I never thought I’d ever be asked for a comment on anything.
And…
Ohmigod!
If this stuff was spreading and someone was going to write an article about us, my friends and family would find out!
“None of my friends or family knows about us,” I blurted.
“Who the f**k cares?” Sam roared and I pushed back, feeling chair, I scurried around it and kept retreating until I hit the wall of windows that faced the sea and only then did I realize I was shaking from head-to-toe.
Sam’s eyes never left me but they were working as was the muscle jumping in his cheek, his jaw hard, his fury filling the room.
Then he said in a carefully restrained voice that even sounded like it took effort to achieve, “Pissed at you, Kia, seriously f**kin’ pissed but I’m not gonna hurt you.”
I didn’t reply.
“How could you keep this from me?” he changed the subject to ask.
I kept quiet and kept shaking and kept my eyes glued to him.
Sam went back to the other subject and reminded me, “I’m not him.”
I nodded but kept quiet, shaking and my eyes didn’t move.
Sam held my gaze.
Then he started talking again.
“You know me, you knew me before you met me, you gotta know that nearly everyone I f**k is laid out for the world to see. Most of the time, they aren’t interesting except, say, when one of them has a murdered husband who was plotting with his side bitch to whack her and she comes out a millionaire. Now that shit’s gonna be all over the f**kin’ place and you f**kin’ internet stalked me, sweetheart, you knew it would and you did not give me the head’s up.”
“I –” I began but he cut me off again.
“Regardless of this media shit, it’s kinda important to know the woman I’m bangin’ has a hit out on her.”
I was beginning not to like the way he was talking to me, especially how he was referring to me.
Like.
At all.
Including the fact he called me “sweetheart” only when he was pissed at me.
“It didn’t get that far,” I repeated.
“You’re wrong,” he fired back and my heart and breath stopped again just as I felt my lips part. “Your friend Ozzie?” he asked, I nodded and he went on. “Keepin’ you protected and when I say that, he was doin’ it in more ways than givin’ you peace of mind by not sharin’ that the hit was called, it was paid for and once done, there is no way to get in touch with whoever the f**k they hired in order to call it off.”
My hands clenched into fists as pure fear saturated my system.
Sam kept sharing.
“He’s had a man on you for months all the while tryin’ to track down whoever got the call. His hope was, they heard your ex was dead and his woman was facing conspiracy charges and he’d figure he got an easy payday, know you were protected and back off. His worry was, he wouldn’t hear or wouldn’t care and would carry out the job regardless. Until they track that motherfucker down, they can have no clue. He’s been in fits since you’ve been gone, thinkin’ that guy’s after you here, which he could be.”
This couldn’t be true.
“That’s crazy,” I whispered.
“It sure the f**k is. It’s also the f**kin’ truth,” Sam returned.
“How do you know this?”
“My agent set one of his assistants on it. They called Boothe County Sheriff Department. To say Barney Oswald was relieved to hear you’d hooked up with me is a serious f**kin’ understatement. Peace of mind for him. For me, I got a woman with a hit on her, I had no clue and now I have significantly limited intel and no f**kin’ weapon.”
I couldn’t believe this.
This was unbelievable.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sam asked again.
“I –” I started again.
“I can’t f**kin’ believe you didn’t f**kin’ tell me,” Sam growled and I snapped.
Just like that.
I snapped.
I didn’t remember the last time I snapped. It had been years since it was safe for me to snap.
But that didn’t mean, right then, with Sam, I didn’t snap.
I sure the heck did.
“If you’d shut up a minute and let me talk maybe you’d get an answer to one of your questions!” I shouted and when I did, Sam’s face turned to stone and his eyes turned to granite.
Okay, he was pissed. Maybe he had a right to be.
But I had a hit out on me!
And he wouldn’t let me f**king talk!
“I didn’t know this,” I told him.
“Sweetheart, five million dollars says differently. Oswald’s deputy shared that you called the f**kin’ thing in,” Sam retorted.
“I wasn’t done,” I hissed, Sam’s jaw flexed and I kept going. “Pardon me, Sam, but I think you’re forgetting that things have been a little crazy for me and not just the last two weeks but the last,” I leaned in, “seven years of my life. Then my husband gets half his head blown off by a guy I liked. Milo is cool. And now Milo is incarcerated because Cooter and Vanessa are ass**les. At the same time I found out Cooter cheated on me and now I can guess it was probably repeatedly. I’m twenty-eight and I have no clue who I am. I just sold my house and I’m in a bidding war that’s out of hand for that unit so soon I’ll have nowhere to live. I quit my job so I have nothing to do. I came on vacation to sort my head and decide what to do with my life then I met you and that wasn’t exactly your everyday, run of the mill girl meets boy situation but girl meets famous, rich hot guy who she’s had a faraway crush on for years and suddenly finds herself sleeping with. I didn’t exactly forget but I also didn’t exactly remember. I wasn’t keeping it from you. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I just didn’t. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t get around to it. But, you know, it’s been a lot nicer since leaving Italy to focus on the pool and beach and Greek music and dancing and good food and hot sex and not on the fact my dead husband and his girlfriend wanted me dead. So forgive me for not coming clean and telling you the minute I met you like I told you about Cooter being killed. I’ve been freaked out, unsure and pretty stinking scared because I like this, a lot, you and me. This is something I never thought I’d have and, my apologies to the Sam Cooper who means a great deal to me but it’s partly about the fact that I’m suddenly sleeping with Sampson Cooper when that’s an unheard of reality after years of fantasy but it’s also about the fact that I was in a shitty, rotten marriage that was hell from the minute I woke to the minute I went to sleep and now I have something the exact opposite and I don’t know how to cope! So, if I didn’t share that my husband wanted me dead while all that was going on, I’m sorry. A thousand apologies. Now, too late, but by the way, Sam, my husband was more of a piece of shit than you can comprehend because he wanted me dead and fully intended to do something about it but the good news is, he left me his pension, he inexplicably took a five million dollar life insurance policy out on himself and he left me that and he left me his dog who might be yappy but I love her. Now you can consider yourself fully briefed.”