by Janet Dailey
“That was the beginning, wasn’t it? When you started to mistrust me?”
The elevator had stopped at the ground floor, the doors gliding open. Samantha managed a brief “more or less” agreement as they stepped out. Conversation was pushed aside by the sight of the doorman walking quickly forward to open the door for them and the taxi driver standing impatiently on the sidewalk near his car.
No further reference was made by either of them to her enforced stay on the island while they dined at one of the more popular cabaret clubs in New York City. Afterward, the entertainment offered precluded the need for conversation. Yet the undercurrent of awareness flowed constantly between them.
The slightest contact of his hand or any part of him vibrated through Samantha. Each time his gaze slid to her lips, she seemed to stop breathing. Basically, though, Cade kept his distance, not trying to penetrate her defenses except by a subtle look or touch. It was as if he knew he could destroy them any time he wanted to.
Dancing followed the entertainment. Samantha knew that she could not risk the feel of his arms around her and suggested Cade take her home. He didn’t object. In the taxi home, he made no attempt to sit close to her as they exchanged polite comments about the entertainment they had seen.
At the apartment building, Cade didn’t ask the taxi to wait. When the taxi drove off into the night, Samantha knew the hour of reckoning had arrived and hoped she was up to it. She nodded stiffly to the doorman as Cade escorted her into the building and toward the elevators.
Neither spoke during the ride up to the floor of her father’s apartment. The silence added to the tension that had been mounting inside Samantha since Cade’s phone call that afternoon.
At the apartment door, she made a weak attempt to dismiss him. “I had a lovely evening, Cade. Thank you.”
His mouth quirked mockingly; “You’re inviting me in,” he stated, and took the key from her hand.
“I … I really am tired,” she protested nervously.
The key turned in the lock and Cade pushed the door open. Then his hand was between her shoulder blades to gently push her into the mock foyer entrance of the living room.
“You know we have to talk, Sam,” he said quietly, and walked past her, moving familiarly toward the bar in the far corner of the living room. She guessed he had been here before with her father.
Since she couldn’t afford to relax, Samantha avoided the comfortable chairs and sofa, walking to the far window that overlooked the bustling city, aglitter with lights. Too soon, Cade was beside her, offering a glass of gin and tonic. She accepted it, staring at the cubes of ice rather than meeting his gaze.
“I’m not sure I know exactly what it is we have to talk about,” she said defensively.
“About us, of course.” Cade lifted his glass to his mouth, blandly meeting her involuntary glance over the rim of his glass. Her heart jumped to her throat as she looked wildly away from the disturbing light of his gray eyes.
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Chapter Ten
“WHY OF COURSE?” Samantha questioned with a brittle laugh of fake bewilderment. She took a quick, retreating step away from him, masking it under the pretense of turning from the window’s view.
“Before tonight, I had some doubts myself,” Cade stated, following her with his eyes.
“Doubts?” she breathed, trying not to sound as interested as she really was.
“Not about the way I felt,” he expanded on his statement, “but about you.”
“What do you mean?” Her attempt at a bright, unconcerned smile was tremulous, wavering visibly under his inspection of her mouth.
“I wasn’t sure if the way you responded to my kisses on the island was because of me or because you were trying to enlist my help in getting off the island.”
“And now?” She held her breath, clutching her drink in both hands.
Cade set his glass down. Samantha couldn’t make herself move when he walked to her. His hand lifted the luxurious silk of her seal brown hair away from the side of her neck, the roughness of his thumb stroking the throbbing vein that was exposed. He still hadn’t answered the question. It didn’t matter because his touch made her forget, what she had asked.
“Are you afraid of me, Sam?” he inquired.
“Because of the way I make you feel?” Cade persisted gently.
As if hypnotized into telling the truth by the rhythmic, seductive caress of his hand, Samantha answered yes. Her gaze was riveted on the glass when Cade removed it and set aside. But she seemed incapable of looking higher than the lapel of his jacket, the dark material contrasting the white of his shirt.
“I thought you were attractive the first time I saw you at the newspaper office, so open and unassuming. I admired you immediately.” His voice caressed her, quickening the drumbeat of her pulse beneath his thumb. “One of the first rules a man learns when he’s supposed to protect someone is to pay attention to what’s going on around him. On the island, I found myself watching you. That amounts to a cardinal sin in my profession, Sam.”
“Does it?” she murmured, since he seemed to expect her to say something.
“Looking at you wasn’t enough. Every time I got close to you I wanted to kiss you.” Samantha noticed the muscles tightening in his neck. “Hell,” he muttered, “I wanted to make love to you. I thought it was what you wanted, too, until that night in the boathouse. I decided then that you were using my attraction for you to persuade me to help you escape. But you weren’t, were you? You really meant it that night when you said you wanted us to go away together. It wasn’t a trick, was it?”
“Cade, please!” She couldn’t admit that. Her head moved to the side in protest.
“I realized it wasn’t when your father’s boat docked. You didn’t run to him, not immediately, Sam. No, you looked at me, wanting me to run, to escape before I was caught, even though you believed I’d kidnapped you. You were hoping I’d get away, weren’t you?” Cade demanded relentlessly.
“I don’t know what I wanted or what I hoped,” Samantha denied in a tortured whisper.
“You stubborn little minx! You love me but you won’t admit it,” he sighed with wry amusement.
“I can’t.” And by saying that, she admitted she loved him.
His hand slipped around her waist while his fingers curled tighter around her neck. He bent his head closer to hers, and their breaths mingled, warm, moist and intoxicating.
“It’s easy, darling. Just repeat after me — I love you.” Every word was carefully enunciated and her brown eyes watched the tantalizing nearness of his mouth as it formed the words. “Say it,” Cade commanded lowly.
“I —” her lips moved fractionally closer to his “— love —” he moved to meet her halfway “ — you.”
The possessive fire of his kiss burned the last of her defenses and her lips parted willingly. Samantha wanted only to give herself up to the abandon he was arousing. Desire flamed white-hot, born no longer of just sexual attraction, but now fueled by a deep, abiding love.
She obeyed the molding power of his hands and strained against him, glorying in the exploratory caress of his hands. There was no thought of restraint as he found the secret places to give her pleasure.
His voice, husky and low with passion, murmured near her ear, “It’s easy to love you, darling.”
Instead of thrilling her, his words had the effect of a cold shower. He spoke the truth, a truth that Samantha had forgotten when she was swept away by her love. It was easy for a man to love Reuben Gentry’s daughter. Look at the dowry she would bring with her!
Slowly she began withdrawing her responses from his touch. Cade objected for only a few seconds, then seemed to blame her innocence for the sudden reticence to turn the embrace into something more. He held her loosely in his arms, rubbing his chin against the side of her forehead.
“I left you alone and gave you time to think. Now, Samantha, my love, will you marry me?” It amounted to a command.
“I can’t,” she replied with hesitations
His chin moved away from her head in surprise, and she immediately took the opportunity to move out of his arms. Gathering her resolve, she lifted her gaze to meet the piercing gray of his eyes, confused and searching.
“What do you mean — you can’t?” Cade frowned. “Haven’t I made it clear to you —”
“You’ve made it very clear,” she interrupted briskly. “But I won’t — I can’t marry you.”
“Why? Surely I’m entitled to know,” he demanded, trying to control the hardness that was trying to take over his voice.
“Ask me to be your mistress or your lover.” She was trembling with the pain breaking her up inside, but she kept her voice steady. “But don’t ask me to be your wife, Cade.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cade exploded. “If I wanted you for my mistress, I would never have asked you to marry me!”
“Then I’m sorry, but the answer is no,” Samantha said firmly.
“My god, Sam, you love me!” he argued savagely. “Why won’t you marry me?”
She turned away, widening her eyes to hold back the tears. “Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Cade,” she replied tightly. “I haven’t forgotten who I am. I’m Reuben Gentry’s daughter. You work for him, he’s your boss.”
His fingers dug into her elbow, roughly spinning her around. The wintry blast of his gray eyes chilled her to the bone. His hard features were frozen in rigid anger.
“And I’m not good enough for you to marry, is that it?” he snarled. “The boss’s daughter can’t stoop to marry a lowly employee.” She closed her eyes against the contempt, keeping her face expressionless. “Forgive me, Samantha Gentry —” his voice was thick with sarcasm “ — for insulting you with my proposal.”
The bruising grip on her elbow was removed. A few seconds later, the apartment door slammed and Samantha was alone. What was worse, she never felt so alone.
REUBEN GENTRY pulled a dinner roll apart and began buttering one of the halves. “Carl tells me you were out with Cade one evening while I was gone.” His brown gaze slid to Samantha for confirmation.
“Yes, that’s right.” It was a struggle to keep her voice calm and indifferent. The mention of his name had the power to crush her, and she carefully avoided glancing up from her plate.
“He’s a good man, Sam. They don’t come any better,” he commented. “I trust him implicitly, but I guess I proved that, didn’t I?” He chuckled. “I not only would trust him with my life, I trusted him with yours.”
“Yes, I guess you did,” she agreed tautly, then pushed her plate away, her appetite gone.
“Was there something else you would like, Samantha?” Carl looked pointedly at the food left on her plate, silently chiding her, as he had done in the past few days, for eating so little.
“Some coffee later,” Samantha answered.
“I imagine you got to know Cade fairly well while you were on his island,” her father commented, not dropping the subject as Samantha had hoped.
“Fairly well.” Then the rest of Reuben’s words clicked in her mind. “His island?”
“Yes, it’s been in his family for years. His grandfather lost all of the family fortune in the Crash, like a lot of other people. About the only thing he salvaged was the island. I guess it was his grandfather’s way of clinging to the dream of what the Scott family once was,” Reuben explained in a musing way. “The original house was destroyed by fire twenty years ago.
Cade built the present house himself, literally.”
“I didn’t know,” she murmured.
“Of course, working for me, Cade doesn’t get to spend as much time there as he’d like.” He shrugged. “What did you think of it, Sam?”
“It was beautiful.” Nearly paradise, she could have added. For a short while, it nearly had been. She discovered it was going to be painful imagining Cade returning to that island. She didn’t want to think about him against that backdrop where there were so many memories.
“Will you be seeing Cade again?”
Unwillingly, Samantha met the sharp probe of her father’s eyes and quickly let her gaze fall to the white tablecloth. “No,” she answered flatly. She could sense another question rising and added quickly. “Do you mind if we don’t discuss this, Reuben?” It was a clipped request, virtually impossible to ignore.
“If you say so, Sam,” Reuben conceded. There were several minutes of silence before he spoke again. “Harry Lindsey called me today. He wondered when you were planning to come back to the paper.”
“I don’t know.” She gave a shake of her head in irritation.
“Do you want to go back?” he asked quietly with that shrewd perception that was one of his biggest assets in the business world.
Samantha tensed, then sighed. “No.” Work, and involvement in something besides her own heartache, would probably be the best medicine, but she didn’t want to go back to the small-town newspaper. Her planned career didn’t seem very important right now without the man she loved to share it with. Later she might find solace in it, but it seemed a poor second best.
“Sam.” Again her father’s voice came, quiet and probing. “Are you in love with Cade?”
Her hands closed tightly over the edge of the table and she violently pushed her chair away, rising swiftly. “I told you I didn’t want to discuss him,” she protested angrily and stalked out of the dining room, hot tears welling in her eyes.
Her teeth were biting into her lip as she stopped in the center of the living room. She widened her eyes, blinking wildly to hold back the tears. A pair of hands settled gently on her shoulders to turn her around.
“Leave me alone!” she demanded tautly.
“All we’ve got is each other, Sam. And Carl, of course.” Reuben smiled. Miniature duplicates of his daughter’s dimples appeared near his mouth, coaxing and endearing. “If you can’t use my shoulder, whose will you use?”
“I’m a big girl now,” she stated flatly.
“Even big girls get hurt. Sometimes I think the pain grows bigger as a person grows up,” he said with a touch of wisdom. “Obviously you’ve fallen in love with Cade Scott.”
There was a painful knot in her throat. Samantha swallowed it and nodded. “For all the good it does me?”
“You mean he doesn’t love you?” Her father bent his head slightly to peer at her face.
Samantha couldn’t tell him the truth. How could she possibly explain that she had refused Cade’s proposal of marriage because she knew it had been offered as an easy step to a higher rung on the ladder of success? Cade hadn’t asked her to marry him; he had asked Reuben Gentry’s daughter. As much as she loved him, she couldn’t marry him under those conditions.
“It’s no use, Reuben.” She shook her head sadly and chose a way that wouldn’t hurt her father. “He despises me.” Which was true. His parting words had been filled with contempt.
“Despises you?” Reuben frowned. “I find that hard to believe.”
“That’s because I’m your daughter and you’re prejudiced.” She managed a wan smile.
“Well, if he despises you so much, why did he take you out?” he demanded, unconvinced by her statement.
“Because I asked him,” Samantha lied.
“I see.” He considered the information thoughtfully.
“I’ll get over it,” she assured him, but not really believing it herself.
“Yes.” He gathered her into his arms and held her close, his cheek resting against her head. “You got over your broken engagement four years ago, didn’t you?” he reasoned gently. “But you didn’t love him, did you?”
Samantha shuddered against her father’s chest, balling a fist against her mouth. “No,” she whispered tightly. In another second, she knew she would be crying if she stayed where she was. Tears only seemed to make her misery worse. She breathed in deeply and pushed herself out of her father’s arms. “You haven’t finished your dinne
r.”
“You sound like Carl now,” he smiled down, understanding lighting his eyes. “Have coffee with me while I finish?”
Samantha nodded, returning his smile stiffly, and slid a hand under his arm as they returned to the dining room together.
A WEEK SLIPPED BY, then two. An undemanding pattern began to form. Not rising until nearly noon, Samantha would fill the afternoon hours taking long walks to tire her out and allow her to fall into exhausted sleep after spending the evenings with her father when he was in town. Which was nearly every night, as if he knew how vital it was for her not to spend the long night hours alone.
Three times Reuben had entertained business guests at dinner and Samantha had acted as his hostess. Only two people knew her well enough to see the agony she hid so convincingly. They were Reuben and their houseman, Carl Gilbert, and they kept her secret.
A hand lightly touched her shoulder and Samantha rolled onto her back, drawing the bedcovers with her, bleary-eyed from heavy sleep. She managed to focus on the image of her father.
“What is it?” she questioned in a sleep-drugged voice.
“I wondered if you could get up early enough to have lunch with me today,” he said in a chiding tone. “You’re beginning to act like a pampered little rich girl, sleeping until noon every day.”
“I know.” But there was forgetfulness in sleep and that was a rare occurrence in her waking hours. There wasn’t any need to explain to Reuben. “I’d like to have lunch with you,” Samantha agreed with a tired nod.
“Sam,” he said, his expression suddenly serious, “would you like me to talk to Cade?”
Instantly she was awake. “No! Reuben, please, don’t do that,” she begged in alarm.
One corner of his mouth lifted to form a rueful line. “I’m afraid I already have.”
“No!” It was a low protest and she pressed her head deeper into the pillow, shutting her eyes. “What happened?” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know.
“I tried to lead up to the subject of you gradually, Sam,” he admitted. “I didn’t seem like a meddling father, so I called him into my office to discuss something else that’s been on the planning board for nearly a year. Before I’d even got that out, Cade was telling me what I could do with my plans and my daughter.”
