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“Wasn’t expecting you,” he said in a baritone that served the man well in court but seemed brutally loud at that moment. “You never called back so I didn’t know if you’d picked up the message.” He moved back a bit. “But come on in.”
“I got your message first thing this morning,” Nick muttered as he entered the office. “So I came by after—”
His words stopped dead as the dream from the night before materialized not more than ten feet from him. A couple of long strides and he could have touched Sam, a Sam in a clinging blue sundress. Her blond curls had been all but banished by a short wedge cut that made her face all the more delicate-looking and her eyes all the more green.
A dream? A hallucination induced by the medication? He instinctively took a step forward but stopped as the image took one sharp breath and whispered his name.
“Nicholas.”
He heard it, really heard it, a voice that he’d almost forgotten existed until that moment. A voice that belonged to the only person he didn’t want to see right then. This was no dream, no illusion or hallucination, but reality. Samantha was real, so painfully real that he longed for the dream. Something he could vanquish simply by waking up.
He regrouped, more shaken then he could comprehend, and gasped for control. He took a breath of his own, then was able to speak in a remarkably normal voice. “Sam. I had no idea you were in Los Angeles.”
“I…I’m just in town for a few days. I’m going back tomorrow.”
He tried to remember where Danforth had said she’d gone, what her mailing address had been. Jensen Pass. That was it—a tiny coastal village north of San Francisco. That’s where she was supposed to be, not standing motionless by a massive cherry desk, with papers in her hands, staring at him as if he were an alien life-form. She was making him feel even more disoriented than he had been.
As Sam stood a bit straighter, Danforth spoke quickly. “This situation might be rather awkward for the two of you,” he said. “Tell you what, Nick. I can have the papers messengered over to your office tomorrow.”
Nick needed air, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he pushed aside everything that seemed to be bombarding him and took control. He wasn’t about to have this hanging over his head for one more day. “No reason to put it off,” Nick said. “Let’s get it over with.”
The words came out with an edge he hadn’t intended, and he didn’t miss the way Sam’s expression tightened. Or the fact that he had to narrow his eyes to dull the sharp vividness of her being. But narrowed eyes couldn’t stop the unsteadiness that persisted inside him or the way his head continued pounding.
“Actually, I was ready to leave,” Sam said, and her lashes lowered just enough to shadow her eyes and guard her emotions. She was putting the papers in a large envelope, talking as she slid them inside, her voice in some way filtering into his consciousness. “I’m finished here. I just came…” She exhaled , and the sound echoed through Nick. Not that there was an echo in the luxurious office. The echo was inside him, another extra from being sick that he didn’t welcome. Her gaze went to Danforth. “I’ll read them, then get them back to you as soon as I can.”
“I can send a messenger to your hotel for them if you just call the office when they’re ready.”
“I won’t be there. I’m leaving first thing tomorrow, so I’ll get them back to you.”
“You’ve got Express Mail in—what’s it called, Jensen Pass?” Nick asked with no idea why he would say something that sounded so sarcastic.
She turned to him, holding the envelope in one hand, her other hand nervously twisting her locket. The locket had been her mother’s and at one time had held a picture of him. “Ever the logical mind,” she said, bitterness edging her words. “Rest assured we have all the amenities in Jensen Pass. Electricity, running water, indoor plumbing and Express Mail. We’re not exactly in the boondocks there.”
He had no idea what Jensen Pass was or wasn’t, but he did know that for some reason his sarcasm was growing. “You left all those luxuries behind to come here to get the papers?”
She glanced down at the envelope in her hand as if she’d all but forgotten about it. “Oh, no, I had no idea…”
Her tongue touched her pale lips, and the sight sent a jolt through him that he found himself clearing his throat to control. God, what was so wrong with him that he could literally taste her in his mouth?
“I was in the city to see about a showing. This whole paper-signing thing…it’s just a…” She nibbled on her bottom lip and he filled in the word for her.
“A bonus?”
Her expression tightened again, this time drawing a fine line between her eyes and compressing her mouth. Color touched her cheeks. “Not hardly,” she said as her chin lifted just a bit. “But it is convenient.”
Suddenly, his legs felt rubbery and he moved farther into the room. Veering away from Sam, he reached for the closest chair and gripped the high leather back with one hand. Danforth was talking, and Nick had to force himself to focus on the lawyer to comprehend what he was saying.
“Actually, Samantha’s right. It is convenient. You’re both here, so we can get this over with right now.”
Nick actually needed the support of the chair, and if he hadn’t been so distracted by Sam’s unexpected appearance, that would have really annoyed him. “Sure, whatever,” Nick muttered.
“I don’t want anything from Nick,” Sam stated, “so it should be very simple. I just don’t see why we couldn’t have gotten an annulment.”
Danforth looked at Nick. “You never mentioned that.”
“I never thought of it,” he murmured, his hand tightening on the leather chair. “But if Sam wants to do that instead of—”
“Well, you’d need proof of fraud to get an annulment since I assume the marriage was consummated.”
“No, no,” Sam said quickly. “This is almost finished. That would be foolish.”
Nick saw the color in Sam’s cheeks rise even more, and she was staring hard at the envelope in her hand. Fraud? How about stupidity? And the marriage had been consummated—over and over again. Sex had been just about the only thing between them that they had both wanted—except for this divorce.
He felt a treacherous response to the memories as they started to return, and he moved carefully to sink into the chair.
“A divorce is fine,” Sam was saying, holding on to the envelope with her left hand, a hand without a ring. The single diamond was where she’d left it—in the side drawer of his desk. He hadn’t looked at it since she’d walked out. “But I need to read the papers before I sign,” she continued.
“Of course,” Danforth said.
Sam let go of the locket and skimmed her hand behind her neck, lifting her chin slightly and exposing her throat for a flashing instant. Nick was suddenly bombarded with the memory of the feel of her skin against his, that heat and silk, the pleasure that came in waves, the sensation of her pulse against his lips. He cleared his throat abruptly, tightening his hands on the arms of the chair and forcing himself to make small talk. “How’s your work going?”
Her green-eyed gaze turned to him, and the impact made his head swim. “Fine. I’m working on several paintings, actually. They might be picked up for the Orleans series.” He must have looked blank because she went on to explain. “It’s a children’s series of morality books.”
“Morality books,” he repeated.
“Honor, truth, loyalty…doing the right thing.”
He had the strangest idea that she was rebuking him somehow. “It’s a series?”
“Five titles in the planning. They saw some other children’s illustrations I did and they liked them.” She shrugged slightly. “They liked them very much.”
For a moment, he thought she was going to smile and he found himself bracing for the impact. He remembered her smiles, and he remembered what her smile had done to him when he first met her. He remembered and wished he hadn’t.
“Obviously, you’re good,” he murmured. “It sounds as if you’re doing well.”
Looking up at her now, he found himself confused about why he’d let this woman walk out on him. He tried to focus, to grab at a reason, then it came to him in a wrenching thud when she spoke again.
“I am. I love working on things for children.”
Children. At least he remembered one of the many reasons why their marriage had dissolved. They’d been on the beach at dawn, watching the sun rise, and she’d hugged her legs, staring out at the water.
“What a place for kids to grow up.”
He’d made some noncommittal answer like “Yeah, great,” but he’d been paying more attention to her tiny blue bikini and wondering how soon they could get back to the house so he could make love to her.
“I’ve always wanted to raise my kids by the ocean. That was the best time of my life, up in Jensen Pass. The ocean was like freedom to me, and I always knew that when I got married, I’d be by the ocean, and my kids would swim like fish.”
He’d been tracing her jawline with the tip of his finger but stopped. “That’s a nice fantasy,” he’d murmured, hoping he could banish the whole idea that easily.
But nothing about Sam had been easy. “It’s what I want. What I’ve always dreamed of. A husband and children. All the trimmings.”
He couldn’t pass that off as another rough spot in a rushed marriage. They were two people who had met and married in two weeks, two strangers who had desperately tried to reach out to each other. He hid from her words, from a dream life that he didn’t want. All he wanted was her.
He didn’t want children. He didn’t want to be tied down. But he wanted her. He’d stood, lifted her into his arms and carried her to the house. Their lovemaking that time had been explosive, and it had also been the last time he’d touched her.
Their relationship had been too intense and all-consuming. All he’d known while they were together was that nothing else mattered. Not when she smiled. Not when she touched him. At least, not at first while they were lost in each other’s arms.
“Children. Good.” He spoke past an odd tightness in his throat. “I’m glad things are working out for you.” He looked away, the thought of that last day bringing bitterness in a rush. He’d been wrong, so wrong. His mistake. His impulsiveness. His decision. A marriage that should have never been. She’d needed the commitment of marriage, and he’d gone along with it, never thinking about the consequences of two people finally looking at each other and finding out they were strangers. Husband and wife, but strangers.
“How have you been doing?” Sam asked abruptly.
He looked back at her, bracing himself this time, expecting that rush of need and desire that came no matter how rationally he tried to fight it when he was near her. “Working. I keep busy.”
“Of course, I remember,” she said softly. “Still fighting for the bad guy? Giving a defense to those with no defense?”
His headache increased as echoes from the past bombarded him. “How can you defend me when you know darn well that I did all that stuff the judge read to you? I mean, I didn’t intend to do it, but I’m guilty.”
His response now came as easily as the same response had come so long ago. “Everyone deserves a defense and I’m good at it.” He’d gotten her off with a fine, driving school and a restricted license for three months. A slap on the wrist after everything she’d done. “I got you off, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” she said, and his headache grew when her chin lifted just a fraction of an inch. “But then again, I wasn’t a serial killer.”
“You drove like one,” he said.
Sam felt her face burn, and she was furious that she was still so vulnerable to everything Nick said or did. It had to be the shock. When she’d come to Los Angeles, she’d known she wouldn’t be going anywhere near Malibu and she certainly hadn’t expected to see him walk through the door. Not any more than she’d expected that the sight of him would rock the world under her feet.
She turned from him and the way he seemed to fill all the space in the room, the way he’d always filled the space around her. She concentrated on the attorney behind the desk. But nothing she did could stop her from feeling Nick’s presence beside her. She didn’t have to inhale to know that he was so close she almost felt the air stir as he shifted in the leather chair.
She didn’t have to turn to be assailed by his image, an image burned into her mind. The navy suit, the pin-striped shirt with a deep red tie. His hair, a bit longer than it once had been, swept back from a hard face. Angles and planes. Those eyes. The one constant with Nick was that he was as sexy as hell. Even when he looked as if he wasn’t feeling well.
She couldn’t block out the image even when she wasn’t looking at him. He still had the same effect on her as he had the first moment they’d met, the first time he spoke to her in that low, rough voice, the first moment he touched her. She took a deep breath and knew she needed to go home, but she couldn’t till tomorrow morning. Until then, she just needed to be out of this office and to put Nick behind her.
“Mr. Danforth, I tell you what. I’ll get these back to you before I fly out tomorrow,” she told the attorney.
“That’s fine.” The man frowned at the two of them, probably glad that she was leaving and any explosion wouldn’t happen. “Just fine.”
She picked up her small white purse, then turned and walked away. The door was close enough for her to reach out and touch when she heard Nick’s voice call out, “Sam?”
She stopped but didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to look at Nick, the man she married, the man whose touch could make all reason flee, the man who could make her ache with just the sound of his voice. She held the doorknob so tightly her hand ached. All she wanted to do was cross the room and make some contact with him. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
Sam stood very still, his words hanging between them, and she didn’t know what to do. He was sorry. For some reason, that centered her. It killed whatever had been happening, whatever craziness was growing inside her, and in its place came a startling anger. She remembered. That moment she knew she’d have to leave. That moment she realized that Nick was a stranger.
Nick and Greg O’Neill on the deck of the Malibu house. She’d been gone, losing herself in her painting. The morning had started badly with a sense of something wrong, but she hadn’t been able to figure it out. There had been so many rough spots in the short marriage, but that morning, something had changed.
When they’d come back to the house from the beach, their lovemaking had been incredible and almost desperate. Now she realized she had sensed their relationship was over. That was the last time they’d made love. She’d immersed herself in her painting all day, then when night came, she’d heard voices in some other part of the house.
Wiping her hands on a rag, she’d gone toward the voices but stopped when she realized that Nick and Greg O’Neill were talking on the deck overlooking the beach. There were no lights on, just a partial moon, and the sound of Nick’s voice seemed to be everywhere in the air.
“My God, Greg, I’ve gotten myself in a real mess. This marriage…I don’t even know how it happened, and now Sam’s talking about kids. Next thing you know, she’ll be wanting a picket fence and daisies.”
Greg had laughed, saying something about bribing a judge and favors owed.
She’d waited for Nick to laugh and make it all into a joke. But he never had. Instead he spoke about marriage as if it were a disease. His voice was low, slightly slurred from drinking and filled with remorse. “It’s my fault, and if I could undo it, I would in an instant.”
“You wouldn’t even have wanted to meet Sam?” Greg had asked.
“Oh, hell, meet her? Yes. I wanted her from the first minute I saw her in that courtroom, green all over her hands, telling the judge that she was just trying to get to where she was going and didn’t understand why everyone was so upset with her driving.” There was a pause, then he laughed, but the sound was almost ugly. “Too bad it couldn’t have just been different.”
She had tried so hard to block his words, but they never went away. “Like what, an affair?” Greg had asked.
“Absolutely. That would have been perfect. But marriage? Marriage isn’t a normal state. Who ever thought up this concept of ‘forever’ with one person?”
“You don’t love her?”
She’d held her breath until Nick spoke again. “Love? I want her. I can’t stop that. But love? There’s no such thing.”
During their short marriage, he had never once said he loved her. They were strangers in so many ways. But she hadn’t known about the regret on Nick’s part. She’d believed that he loved her even if he couldn’t say it. She’d deluded herself. That tore at her more than anything, and in that moment in the dark, she’d seen clearly what she had to do.
The dreams that had kept her going through a lifetime alone were shattered. Her dreams of meeting a man, falling madly in love, being loved in return and having his children, died that night.
Her last act was to ask Nick one simple question, and even before he spoke, she knew it was over. So she gave him what he wanted—an out. And he’d taken it.
She bit her lips hard, the past hammering against her, and she would have left Danforth’s offices right then if Nick hadn’t spoken again.
“Sam? I said I was sorry.”
She took a breath, trying to steady the way her heart was bouncing in her chest, then made herself look back at him over her shoulder. He was still sitting in the chair, his eyes narrowed, his hands pressed to his thighs. She was sorry, too. So very sorry at that moment. And it made her ache even more. She was sorry for ever cuddling against him in the night, for ever touching him or letting him touch her. She was so damned sorry it was pathetic.
That thought was clear and sharp, as painful as anything she’d ever felt. “What are you sorry for?” she asked, her voice tight.
“For not being what you needed.”
She exhaled, a slightly shaky action, and spoke the truth. “It’s not your fault. The man I thought you were just never showed up,” she said quietly. “It was my fault for thinking he would.” Then she did leave. She went through the door, closed it and hurried through the reception area, looking neither right nor left.
She went out into the hallway to the elevators and didn’t feel as if she could breathe until she’d pushed the down button. Fifty feet and three closed doors were between herself and Nick, and yet she could still almost feel him behind her.
She held the purse and envelope against her chest so tightly that the clasp on her purse was biting into her ribs, but she didn’t ease her grip. For six months she’d had a life without Nick, a life that wasn’t what she’d dreamed she’d have, but it had been good at the cottage. It had been calm and peaceful. But just one meeting with him had toppled whatever balance she’d found.
“Mrs. Viera?”
Startled by the sound of a name she hadn’t heard in months, she realized that the elevator doors were wide open. She didn’t have a clue how long she’d been standing there or why a slightly built, elderly gentleman dressed all in black was in the car watching her with a smile.
Chapter Three
For a minute Sam thought her mind was playing tricks on her, that she’d imagined hearing her married name. Until she stepped into the car and the small man asked, “You are Mrs. Viera, aren’t you?”
She didn’t recognize him. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
