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“Simmer down? Simmer down!” Bella jerked her arm free and stalked over to his desk. She stabbed the nearest newspaper with her finger. “What the hell is this?”
He lifted the paper and read the headline proclaiming he was cheating on Bella Hudson by seeing fiancée Tiffany Jones. The spread included a photo of him with Tiffany at a New Year’s party a year ago, making it seem they’d spent this December thirty-first together.
The article even included a photo of a tearful, “wronged” Tiffany spilling her tale of woe, likely looking for her fifteen minutes of fame along with a hefty payoff for the article. “This is total bull. You know as well as I do how gossip rags can make things up out of thin air.”
Didn’t she?
Her indignation visibly ramped until her fiery hair damn near crackled with electricity. She paced restlessly, snatching her purse off the floor, her path leading her closer and closer to the door. “So you’re saying this picture of the two of you super-glued together on New Year’s Eve was altered?”
He scratched the kink in his neck, remembering why he hated the press so damned much. “Not exactly.”
She stroked the doorknob as if already plotting her sprint away. “This picture is real?”
He hesitated.
“You do know her.” Her hand closed around the knob. “Please don’t insult me by saying she just catered the party.”
He knew Bella had a temper, but he still couldn’t believe she was so pissed off so fast. All her trust issues be damned, this was just an article. Irritation at her piled on top of his anger over Tiffany’s stunt. Bella should know full well what the media was like. She’d grown up under the microscope herself.
He worked to keep his voice low and level. “This photo was taken a year ago when Tiffany Jones and I were seeing each other.”
“Why didn’t I ever hear about it?”
Her suspicious tone kicked at his already thin rein on his own temper. How had things spun out of control so damn fast? Only minutes ago they’d been locked together in a mind-numbing release.
He mentally kicked himself for not taking up this topic with her before he accepted the tempting offer she’d made when she walked in. “Not everything I do gets reported. In case you haven’t noticed, I prefer to stay away from the camera’s lens.”
Something that had frustrated Tiffany. In hindsight, he could see she had dated him for the attention she’d thought his wealth would bring her way.
Bella released the doorknob, a sign of promising progress. “Why is she speaking out now?”
Like he was a mind reader? If that were the case he would know how the hell to reason with Bella. “For attention. For money. For revenge because I ended our engagement.”
“Fiancée?” Any sign of softening disappeared in a snap, her blue eyes darting shards of ice his way. “She really was your fiancée like the paper says? When?”
“I broke it off at Thanksgiving.” A very messy breakup where he’d nearly had his head taken off by a Ming Dynasty vase Tiffany had hurtled his way. Yet he hadn’t even thought about her in weeks, a further affirmation he’d made the right decision in ending things with her.
“Mere weeks before you met me?” Her voice rose with each word. “We’ve been together for over a month now and you never thought to mention you’d been engaged?”
“We weren’t planning anything serious and then I honestly didn’t think of her.”
She wrapped her arms around her waist defensively. “I don’t believe you.”
“What?” His sense of honor roared. He wouldn’t deny he was ruthless, but by God, he did not cheat.
“I don’t believe you.” Her chin tipped, her eyes full of hurt as well as anger. “Why should I? Everyone knows your reputation with women and I chose to ignore it. Well, not anymore.”
“I’m not going to stand here while you call me a liar.” He turned his back, walking to his desk to put distance between them. He was not the sort of man to stare down a woman in an attempt to physically intimidate her, but he also wouldn’t put up with these irrational accusations.
Sam pivoted behind his desk to face her again. “I’ve spent the past weeks with you in front of the press, supporting you, helping you save face while you flirted with every damn man in sight.”
Her head snapped back. “What are you talking about?”
“At the parties.” A month’s worth of exasperation boiled to the surface. “It gets old sitting around with my thumb up my—” he cleared his throat if not his anger “—sitting around while you let other men paw you.”
Her eyes went wide with shock, then she shook her head in amazement. “I could almost laugh at your jealousy, almost.” Her face went emotionless and she hitched her purse higher on her shoulder as if readying to walk the hell out of his life. “It seems neither of us trusts the other and without trust we have nothing.”
Bella grabbed the doorknob again, her spine regally stiff with Lillian-like poise. “Thank you for your help with the promo issues these past weeks. It’s obvious our time together is over.”
She opened the door and left.
Bella hitched her bag even more securely onto her shoulder and marched past Sam’s secretary, head held high on her way into the hallway. She wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her cry, especially not someone who worked for Sam and probably knew that Tiffany person.
Likely Sam had been telling the truth about breaking up with Tiffany before he and Bella met. But this made her realize just how little of himself he’d ever shared with her. All those romantic gestures through the month had simply been about getting her back in bed. She’d been such a gullible sucker. She been right to run out of his office before her still-humming body lured her back into his arms.
Construction work thundering overhead echoed the pounding in her ears. She should have known better. She’d heard about Sam’s reputation as a player. She’d seen firsthand how easily relationships fell apart in her family. Yet she’d naively thought she and Sam could be different just because he’d spent four weeks wooing her.
He was simply a damn good multitasker.
Her hurt feelings over Ridley felt like nothing in comparison to the heartache jack-hammering through her now. Somehow during this past month, Sam had eased the ache of Ridley’s callousness, her parents’ betrayal, and the imminent loss of her grandmother, she’d felt a certain comfort in knowing she could lean on Sam through it all.
She’d been right to expect all or nothing, and wrong to come over here so impulsively. Except it hurt so damn bad to be on the nothing end of that deal.
A custodian rolled a cart down the hall, casting a quick curious glance at her. Bella scrounged a feeble smile and swiped away the tears she’d been so desperate to hold in. Her hand came back smudged with mascara and makeup.
Damn it. She needed to get out of here.
Rushing toward the elevator, she fished in her purse for a tissue and mirror, shuffling aside her wallet, brush, her cell phone, a bag of doggie treats for Muffin…
Wait.
She thumbed the elevator button and backtracked to the pink phone flashing “missed call.” She stepped into the empty elevator as she retrieved her messages.
Her brother Max’s voice came over the phone. “Bella, call me as soon as you get this message. It’s important.”
Her stomach clenched. It couldn’t be…. Not now. Not yet. Not when so much of her life was falling apart. Her fingers shook so hard she could barely operate her cell phone as the elevator whooshed down five floors. Finally, she connected to her brother’s number just as the door chimed on the main floor.
“Please, please, pick up,” she chanted while the phone rang.
The ringing stopped. “Bella.” Max’s somber voice erased all hopes of escaping the worst news. “I’m sorry, kiddo. It’s Grandmother. She passed away a half hour ago.”
Eleven
Three days later, Sam sat in his Marseille office, wondering why the hell he was still staring out the window at the harbor rather than getting back to work. Bella had walked out on him, for crying out loud. She’d even ignored the brief message he’d left on her voice mail once he’d calmed down enough to offer a neutral territory discussion.
His phone buzzed—the line used by his personal assistant. Sam jabbed the speakerphone button.
“Yes,” he answered, his voice clipped and rude, he knew, but he’d asked not to be interrupted.
“There’s someone on line one—a Charlotte Montcalm,” Parrington announced. “She insists on speaking with you. She says it’s about Ms. Bella Hudson.”
Was Charlotte Hudson Montcalm calling on Bella’s behalf as some kind of olive branch? He wasn’t sure how he felt about third-party negotiations on something that should be between him and Bella, but he also realized he couldn’t ignore the call. “Thank you, Parrington.”
Sam tapped line one. “Hello, Mrs. Montcalm.”
“Please, call me Charlotte.”
“Charlotte, what can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry to bother you at work, but since you reached out to Alec and me about Bella last month I have to think you must care about her in some way.”
