Double Dealing Page 11

  “Ah, and then you’d lose all your money, is that it?” she goaded.

  “You envisioned me as a silent partner, as I recall,” he retorted. “Which means that you’d be the one trying to deal with Buchanan. And from what I know of you, Sam, I’d have to guess that yes, I probably would wind up losing a lot of money.”

  “I’d pay you off whether or not I make a killing in Phoenix!”

  “With what? A lifetime subscription to your computerized business information service?”

  “You’d get your money, one way or another, Gabriel,” she said stonily and slammed the suitcase shut. The lid didn’t close properly because a sock was sticking out on the side. Ignoring it, Samantha forced the latch shut.

  “Does it occur to you that I might be concerned with something other than losing my money?” he gritted.

  “No,” she said savagely, glancing around the room to see what she’d forgotten. She nearly always forgot something when she packed in a hurry like this.

  “How about the fact that I don’t particularly relish the idea of seeing Buchanan use you to mop his office floor?”

  Her hairbrush. She’d forgotten her hairbrush. It was sitting on the dresser. Samantha started toward it resolutely. “Gabriel, you seem to have gained a somewhat false notion of my personal stamina and fortitude. I can only assume the impression stems from last night…. “

  His expression eased as she turned to face him, hairbrush in her hand. “Last night I saw the softness in you, sweetheart,” he allowed gently. “You’re a creature of beauty and energy and incredible passion. You took my breath away when you surrendered in my arms…. “

  The hairbrush seemed to leave her clenched fist of its own accord, hurtling across the room toward Gabriel’s head. He barely ducked in time. It struck the bathroom door behind him and clattered harmlessly to the floor. For an incredulous instant he stared down at it and then lifted unreadable eyes to her face as she glared furiously.

  “I did nothing of the kind,” she snapped. “I went to bed with you. Women do that sort of thing these days, you know. They go to bed with men when they feel like it. It is a simple case of indulging in a little harmless sex. It’s your male ego which chooses to view what happened last night in terms of dominance and submission, surrender and victory. That not the way it looked from my side at all! Don’t you dare try to guess what my behavior outside of bed is like based on my behavior in bed! Is that clear?”

  “Am I allowed to make judgments about your behavior outside of bed based on this little scene you’re conducting this morning?” he shot back coldly. “Because if I am, I would have to conclude that you are an emotional, unpredictable, excitable female.”

  Samantha played the only card she had left. Drawing herself up to her full height, she stalked across the room and reached down to grab her suitcase. “I shall have to take care not to give William Oakes the same bad impression, won’t I?”

  “Samantha!”

  She was halfway down the hall and would have been a lot farther but for the heavy suitcase when he caught up with her. Gabriel’s hand clamped down on her shoulder, halting her in midstride and spinning her around to face him.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he rasped.

  “Guess,” she invited succinctly.

  “You’re going to contact Oakes? Ask him for financial backing?”

  “You’re very shrewd,” she mocked, aware of the rock-heavy weight of his hand on her shoulder but refusing to acknowledge it, “for a businessman.”

  “I’ve told you to stay away from him. He’ll take everything if the deal goes through, and God help you if he loses money on it!”

  “You’re starting to sound a little emotional, yourself, Gabriel.”

  “Damn it, Samantha… !”

  “Three days, Gabriel. That’s how much time you’ve got. Three days to cut yourself in on my deal or forget about the whole thing. Are you really going to stand by and watch Oakes make all that money with me?” she concluded interestedly. “Because we are going to make a pile, Gabriel. Who knows? Maybe I’ll learn a few things from William Oakes in the process. He’s good. As successful as you are, according to the computer. But with any luck he’ll be more inclined to stick to business instead of giving in to his masculine cravings. I must prefer to do business with men who aren’t emotional, unpredictable, and at the mercy of their baser instincts!”

  Wrenching herself out from under his hand, she dragged the heavy suitcase down the hall and out onto the front patio.

  “Samantha, you’re not going to manipulate me, damn you!” Gabriel stalked along behind her, brows set in a rigid line over blazing hazel eyes.

  “I wouldn’t dream of trying to manipulate you,” she scorned, shoving open the wrought iron gate. “I’m just a poor, soft, brainless little female. How could I dream of trying to manipulate a powerful, successful man like yourself?”

  “You know damn well you’re trying to manipulate me!” he gritted as she opened the car door and slung her suitcase into the backseat. “You’re trying to threaten me, trying to force my hand. Samantha, I don’t let anyone get away with that.”

  She slid an icy glance up at his tightly set face as she dropped into the front seat of the car and slammed the key into the ignition. “I believe you,” she told him simply.

  “Then don’t try your luck!”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she drawled, switching on the engine and throwing the little car into gear. “All I’m doing is offering a straightforward business proposition. Three days, Gabriel. That’s how long you’ve got to consider it. After that I’ll contact the next name on the list. Oakes. With any luck he doesn’t have any weird idiosyncrasies like running around in his front yard wearing nothing but a towel!”

  The neatly raked gravel in the drive flew from beneath the sporty car’s tires as Samantha sent the vehicle charging back toward the main road. She didn’t even glance in the rearview mirror as she departed.

  Gabriel stared after her, fighting a silent, savage, internal battle. She was gone. Just like that. He’d staked a claim on her last night. She couldn’t just leave like this! Didn’t she realize that Samantha belonged to him now.

  The urge to go after her—and drag her back by her hair if necessary—was astonishing in its strength. It took the full force of his will to bring the seething emotional tide under control. What was the matter with him? He’d never been like this over a woman. Dazedly he stared down at his shaking hands.

  Three days.

  The little witch would do it, too. She’d go to Oakes with her crazy proposition. And Oakes would find a way of turning the whole thing to his own advantage. He’d use her.

  Three days.

  How did she dare to lay down an ultimatum like this to him?

  “S-s-shi …!” Gabriel gave up the attempt and strode back to the house thinking darkly of the buckwheat pancakes and the fresh papaya he had been going to serve Samantha this morning.

  She really knew how to screw up a man’s plans. Perhaps she was a shrewder businesswoman than he’d thought!

  ***

  Jeff Ingram paused outside his boss’s office and adjusted the subtly striped tie in the mirror wall which lined the deeply carpeted hall of the executive suite. Jeff’s personal taste in ties tended toward the more colorful. His taste in suits tended toward styles with a European dash in fabric and shape. But he wore a conservatively cut suit and the quiet tie because that what Buchanan wore. One of the basic precepts in the corporate world was that a man who wanted to move into the executive suite should dress like the men who already inhabited it.

  Jeff Ingram fully intended to wind up with a penthouse office that had a view of the ocean. Just like Buchanan’s. He raised his hand and knocked on the heavy wooden door.

  After the polite knock he opened the door and walked straight in. His appearance had already been announced by the secretary in the outer office. Buchanan didn’t shout permission to enter through his office
door.

  “I have the update you requested on the Phoenix project, sir,” Jeff began at once as the other man glanced up from a file on his desk. Buchanan did not waste time in office pleasantries, so Jeff always made a practice of corning straight to the point when he made appearances in the head office.

  Buchanan was capable of such pleasantries, of course, Jeff reflected wryly as the older man nodded him toward a chair. He’d personally witnessed Buchanan’s enormous personal charm on several occasions. It was phony as hell but brilliantly effective. Jeff knew he still had much to learn in that direction. The Buchanan charm was on display at social functions and chamber of commerce meetings. There one saw the gracious, clear-eyed, community-minded Drew Buchanan. Someday that was where and how people would see Jeff Ingram.

  Buchanan was nearing forty now, but the thick, tawny hair hadn’t thinned, and the flecks of gray at the temples made Jeff envious. That distinguished look worked magic on women. It also served to reassure the men who might otherwise have found Buchanan’s open, handsome features a little worrisome. The brilliant “you-can-trust-me” smile also seemed effective with both sexes, young and old. Jeff practiced a similar smile every morning while shaving.

  The trick wasn’t so much in imitating the smile, Jeff had decided, it was in learning how to make it slice through an opponent like a knife when the occasion demanded. Buchanan was good at it. The man was a bastard and someday, Jeff promised himself, he would be an even more successful bastard than Buchanan.

  “Excellent. You’re really quite dependable, Jeff.” Drew took the folder from the younger man’s hand and flipped it open to the summary page. “You’ve started closing on our options?”

  “This week. We’ve got the big parcels tied up. Now we go after all the little bits and pieces of Phoenix that we’ll need.”

  Buchanan frowned thoughtfully. “What’s left that we haven’t covered?”

  “An apartment complex and a restaurant along with a couple of small shops. Nothing difficult. I’m not anticipating trouble from any of them, so I left them until the last. The shop owners have already indicated a willingness to relocate, and the restaurant owner is thinking of retiring. We’ll have one of our brokers make him an offer soon.”

  “It’s the apartment houses which are always so damn difficult,” Drew noted politely, waiting.

  “Not in this case, sir.” Jeff hid his inner smile of satisfaction. He’d worked hard to anticipate Buchanan on this. “I’ve done some research on this particular building. The owners are in a bind and more than happy to take a cash offer.”

  “And the tenants?” Drew questioned softly. “It’s not like the old days, Jeff, when one could just go in and evict or quadruple rents and force people out. These days one must keep the corporate image in mind.” Buchanan’s mouth twisted faintly over that sad fact.

  “The place hasn’t been renting well for the past two years because the owners couldn’t afford to maintain the building properly,” Jeff informed him smoothly. “No cash flow and a lot of unhappy tenants. The ones who are left will be more than willing to move into that new complex on the outskirts of Phoenix, especially when we guarantee them three months free rent.

  “The Maitland Maneuver?” Buchanan’s brow arched with wry interest.

  “Yes, sir. It’s very effective.” Although I’ll be damned if I can figure out where you got the name for it, Jeff thought silently.

  Drew Buchanan studied his eager, anxious-to-please assistant. He noted the conservative tie and suit. Ingram had his sights set high, and he’d probably make it someday. That was okay by Buchanan. He understood Jeff Ingram, which meant he could trust him. His behavior was predictable. Not like Samantha Maitland, he realized dryly as Jeff’s mention of his scheme brought the name to his mind.

  “It is effective in situations like this,” Drew remarked. “Works almost every time. Did you know that it was invented during the process of obtaining the very chunk of land we’re sitting on, Jeff?”

  Ingram’s eyes narrowed a fraction. He always got uneasy when Buchanan got chatty. True, such times presented some interesting opportunities to pick up a few inside pointers, but Buchanan in a friendly mood was Buchanan at his most dangerous.

  “No, sir, I didn’t know that,” Jeff allowed cautiously.

  “The woman who once had your job developed it. I didn’t approve of her efforts that first time, but when I realized how much easier and more cost-effective it was to have people leaving willingly, I decided we would make use of the procedure in the future where feasible.”

  Buchanan saw the wariness in Ingram and smiled inwardly. It never did any harm for people in Jeff’s position to know there were others out there who had pleased Drew Buchanan. People like Jeff Ingram should occasionally be reminded that they could be replaced. The idea of a shrewd predecessor having once occupied Jeff’s position would give the younger man food for thought. Keep him on his toes. The fact that it had been a woman would probably make the lesson even more salutary. No man liked the idea that he could be replaced by a female or that he had to live up to the performance of a female who had gone before him.

  Damned if he was going to dilute the small sting of the lesson by going on to tell Ingram that Samantha had applied her effective techniques out of a bleeding-heart concern for the tenants rather than any realistic business rationale.

  The high-rise office tower in Miami which housed the corporate headquarters of the Buchanan Group had a view of the ocean. The former structure on the very expensive plot of ground hadn’t been so fortunate. It had been a three-story apartment complex, far too short to afford a view. The inability to see the ocean over the rooftops hadn’t bothered the tenants of the building, however. The average age of the residents had been sixty-eight, and they had all been more concerned with their low rents and ‘the tiny gardens allocated to each unit.

  But Drew had realized the full potential of the land almost at once. With a little pressure in the right places, he had gotten the zoning laws changed for the neighborhood, and then he had set his intriguing new assistant to work on securing the property.

  Samantha. She’d had a real talent for the business world. She’d also been endowed with a rather sweet ass. The combination had been very appealing. When he’d realized who her father was, Drew’s interest had sharpened into thoughts of marriage. The prospect of the Thorndyke money was a welcome one at the time. Money had seemed the most important thing in life in those days.

  He’d recognized the weaknesses in Samantha right from the start, of course. His ability to zero in on the vulnerable points of others and use them to his own advantage was a skill he almost took for granted now. An instinct.

  Samantha’s flaws were easily summarized as far as Buchanan was concerned. She had an underlying softness which would no doubt forever blunt the necessary ruthlessness one needed to cultivate for the executive suite. In addition, she had been stricken with a social conscience which was almost amusing at times. That alone would probably have kept her out of the highest reaches of the corporate world. He wondered idly if she’d ever overcome that particular failing. And while her nicely rounded rear had been quite attractive, the tits had always been a little disappointing.

  But all of those flaws could have been dealt with, he decided in retrospect. The social conscience could have eventually been quelled. And he could have lived with the less than perfect bustline. After all, there were plenty of women available for the times when he really wanted to indulge his taste in that direction.

  Yes, for the sake of the Thorndyke money, Drew could have been reasonably content with Samantha for a wife. But there had been one other nagging flaw in her character which he frankly admitted he’d never been certain he could handle. It was the uneasy feeling that, even though he knew her strengths and weaknesses, he still didn’t quite know Samantha Maitland.

  You could only really be confident about someone when you knew you had a handle on him or her. When you understood what made that
person tick. But Drew knew he’d never had that feeling of absolute certainty about Samantha Maitland. There was a part of her he had never quite pinned down, never quite been able to control. He couldn’t even put a name to the unknown factor.

  The evidence of the indefinable aspect of her nature was most clearly apparent when she was at work, he decided in retrospect. Give her an assignment and the job always got done. Sometimes brilliantly. But never in a predictable or orthodox fashion. She worked with an intuitive logic that managed to take him by surprise too many times. It was unnerving. Drew wanted skill and creativity in those who worked for him, but he wanted that skill and creativity to be controllable, similar enough to his own way of thinking as to be thoroughly comprehensible. With Samantha it was almost eccentric in nature. And highly unpredictable. Drew did not like unpredictable people around him. He never wanted to be taken by surprise, even when it worked to his own advantage.

  And it had worked to his advantage on more than one occasion, he allowed with a wry sense of humor. Take the time he had indulged her and allowed her to go ahead with her bizarre plan for relocating the tenants of that old apartment building which had stood on the site of the Buchanan building. Not only had the scheme saved him a fortune in time and court costs, but the all-out effort to find substitute housing and provide several months of free rent to the dispossessed tenants had made him look very good in the local press.

  It was after the business sections of the newspapers heralded his “socially responsible” approach to growth that he’d had the first stirrings of interest in local politics. He owed Samantha for that, Drew decided magnanimously.

  She hadn’t lasted long enough, however, to learn of his new interest. It had all come to a head the day Thorndyke had marched, unannounced, into his office and told him flatly to forget any notion he had of marrying Samantha. The order had been reinforced by the information that Thorndyke had no intention of leaving anything to his bastard daughter if she married Drew Buchanan.