Silent Partner (18 page)

When they were introduced two days later—during a coffee break between marketing and finance classes—Sam had had the audacity to gently take her hand, lean forward, kiss her on the cheek, and whisper in her ear that he couldn’t take his eyes off her in class. That he’d noticed she couldn’t take her eyes off him, either. And that he could think of a much more exciting way to spend an hour and a half than sitting in a classroom listening to a professor drone on about finance.

Had it been any other man, she would have tossed her coffee in his face for saying something forward. But for some reason she’d simply gazed at him as he’d pulled back, marveling at his ability to calmly say what he’d said. He’d said it in the same way he spoke in front of the other eighty students in class when professors asked him to lay out the case they were working on that day. Without a trace of fear or hesitation in his voice. Unlike the nervous tones she and everyone else had spoken in during the first few days.

The most incredible thing was that, even now, she didn’t have any regrets about meeting Sam. It wasn’t as if she wished they had never been introduced. Or wished that she’d actually thrown the coffee in his face that day, which would have saved her the emotional anguish she’d endured since that day she’d discovered him in bed with another woman and realized he wasn’t hers anymore. The thing of it was, she didn’t blame Sam. Not for most of what had happened anyway. She blamed Chuck Reese. If he had supported their marriage, they would still be together. She was sure of it.

“You’re late, Angie. You’re never late to pick up Hunter. What happened?”

“My boss wouldn’t let me go.”

“Mom!”

Angela glanced up. Hunter had made it to the end of the high-dive again. “Careful, baby,” she called, her voice echoing around the huge room.

“Can’t call him ‘baby’ anymore, Angie,” Sam chided gently, moving next to her. “He’s growing up. Pretty soon you’ll be watching him on the football field. He’s got a good arm for a six-year-old. You should see him.”

Sam’s voice was like the gentle purring of a cat: low and smooth and soothing, with a hint of a Southern drawl in his words. The enticing inflections of his voice brought everything hurtling back, the way sounds sometimes stir latent, nearly lost memories more powerfully than sight ever can. “Careful, Hunter.” She was trying not to think about the memories, but it was hard.

Sam clapped, urging his son on. “Come on. Make this one a real good one.”

Hunter followed the same routine, swinging his arms by his sides three times, then leaping fearlessly into the water.

Angela brought her hands to her mouth as he fell, her heart in her throat. But once again, Hunter popped right to the surface, and was already paddling determinedly toward the ladder before his head had fully emerged.

“Good job, son,” said Sam. This time he reached down and helped Hunter up the ladder. “Now you’ve got to get ready to go with Mom.”

“Aw, Dad. One more time. Please.”

“No. It’s getting late.” Sam waved toward the other end of the pool, where the maid stood. “Alice,” he called loudly, “please take Hunter to the house and get him dried off and into his clothes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go on, Hunter. Go with the help. Your mom and I will be back over to the house in a minute.”

“Oh, all right,” Hunter agreed dejectedly, walking head down and shoulders slumped for the first few steps. Then, sneaking a look back, he broke into a trot, then into a full sprint, yelling and shouting as he ran.

“Careful,” Sam shouted. “The deck’s wet. Watch out.”

But Hunter made it to where Alice was waiting without incident, and then they were gone, heads disappearing down the steps leading to the underground passageway, the boy’s first, then the maid’s.

“I better get going, too,” Angela murmured, taking a step in the direction Hunter had just gone. She felt Sam’s fingers curl around her wrist.

“Not yet, Angie.”

He might as well have glued her shoes to the deck. She tried pulling away, but it was impossible.

Sam chuckled. “It’ll take Alice a half hour to get Hunter ready to go. The boy will run her ragged. You know that.”

“This isn’t right. We shouldn’t be here like this.”

“Why not?” Sam asked, turning her toward him. “What’s so wrong with this?”

She gazed down at the puddles beneath her shoes, wishing he would take his hand from her wrist and, at the same time, hoping he would keep it right where it was. She tried to keep her head down, tried to count the tiny decorative tiles embedded in the deck at the water’s edge, but in the end she had to look up, up into the confident eyes of a man she knew lived only in the moment.

She’d known that the first time she’d kissed him—a week after they had met. He was not safe, not stable. Far from it, in fact. But she’d kissed him anyway, trying to resist at first, then just trying to maintain control.

Sam wasn’t a physically imposing man. He wasn’t overpowering like John Tucker. And he didn’t have Jake Lawrence’s pretty-boy looks, either. Sam was lifeguard handsome: blond, slim, and taut. But it was his presence that had caught Angela’s attention so long ago, the cool confidence in his light blue eyes and his I-know-something-you-don’t smile. The way he could hold a class full of cynical graduate students and professors in the palm of his hand while he calmly presented his solution to the day’s case. Somehow, he made even the most boring material seem fascinating as he wove personal stories and anecdotes into his tale so that, when he had finished his presentation, the room was pin-drop quiet until the trance was broken by the professor. Sam was part evangelist and part politician, with a little bit of the devil thrown in somewhere. And he had that swagger too. The one John Tucker had. He’d hooked her in a heartbeat.

“I’ve got to go.”

“No,” Sam said firmly, “you don’t.”

“Sam.” He was leading her toward a little room off the pool, a private dining area with a table and chairs where people could take a break from swimming and look back at the mansion through the woods while they ate. “What are you doing?”

“I just want to talk.”

“About what?”

Sam backed Angela gently against a wall just inside the door, then moved back a step to reassure her. Keeping his distance for the moment. “We never talk.”

“That would be because you divorced me.”

Sam shook his head. “My father did that to us. You know that.”

“Yes, just the way he made you get into bed with that other woman.”

“That was terrible, Angie,” Sam admitted, sliding his forefinger beneath her chin and tilting her head back. “I’m guilty as charged there. I was very immature back then. I wish I could take it all back.”

Angela looked away. “I met Caroline.”

“Oh?”

“She greeted me at the front door.”

“You mean she actually opened the front door?” Sam asked sarcastically. “She actually lifted a finger?”

“Yes. Why?”

He laughed. “She must have been going past the door just as you rang the bell.”

“That’s right. That’s what she said.”

“Figures. Caroline certainly wouldn’t go out of her way to do that—or anything else around here, for that matter.” Sam put a hand to his head. “No, wait. I take that back. She might move quickly if it were toward the limousine and an afternoon of shopping.”

“She said she was going upstairs to get ready to go out with you tonight.”

Sam groaned. “Don’t remind me. We’ve got to go to some damn museum opening to cut a ribbon. Then there will be the requisite party afterward and a night of all the same people and all the same conversations.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

“It’ll be awful.” Sam sighed. “But Caroline will be happy. And that’s what’s important,” he said nodding gravely, then breaking into a smile.

“Poor baby.” Angela patted his chest then made a move back toward the pool. “I feel so bad for you. You lead such a difficult life.”

“Hey, why are you leaving?” he asked, snagging her wrist again.

“Because you need to start getting ready for your museum party.”

“I bet I could think of a more exciting way to spend the evening.”

Angela had seen that look on Sam’s face many times. His eyes were aflame with lust. “I’m sure you could,” she said, surprising herself.

Sex with Sam had been incredible from the first time they’d been together. No initial period of awkwardness as they’d gotten to know each other, as there had been with her only other lover, a boy in college. No having to show Sam her special wants. He’d found them himself so effectively and efficiently she’d bitten his shoulder to keep from screaming. She’d left deep and purple marks, and he’d pointed at them proudly the next morning as proof that she’d experienced intense pleasure.

And it wasn’t just the physical part of the act that had brought about such incredible pleasure. As Sam had slowly and tantalizingly investigated her body that first night, he had whispered to her, too, gently probing her mind as well. The college boy had been too inexperienced to understand the psychological component of her need, and turned selfish when satisfying her became too much of a chore. She’d accepted it by making him believe he was satisfying her when he wasn’t. That had never been an issue with Sam. Not once had she ever had to fake anything with him.

Sam had made her feel as she was convinced she never could, even during their initial encounter. And it had only become better over time. He explored her fantasies and desires, coaxing her into telling him her most private thoughts. She’d become physically addicted to him, in so absolute a way that her body had actually ached for months after the divorce. Now she simply tried to ignore those urges. She hadn’t been with anyone since the divorce, hadn’t even been tempted because she was certain the experience would be so disappointing.

“What did you think of Caroline?” Sam asked, moving close.

“She seemed nice.”

“She isn’t. She was being her usual plastic self, I can assure you. But that’s not what I was talking about.”

“Oh?” Sam ran his finger up her forearm and the feeling raced through her body, the fire spreading even as she tried desperately to throw water on the flames. “What
were
you talking about?”

“What did you think of her physically?”

“She’s attractive.”

“She’s plain,” Sam said. “Not like you.”

“Well, I—”

“You are so beautiful.” He bent down so they were on the same level, searching her expression. “Those eyes of yours,” he said softly. “They’re like magnets to men.”

Angela looked down.

“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.

“No.”

He put his finger back beneath her chin and lifted it again, forcing her to look at him this time. “Are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes.”

“No woman has ever come close to you, Angie.”

She ought to hate him for what he had done, and on a rational level she did. But on a deeper plane she couldn’t. “Which is, of course, why you felt you needed to cheat on me.”

“I said I was sorry for that.”

“I don’t care about sorry. Sorry doesn’t help me.”

“You have your skeletons too.”

Angela’s eyes flashed to his. “You know none of that was true,” she said, tight-lipped. “You know your father was responsible for all of that. I was never with either of those men.”

There was a long silence. “Let’s start seeing each other again,” Sam finally suggested.

“No. Not in a million years.”

“Why not?”

“For starters, let’s try the fact that you’re married. I don’t do—”

“I don’t mean in that way,” he interrupted.

She hesitated. “Then what are you talking about?”

“At some point Hunter is going to start asking questions about what happened to us. In fact, he already has. It would be much better for him as he gets older if you and I had a healthier relationship. Don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” she said slowly. This was just like Sam to throw her a curveball. She’d thought he was trying to seduce her, but he was talking about something platonic. So why was there that twinge of disappointment?

“I see you in Hunter so much, Angie.” Sam’s voice was subdued. “The way he walks and smiles. That attitude of his. It’s all you, Angie. It brings back lots of wonderful memories, I have to admit.”

Angela swallowed hard. “What are you suggesting?”

“Let’s have lunch sometime. It’ll have to be somewhere out of the way. I hope you can understand why. I can’t have an innocent lunch getting into the newspapers and being misconstrued, you know?”

She nodded.

“But I can be a good boy. I can keep my hands to myself.”

How could he have sat there in that courtroom and watched those men testify about having sex with her? If he truly loved her, how could he have allowed them to say the things they’d said? Could he really have believed their stories? “Sam, I—”

“Are you game for it, Angie? Just lunch. Maybe next week. I’ll call you at work one day and we’ll set it up. You know it would be fun.”

That was the problem. It
would
be fun. And, despite his promises, the odds were very good that he’d try to turn it into something more. “I don’t know.”

“I do. I’m going to call you. I’m going to set it up for—”

“Hello, Angela.”

Sam and Angela glanced toward the doorway at the same time. Chuck Reese stood there, peering at his son’s fingers wrapped around Angela’s wrist.

“What are you doing here?” the elder Reese demanded.

“She’s here to pick up Hunter, Dad,” Sam explained.

“I see.” He took Angela’s hand and pulled it away from Sam’s. “Son, Bill Morris called a few minutes ago about that property in Atlanta,” Chuck Reese informed Sam, handing his son a cordless phone. “He’s anxious to talk to you.”

Sam managed the family money. He’d never had any other job. “I’ll call him in a little while, Dad.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d get back to him right away. As I said, he was anxious to talk to you.”

Slowly, Sam took the phone from his father. “All right.”

“I can’t remember Bill’s number. You’ll need to go back to the house to get it. It’s on the Rolodex in the study. Say good-bye to Angela.”