Heaven and Hell (29 page)

Oh God.

What was happening?

“Right. Later.” He clipped then flipped his
phone shut.

My body involuntarily jumped when he flipped
his phone shut but Sam didn’t speak, move or take his burning eyes
from me.

With difficulty, I pulled in breath and
forced out, “Sam –”

He cut me off with a harsh, “You forget to
share somethin’ with me?”

I stared at him, my mind reeling, trying to
catch a thought.

The answer was, yes. We’d known each other a
week and a half. There were probably a lot of things I had not yet
shared with him. I just didn’t know which one he was referring to
or how, or for that matter
why,
some mysterious person on
the phone was sharing unknown things about me.

“I –” I began hesitantly.

Sam interrupted me again and when he did,
his voice wasn’t harsh, it was abrasive.

“Like, say, that piece of shit you married
and the piece of shit he was bangin’ callin’ a hit on you?”

Oh God!

How did he find out about that?

And further, how did I forget to tell him
that?

“They didn’t get that far,” I whispered then
jumped and moved back, taking the chair with me as I watched his
body move with uncontrolled rage, his arm cut through the air on a
vicious sidearm slice and his phone went flying into the cushions
of the couch with such strength it rebounded right out and
clattered to the tiled floor.

Then he turned back to me.

“You got five million dollars outta that gig
for whatever reason that motherfucker took out a policy on himself
while he was plannin’ on whackin’ you. That’s why you’re here,
that’s why you were in Como, that’s why you’re dressin’ like a
fuckin’ socialite and spendin’ five hundred dollars on a fuckin’
robe, for fuck’s sake.”

My breath was now coming quickly just as my
heart was beating fast, too fast, dangerous fast and, stupidly, my
mind took that moment to remind me that I really,
really
shouldn’t have bought that robe with Luci.

“How do you know all this?” I asked quietly,
my voice trembling.

“Tilda?” he shot back and my heart started
beating faster. I didn’t answer but the answer must have been on my
face because he continued. “Yeah,” he ground out. “She posted that
shit somewhere, who the fuck knows where, but it spread like that
shit
always
fuckin’ spreads and it went where it
always
fuckin’ goes and my agent got a call from a reporter
that they were breakin’ the story that I was on vacation with an
ex-administrative assistant, current millionaire who came into her
new fortune because her husband, who took a shotgun blast to the
head, was plotting to make
her
dead and his alternate piece
of ass was currently out on bond, awaiting trial for conspiracy to
commit murder and they wanted to know if you or me wanted to make a
comment.”

Oh.

My.

God!

Ohmigod!

I couldn’t… this wasn’t… I couldn’t wrap my
head around this.
Any
of it.

I never thought I’d ever be asked for a
comment on
anything.

And…

Ohmigod!

If this stuff was spreading and someone was
going to write an article about us, my friends and family would
find out!

“None of my friends or family knows about
us,” I blurted.

“
Who the fuck cares?
” Sam roared and
I pushed back, feeling chair, I scurried around it and kept
retreating until I hit the wall of windows that faced the sea and
only then did I realize I was shaking from head-to-toe.

Sam’s eyes never left me but they were
working as was the muscle jumping in his cheek, his jaw hard, his
fury filling the room.

Then he said in a carefully restrained voice
that even
sounded
like it took effort to achieve, “Pissed at
you, Kia, seriously fuckin’ pissed but I’m not gonna hurt you.”

I didn’t reply.

“How could you keep this from me?” he
changed the subject to ask.

I kept quiet and kept shaking and kept my
eyes glued to him.

Sam went back to the other subject and
reminded me, “I’m not him.”

I nodded but kept quiet, shaking and my eyes
didn’t move.

Sam held my gaze.

Then he started talking again.

“You know me, you knew me before you met me,
you gotta know that nearly everyone I fuck is laid out for the
world to see. Most of the time, they aren’t interesting except,
say, when one of them has a murdered husband who was plotting with
his side bitch to whack her and she comes out a millionaire. Now
that shit’s gonna be all over the fuckin’ place and you fuckin’
internet stalked
me,
sweetheart, you knew it would
and you did not give me the head’s up.”

“I –” I began but he cut me off again.

“Regardless of this media shit, it’s kinda
important to know the woman I’m bangin’ has a hit out on her.”

I was beginning not to like the way he was
talking to me, especially how he was referring to me.

Like.

At all.

Including the fact he called me “sweetheart”
only when he was pissed at me.

“It didn’t get that far,” I repeated.

“You’re wrong,” he fired back and my heart
and breath stopped again just as I felt my lips part. “Your friend
Ozzie?” he asked, I nodded and he went on. “Keepin’ you protected
and when I say that, he was doin’ it in more ways than givin’ you
peace of mind by not sharin’ that the hit was called, it was paid
for and once done, there is no way to get in touch with whoever the
fuck they hired in order to call it off.”

My hands clenched into fists as pure fear
saturated my system.

Sam kept sharing.

“He’s had a man on you for months all the
while tryin’ to track down whoever got the call. His hope was, they
heard your ex was dead and his woman was facing conspiracy charges
and he’d figure he got an easy payday, know you were protected and
back off. His worry was, he wouldn’t hear or wouldn’t care and
would carry out the job regardless. Until they track that
motherfucker down, they can have no clue. He’s been in fits since
you’ve been gone, thinkin’ that guy’s after you here, which he
could be.”

This couldn’t be true.

“That’s crazy,” I whispered.

“It sure the fuck is. It’s also the fuckin’
truth,” Sam returned.

“How do you know this?”

“My agent set one of his assistants on it.
They called Boothe County Sheriff Department. To say Barney Oswald
was relieved to hear you’d hooked up with me is a serious fuckin’
understatement. Peace of mind for him. For me, I got a woman with a
hit on her, I had no clue and now I have significantly limited
intel and no fuckin’ weapon.”

I couldn’t believe this.

This was
unbelievable.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sam asked
again.

“I –” I started again.

“I can’t fuckin’
believe
you didn’t
fuckin’
tell me,” Sam growled and I snapped.

Just like that.

I snapped.

I didn’t remember the last time I snapped.
It had been years since it was safe for me to snap.

But that didn’t mean, right then, with Sam,
I didn’t snap.

I sure the heck did.

“If you’d shut up a minute and let me
talk
maybe you’d get an answer to one of your questions!” I
shouted and when I did, Sam’s face turned to stone and his eyes
turned to granite.

Okay, he was pissed. Maybe he had a right to
be.

But I had a hit out on me!

And he wouldn’t let me fucking talk!

“I didn’t know this,” I told him.

“Sweetheart, five million dollars says
differently. Oswald’s deputy shared that you called the fuckin’
thing in,” Sam retorted.

“I wasn’t done,” I hissed, Sam’s jaw flexed
and I kept going. “Pardon me, Sam, but I think you’re forgetting
that things have been a little crazy for me and not just the last
two weeks but the last,” I leaned in, “
seven years of my
life.
Then my husband gets half his head blown off by a guy
I liked.
Milo is
cool.
And now Milo is
incarcerated
because Cooter and Vanessa are assholes
.
At the same time I found out Cooter cheated on me and now I can
guess it was probably repeatedly. I’m twenty-eight and I have no
clue who I am. I just sold my house and I’m in a bidding war that’s
out of hand for that unit so soon I’ll have nowhere to live. I quit
my job so I have nothing to do. I came on vacation to sort my head
and decide what to do with my life then I met
you
and that
wasn’t exactly your everyday, run of the mill girl meets boy
situation but girl meets famous, rich hot guy who she’s had a
faraway crush on for years and suddenly finds herself sleeping
with. I didn’t exactly forget but I also didn’t exactly remember. I
wasn’t keeping it from you. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I
just didn’t. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t get around to it. But,
you know, it’s been a lot nicer since leaving Italy to focus on the
pool and beach and Greek music and dancing and good food and hot
sex and not on the fact my dead husband and his girlfriend wanted
me dead. So forgive me for not coming clean and telling you the
minute I met you like I told you about Cooter being killed. I’ve
been freaked out, unsure and pretty stinking scared because I like
this, a lot, you and me. This is something I
never
thought
I’d have and, my apologies to the Sam Cooper who means a great deal
to me but it’s partly about the fact that I’m suddenly sleeping
with Sampson Cooper when that’s an unheard of reality after years
of fantasy but it’s also about the fact that I was in a shitty,
rotten marriage that was hell from the minute I woke to the minute
I went to sleep and now I have something the
exact opposite
and I don’t know how to cope! So, if I didn’t share that my husband
wanted me dead while all that was going on, I’m sorry. A thousand
apologies. Now, too late, but by the way, Sam, my husband was more
of a piece of shit than you can comprehend because he wanted me
dead and fully intended to do something about it but the good news
is, he left me his pension, he inexplicably took a five million
dollar life insurance policy out on himself and he left me that and
he left me his dog who might be yappy but I love her. Now you can
consider yourself fully briefed.”

I ended this diatribe with deep sarcasm and,
chest rising and falling rapidly, I ended it glaring at him.

Sam held my eyes and kept his jaw clenched.
He did this a long time.

Too long.

Long enough for me to think of a couple of
other things I wanted to say.

So I said them.

“And just an FYI,
sweetheart,
you
mentioned when we fight it’s about learning what buttons you
shouldn’t push and which places to avoid. So, like you say,
straight up, I don’t like it that you call me ‘sweetheart’ only
when you’re pissed at me and I do not like to be referred to as
‘the woman you’re banging’. If those are deal breakers for you then
I’ll move to a different room and maybe I’ll luck out and run into
another commando who’ll take me to bed and keep me safe while Ozzie
searches for the man who’s out there maybe or maybe not planning to
off me.”

The minute I stopped speaking, Sam growled,
“You lost it.”

“I have not lost it,” I snapped.

“No, baby, I mean, you had the high ground
and you lost it by not shuttin’ your trap and instead throwin’ out
there that you’d find another commando to fuck. That was low and it
was
not
cool.”

“Ah,” I threw my hands up, “I see. So you
can mouth off and say things I don’t like but I can’t?”

“No, not shit like that.”

“Right.” I crossed my arms on my chest. “I
get it, Sam. Stuff you say bothers me, it isn’t as important as
stuff I say that might bother you. Do I have that right?”

“You’ve had two lovers, him and me. He gave
you nothin’ for as long as you had him in your bed. You do
not
get nothin’ from me.
I
get to show you that,
I
get to give you that and not even my first when I was
sixteen was my first to give that to. It means somethin’ to me that
when my mouth or my cock or my fingers are between your legs and I
know what your face looks like, I know what you’re feelin’, I know
I’m the only man who ever gave that to you and that’s all for me,
that means somethin’ to me, Kia. And you throwin’ out you’d spread
your legs for someone else and take that from me, that isn’t just
‘stuff that bothers me’. It’s a fuckuva lot more.”

It was my turn for my jaw to clench and it
did this because I was grinding my teeth together and I was doing
that because I realized, belatedly, I’d stepped over the line.

“We fight, we fight but we do not fight
dirty,” Sam tossed at me.

I held his eyes and kept my mouth shut, now
because I was clenching my teeth, trying hard not to cry.

Sam crossed his arms on his chest but said
quietly, “Come here.”

“No.”

Yep. That’s what I said.

No.

His brows went up.

I explained.

“I need space. I need some time alone to
come to the terms with the fact that my life is in danger. I need
to figure out what my next move is. And I need some time to deal
with this scene.”

“What you need is to let go of that emotion
you’re holdin’ back and what
I
need is for you to give it to
me.”

God! I
hated
it when he figured me
out.

I shook my head and said, “No, Sam.”

He studied me.

Then, I watched the tension flow from his
body and, his voice back to velvet, he ordered gently, “Honey, come
here.”

I held his eyes.

Then I twisted my neck to look out the
window to our veranda and beyond, to the startling blue of the
Mediterranean Sea. My body followed my neck, I turned my back to
Sam and rested my forehead against the cool glass, staring at one
of many extraordinary visions Cooter and Vanessa’s evil plans gave
to me but I couldn’t think,
whatever.
Not anymore.