Wife by Wednesday (3 page)

Sam sat a little taller. “Why is something wrong?” Worry wiggled around in her stomach, producing a familiar sense of panic.

“Nothing urgent.
Jordan
isn’t eating as much as they’d like. They thought you should stop by and talk to her.”

Samantha blew out a long-suffering breath and forced her shoulders to relax. “Okay.” Her plans for the afternoon would now be complicated with a side trip to the long care facility that took care of her younger sister. The last time she’d stopped eating she ended up in the hospital suffering from an infection that spread throughout her whole bloodstream. Sam hoped her sister was depressed and not ill. Sad that those were the top choices as to why
Jordan
wasn’t eating.

But what else was there? Depression had led to
Jordan
’s attempted suicide, which resulted in a stroke instead of death. “I’ll be late, but if you can wait, I’ll bring lunch.”

“Let me know if you get tied up.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Sam hung up and started her car before pointing it toward Moonlight Assisted Living. The exclusive home cost over a hundred grand a year and was the reason Samantha needed the income that Blake Harrison would bring. She was a month behind on her personal bills and always cutting the checks to Moonlight a week or two late. The last thing Sam wanted was to crumble under the financial pressure and end up having to put
Jordan
in a state run facility, homes where she’d be ignored and likely end up with bedsores and untreatable infections within a month. No, she’d live out of her car before she let that happen.

Picturing the Duke, Sam knew things wouldn’t end up so dire. He stood to lose close to three hundred million from his father’s estate if he didn’t marry by the end of the month. Blake would likely pay the woman walking down the aisle a nice chunk and therefore pay
Alliance
enough to float for some time. All Sam had to do was fluff up the women in line and make sure none of them hit any panic buttons.

Easy squeezy… or so she hoped.

Blake fingered the photographs and files of the three women Samantha sent his way. Each one was perfect. They were educated, cultured, and beautiful. So why the hell were they registered with a dating service to find a temporary husband? There had to be a link between them and Miss Matchmaker herself, but Blake wasn’t seeing it.

Candidate one, Candice… no last name. According to the portfolio, she was a second year law student with typical educational loans. She loved the arts and spent her off time running marathons. Blake glanced at her picture again. Her resemblance to Jacqueline was scary. Samantha thought of everything, she’d even put the ladies’ measurements and weight at the bottom of the page. In captions, Sam wrote a note about how dating services often use old, photo-shopped high school pictures but
Alliance
updated their photos every six months.

Candidate two, Rita… again, no last name. A physician’s assistant taking classes for pre-med. She loved boating and spending time in exotic locations. She’d done her share of traveling, but Sam’s papers didn’t say how she afforded her hobby.

Candidate three, Karen… Blake didn’t bother looking for a last name, he knew it wouldn’t be there. Karen should have been a model. Stunning blue eyes and snow blonde hair knocked a man’s breath out of his lungs. Karen wasn’t in school and didn’t have any student loans. She managed some type of nursing home and mentored kids at a boys’ and girls’ club.

The women were perfect, so why did Blake have a sinking feeling that they were all wrong?

Blake pushed forward in his chair and picked up his phone. When his assistant picked up, Blake said, “Well, Mitch?”

“I still have a couple of calls unanswered, but I’ve found some interesting things about Miss Elliot.”

“Great, bring them over.”

Blake walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office and looked down at the city below. Running his shipping business from four points on the globe gave him the upper hand over his competitors. He’d built the business from a meager beginning, despite his father’s disapproval. Blake’s desire to prove to his father that he didn’t need the man’s money, or his title, fueled his drive. However, the
Harrison
name had opened many doors over the years and pissing away the bulk of his inheritance wasn’t something he was willing to do, especially since the old man was long dead.

Mitch knocked on the door to his office before he let himself in.

Turning on his heel, Blake nodded to the coffee table in the corner of his office where he could view the files Mitch had in his hand. “Let’s do this over here.”

Mitch sat and wasted little time spreading papers out for Blake to see.

“Samantha Elliot, twenty seven years old, born in
Connecticut
to Harris and Martha Elliot.”

Blake took his seat. “Why do those names sound familiar?”

“They should, Harris was center stage in the media several years back when he was charged with tax evasion and embezzlement. He and his family lived in a twenty million dollar mansion, with vacation homes in
France
and
Hawaii
… the whole big piece of the American Pie.”

Blake remembered it now. Big
New York
businessman who had funneled his funds through glorified ponzi schemes. He’d given out insurance policies for homes, land, business, and property to unsuspecting victims, with no intention of paying them off. If memory served him right, Blake recalled the Feds having a hard time nailing him for corruption and instead managed to imprison him for not paying his taxes. His accounts and property were frozen and his family fell apart.

“Martha, the wife, couldn’t handle the drop in status, took a bottle of pills with a pint of gin, and never woke up.” Mitch relayed the details of Samantha Elliot’s family life as if it were a soap opera.

“According to the media, Samantha’s sister, Jordan, tried to follow her mother’s example, but ended up with a lack of brain function. I’m still waiting on the details as to where the girl is now. Samantha survived the ordeal, but ended up picking up the family pieces. She dropped out of college, where she was studying business, and socked the small amount of money the government didn’t take into her sister’s care.” Mitch took a breath and handed Blake a list of names.

“What’s this?”

“These are people Miss Elliot has connections to. Growing up among the rich and connected resulted in some lasting friendships. The adults severed all ties to the Elliot family when they went down, but Samantha’s friends didn’t. There’s a senator’s daughter on that list and two rapidly progressing lawyers. I’m still not sure how she found out about your prior, but I have a call in back home.”

Blake shifted through the papers and found a photo of the Elliot family during happy times. The small family stood aboard a yacht. Martha was pencil thin, and her daughters stood beside her in one-piece bathing suits. Samantha’s hair was tied back in a ponytail but it still had managed to blow into her face when the picture was taken.
Jordan
, much younger than Sam, had her mother’s dark hair and tiny frame. Harris, a good fifty pounds overweight, rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder and smiled for the camera.

Pictures were deceiving. His mind drifted to a similar family portrait of his. Blake’s father stood behind his mother with a hand on her shoulder. His mother’s white knuckles tensed on the armrest of the chair in which she sat. Blake remembered the day the picture was taken. He and his father had argued about Blake taking a summer internship to better his college applications. Edmund refused to discuss Blake working for anyone, especially for free. Edmund believed an education was necessary for bragging to one’s friends. Work, however, was a four-letter word. One no
Harrison
would touch so long as he had a say in their lives.

“I thought my family was dysfunctional,” Blake whispered.

“I think Miss Elliot wins the prize.”

Funny, Blake didn’t think the prize was worth winning. “Where does Samantha live?”

“She rents a townhome in Tarzana.”

“Roommates?”

“Hard to say.”

Then, without knowing why he asked, he said, “Boyfriend?”

Mitch’s eyes rounded to him. “I didn’t look, but I will.” Just then, the phone in Mitch’s pocket rang. He removed it and glanced at the number. “This is about the sister,” he explained before he answered the call.

Mitch spoke into the line while Blake studied the names on the paper in his hand. Samantha had a lot of friends. He wondered if any of them helped her out financially.

Mitch made a whistling noise into the phone, grabbing Blake’s attention.

“Okay, thanks,” Mitch said before he disconnected the call.

“What is it?”

“Miss Elliot truly needs your business.”

“Really, why?”

“Her sister is a patient of Moonlight Villas. Nice name for a fancy home for adults in her condition. The place racks up a six figure bill every year.”

Blake felt his eyes pinch together. “And no one is helping Miss Elliot with it?”

Mitch shook his head. “None that I’ve found. Her friends might give her advice, but there isn’t a steady stream of money coming from anywhere but her business.”

A business that Blake had already researched and knew all about.

“Interesting.”

“So, what’s she like?”

It was the first personal question Mitch had asked.

Blake pictured her alabaster skin and the determined set of her jaw. And that voice. Damn, just thinking about it made him want to talk to her again.

“She’s all business,” Blake told his assistant. “You’d like her.”

****

Being in control was her gig. So when Blake Harrison insisted on a dinner meeting to go over the potential wife candidates, Samantha started working out scenarios as to what
Harrison
was going to talk about.

Perhaps he’d recognized one of the women, or placed a last name to a face. She purposely left off the surnames of the women so her male clients had to rate the merits of the women on their attributes, not their families. Sam knew all too well how people judged her by her parents’ actions. After her parents fall, she’d considered changing her name and even her hair color. She settled for moving to the west coast and avoiding the media. The tabloid attention was short lived. Once the newest scandal burst onto the scene, hers was forgotten. Living close to
Hollywood
constantly put the light on someone else. Her face hadn’t been in the paper since her mother’s funeral.

Maybe if Samantha had been a beauty and a media whore, the papers would have followed her. Dodging reporters proved easy when Sam started dressing like a wallflower.

So what did
Harrison
want to discuss? Maybe he’d already talked with his lawyer and needed details her papers hadn’t covered. She’d thought of every conceivable loophole when she started her business. Her taxes were always paid,
thank you, dad
, and her contacts always kept close to the chest. Nothing she’d ever done by way of background checks or private investigators was illegal. The primary gender she turned to for information was women. Sam wasn’t naive enough to believe that women weren’t capable of illegal acts, but she had a hard time with trust and men. There weren’t many in her life that hadn’t let her down. In truth, she couldn’t think of any.

The sun was still shining as she pulled her car into the parking lot of the most expensive beachfront restaurant in
Malibu
. Unable to avoid the valet to park her car, Sam left her compact American-made sedan running as she stepped out of it. She thanked the attendant and watched him take the wheel only to park it a few feet away. Her GMC looked completely out of place parked among all the Lexus, Mercedes, and Cadillacs.

Samantha stepped into the cool interior of the restaurant and let the mouth-watering smell of garlic and herbs wash over her senses. The last time she’d dined in a five star restaurant was with one of her happily married female clients last year. Sam had given up fine dining and opulent living long ago. Some things she missed, and eating something other than pop-in-the-microwave dinners and take out was up there on her wish list.

Before Samantha had a chance to step up to the hostess, a man approached her. “Miss Elliot?”

Strange, he didn’t seem to be wearing the required uniform of the staff. Maybe he was a manager.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Harrison is waiting for you.”

Must be the manager.
Samantha followed the well-dressed man deeper into the restaurant until he led her to a secluded booth with a full view of the Pacific. Blake Harrison saw her and stood as she approached.

Like before, his chiseled features and the way he filled out his designer suit brought a wave of awareness over her skin. He dominated the space by simply being there.

His eyes scanned her frame and a small smile lifted to the corner of his lips. She’d changed into a simple dress, not too casual, but certainly nothing fit for the Oscars. The expression on Blake’s face said he approved. Not that she dressed to meet his approval, but she didn’t want to appear out of place sitting beside him. She met his eyes and felt a hot current zip up her spine.