve gotta arrange a flight. I’ve gotta find her, tell her I love her.”

  “Sam.”

  He picked up the phone. Shit, he didn’t know the number of the travel agent. Damn, it was after midnight, they’d be closed anyway. He’d have to phone the airline directly, book a seat himself. Ignoring Mark, he hurried into his study and grabbed the phone book.

  “Sam,” Mark had followed him and now leaned against the doorframe, his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, “Rosie was pretty upset. She may not listen to you. She may not even want to see you. Not for a while yet. Maybe you should let her calm down for a couple days.”

  He put the book down, willing the threatening panic away. “Don’t you see? I have to go after her, I have to try. I have to tell her I love her and I want to marry her and… I have to make her listen. If I have to get on my knees and beg, I will.”