Obviously, I didn’t tell Paula this.
Instead I said, “Thanks, sweetie. Sleep well and we’ll talk later.”
“Gotcha,” Paula replied then, “Can’t wait for you to be home, babe. Hear all your stories. Look at your pictures. And just have you home.”
I totally loved my girl Paula.
And she was totally going to freak when she heard my stories and saw my pictures because, the last few days on Crete, more than once I’d asked a passerby to take one of Sam and me. I had at least a dozen.
And all of them were awesome.
We said our good-byes and rung off, I looked at the time on the display of my cell and calculated it.
Sam was either taking a shower or going to arrive back at the room imminently to do so. Therefore, instead of talking to him about something as important as my future home while kids were squealing doing cannonballs in the pool or bunches of people were squealing while doing water sports in the Mediterranean, the cool, quiet confines of our room was a better place to have the conversation.
I got up, tied my sarong around my bikini bottoms, gathered my stuff then hoofed it up to our room.
The hotel was built into the side of a steep hill. It was also exclusive. This was partly because it wasn’t so much rooms as pretty, white-walled, terracotta tile-roofed, little bungalows dotting the hill with meandering paths between. There were some which had two rooms in the unit. But Sam and mine didn’t. When we checked in, he upgraded my reservation so our room wasn’t a room with bathroom and balcony attached to someone else’s room with bathroom and balcony. It was a room with a lounge, bedroom, bathroom and veranda that was all ours.
It was also awesome.
But it was close to the top, private and a heck of a climb.
Sam ran it on the days he ran.
I did not. Ever.
I made it to the top, pleased with myself that I was only breathing kind of heavy rather than wheezing (like the first time I took the trek). In the cool, shadowed, covered entryway, I shoved my sunglasses back on my head and was putting my key in the lock when the door was flung open.
My body jolted in surprise then it went solid when, before I could get my wits about me, Sam’s long fingers curled on my upper arm and he yanked me into our room.
Not gently.
Not rough in an “I’m gonna pick you up, throw you on the bed and ravish you” way.
No.
He just yanked me into the room.
Then he slammed the door, pulled my kickass, wood handled, straw beach bag out of my hand and tossed it on the couch.
I blinked at the couch then automatically started backing up when Sam’s big body was suddenly in my space and advancing.
My head jerked to him and I saw he had his phone to his ear. He was sweaty, in workout clothes and he had a face like thunder.
I stopped breathing.
With his furious eyes locked to mine, Sam stopped advancing but I didn’t stop retreating. I went back five more steps until I ran into a chair.
That was when I stopped.
But, even moving, I didn’t… no, couldn’t tear my eyes from the fury in his.
And vaguely I realized that he’d not only yanked me roughly into the room, he’d also made it so he was between me and the door, a big, powerfully built obstacle I had no prayer of breaching.
My heart stopped beating.
What was happening?
“Yeah,” he bit off into his phone. “No comment. I don’t comment on that shit. You know I don’t ever comment on that shit.” Pause then his eyes went from sweltering to scorching, “I’ll talk to her.”
Oh God.
What was happening?
“Right. Later.” He clipped then flipped his phone shut.
My body involuntarily jumped when he flipped his phone shut but Sam didn’t speak, move or take his burning eyes from me.
With difficulty, I pulled in breath and forced out, “Sam –”
He cut me off with a harsh, “You forget to share somethin’ with me?”
I stared at him, my mind reeling, trying to catch a thought.
The answer was, yes. We’d known each other a week and a half. There were probably a lot of things I had not yet shared with him. I just didn’t know which one he was referring to or how, or for that matter why, some mysterious person on the phone was sharing unknown things about me.
“I –” I began hesitantly.
Sam interrupted me again and when he did, his voice wasn’t harsh, it was abrasive.
“Like, say, that piece of shit you married and the piece of shit he was bangin’ callin’ a hit on you?”
Oh God!
How did he find out about that?
And further, how did I forget to tell him that?
“They didn’t get that far,” I whispered then jumped and moved back, taking the chair with me as I watched his body move with uncontrolled rage, his arm cut through the air on a vicious sidearm slice and his phone went flying into the cushions of the couch with such strength it rebounded right out and clattered to the tiled floor.
Then he turned back to me.
“You got five million dollars outta that gig for whatever reason that motherfucker took out a policy on himself while he was plannin’ on whackin’ you. That’s why you’re here, that’s why you were in Como, that’s why you’re dressin’ like a f**kin’ socialite and spendin’ five hundred dollars on a f**kin’ robe, for f**k’s sake.”
My breath was now coming quickly just as my heart was beating fast, too fast, dangerous fast and, stupidly, my mind took that moment to remind me that I really, really shouldn’t have bought that robe with Luci.
“How do you know all this?” I asked quietly, my voice trembling.
“Tilda?” he shot back and my heart started beating faster. I didn’t answer but the answer must have been on my face because he continued. “Yeah,” he ground out. “She posted that shit somewhere, who the f**k knows where, but it spread like that shit always f**kin’ spreads and it went where it always f**kin’ goes and my agent got a call from a reporter that they were breakin’ the story that I was on vacation with an ex-administrative assistant, current millionaire who came into her new fortune because her husband, who took a shotgun blast to the head, was plotting to make her dead and his alternate piece of ass was currently out on bond, awaiting trial for conspiracy to commit murder and they wanted to know if you or me wanted to make a comment.”
Oh.
My.
God!
Ohmigod!
I couldn’t… this wasn’t… I couldn’t wrap my head around this. Any of it.