Secret Weapon Spouse
Autorzy
B.J. Daniels
Lektury
19,5K
Rozdziały
18
Chapter One
Trouble. Samantha Peters knew it the moment she saw the bride-to-be. Caroline Graham looked upset but trying hard not to show it as she stepped into Samantha’s office, followed by a man who was clearly not her fiancé.
“Thank you for making time to see me today,” Caroline said, then seemed to remember she wasn’t alone. “This is my brother, Alex.”
Samantha came around her desk to shake his hand. He was tall, broad in the shoulders with light brown hair—almost blond—and intense eyes that at first she thought were blue but on closer inspection found they changed color with the light. Right now they were more green and flecked with gold.
As her hand disappeared into his large one, she found his touch dry and warm, his grip strong, self-assured. But Samantha wouldn’t have expected anything less from one of Caroline Graham’s brothers.
Alex, she recalled from her research, was the fire-man. In her business, Samantha made a point of knowing as much as she could about her client’s family.
As she shook Alex Graham’s hand she told herself he could just as easily have been the brother who ran the Graham financial empire instead of the black sheep of the family. He looked completely at home in the expensive pin-striped gray suit that fit him perfectly.
Her eyes locked with his for just an instant. He seemed distracted, his sister Caroline nervous. Samantha couldn’t help but wonder why Caroline had called, insisting she had to see her—let alone why she’d brought her brother with her today instead of her fiancé.
“Please sit down,” Samantha said as he released her hand. She pushed her tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses up and braced herself for the worst.
She’d been in this business long enough not to jump to conclusions let alone panic. Cool under pressure. That was Samantha Peters. Some said ice water ran through her veins. They had no idea. But if there was one asset she brought to her job as a wedding planner, it was unruffled composure. The same went for her other job—the one that took place in the hidden soundproof room upstairs over the shop.
At Weddings Your Way, Samantha was the detail person. She was the one who saw that each client’s wedding came off without even the tiniest snag. It was one of the reasons she was paid the big bucks.
“Is there a problem?” Samantha asked when Caroline and Alex had taken their chairs. Normally, she would have pulled up a chair, as well, making the meeting more informal, more personal.
Today, Samantha chose to sit behind her desk. That alone should have told her something.
The thing about brides was that they often panicked for all kinds of reasons: family arguments that required a change of setting at both the wedding and reception; the loss or gain of too much weight before their final dress fitting; bridesmaids who got pregnant, broke their legs, cut their hair or dyed it a hideous color before the wedding. The list went on and on.
It was Samantha’s job to pacify all parties and solve those problems if possible before the big day. She wasn’t too worried even though the Graham-Wellington wedding would be one of the largest affairs Weddings Your Way would handle this year and that was saying a lot given their clientele. Also Samantha had been working on this wedding for more than six months and still had six months to go since Caroline wanted a Christmas wedding and it was only June.
“How can I help you?” she asked looking up from her desk at the bride-to-be. Caroline Graham was tall and willowy, blond and beautiful with a grace born of good genes and unlimited money.
“There might be a problem,” Caroline said, fiddling with her engagement ring. Another bad sign.
Alex shifted in the plush chair provided for clients, his gaze lingering on his sister, a frown furrowing his brow.
Samantha could feel the tension in the air, a high-pitched electric inaudible buzz. He looked at Samantha as if he didn’t have any more of a clue than she did. She felt an unexpected jolt as he continued to probe her gaze for…for what? She had no idea.
She’d already pulled out the Graham-Wellington file and gone over the details after Caroline’s call. But she opened it now and picked up her pen, concentrating on the checklist form in front of her to regain her balance. She had a gift when it came to hysterical brides and grooms with cold feet. She would have taken either right now. There was something about Alex Graham that she found unnerving and clearly Caroline was upset. Her instincts told her this was much more serious than wedding jitters.
“Are there some changes you would like to make?” Samantha asked looking again at the bride-to-be.
“Just one,” Caroline said quietly, seeming almost embarrassed. “We’d like to move the wedding up by three months.”
To her credit, Samantha didn’t even blink. She told herself nothing a bride requested could surprise her at this point in her career. “Three months?”
Caroline explained that her fiancé’s father wasn’t in good health. They feared that if they waited he might miss the wedding. “It can’t be helped under the circumstances.”
Samantha flipped to her calendar. The Graham-Wellington wedding was set for the first week in December. For more than six months the date had been set, the plans made, arrangements being prepared. The kind of wedding required for the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Florida took time. Starting from almost scratch and pulling off something of that magnitude in less than three months was impossible.
“I know it’s not much time,” Caroline said apologetically.
Samantha glanced at Alex. He was staring at his sister as if this was the first he’d heard of this change. Samantha shifted her gaze to Caroline, saw the set of her jaw and didn’t bother to ask if this was something the bride-to-be was sure she wanted to do. Clearly it was.
“All right,” Samantha said and flipped through her book. “Do you have a date in mind?”
“The first Friday in September.”
September. There went the winter-white dress, the ice-blue bridesmaids dresses, as well. “Were you thinking fall colors then?” she asked calmly.
“I suppose so,” Caroline said.
Samantha noted that Caroline’s fingers were digging into the fine fabric of her purse now on her lap. She’d never seen the woman nervous before.
The bridesmaids had all been fitted for the dresses that were being made by an impossible-to-get Miami designer. Impossible to get, unless you were Samantha Peters and had the full power of Weddings Your Way behind her.
Maybe they could keep the original wedding dress since there was no way to get another designer original made in three months, not with the designers booked solid. Not even Samantha could pull that off.
But blue was all wrong for a fall wedding this year. That meant new dresses for the twelve bridesmaids. Each would have to be refitted for original designs. Even if Caroline might have agreed to off-the-rack bridesmaid dresses, Samantha doubted C. B. Graham would.
“A fall wedding will be much warmer,” Samantha said cheerfully. Fortunately, the wedding was to be held at the Graham estate. So a change of venue wouldn’t be required. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. She pulled out a stack of new forms. “What flowers do you have in mind?” Arctic white roses were all wrong for September.
Caroline sighed. “I suppose this changes everything, doesn’t it?”
For the type of wedding C. B. Graham had insisted his only daughter have? Yes, this changed everything.
As they began the arduous task again, Samantha made suggestions keeping with what was socially required of a Graham heir. She didn’t bother to tell Caroline that the wedding would cost ten times as much—not to mention any money already spent on the first wedding plans was lost. Money, of course, wasn’t the issue. Samantha was going to have to call in some favors to pull this one off.
Caroline looked close to tears as she made her selections for a second time. Samantha did her best to make it as painless as possible since Caroline was clearly upset.
Her brother shifted uncomfortably in his chair and said nothing, but Samantha was very aware of him.
She caught him studying his sister from time to time and couldn’t help but wonder why Caroline had brought him with her today. For support? He seemed to be as confused by all this as Samantha herself. And where was Preston Wellington III, Caroline’s fiancé?
But what worried Samantha was that Caroline’s heart didn’t seem to be in the choices she was making this time. The bride-to-be seemed more relieved than anything else when the basics has been decided and Samantha walked the two of them to the front door of Weddings Your Way. Caroline looked a little pale and unsteady on her feet as Alex opened the door for her.
“Are you all right?” Samantha heard him say. She didn’t catch Caroline’s reply as the door closed, but she watched the two of them from the large glass doors as they started down the long flower-and-palm-lined walk to the street. Samantha couldn’t shake the feeling that Caroline was anything but all right.
ALEX GRAHAM was thinking the same thing as he and his sister stepped out into the Miami heat, Caroline in the lead.
She’s in some kind of trouble.
The thought came out of nowhere and had no real basis. Sure it was unusual that Caroline had changed her wedding date, maybe especially this late. But things happened.
No, what was really odd and unnerving was the fact that she’d called him out of the blue and asked him to meet her at the wedding planner’s today. For years he’d been on the outs with his family, Caroline included.
Caroline was the baby girl of his blue-blooded family. It didn’t help that their mother had died shortly after she was born. Or that C. B. Graham had tried to make up for it by giving Caroline any and everything she wanted.
Caroline, or the little princess as Alex called her, had been spoiled and difficult. For years he’d avoided her as well as his father and brother, telling himself it was no big loss.
In truth, his family avoided him probably more than the other way around. He’d been the black sheep ever since he refused to attend an Ivy League college—and then had the audacity to become a fireman.
His father, C.B., was an overachiever who swore that the bottom line was always money. Fortunately for C.B., his firstborn, Brian, had followed in his footsteps attending the old man’s alma mater and going into the family investments business.
C.B. had almost disowned Alex when he’d gone to a state college and then become a Miami fireman. Needless to say, they still didn’t get along. In fact, his father had nothing but contempt for Alex’s choices and did little to hide it.
“Caroline?” Alex called after his sister as she walked ahead of him. The afternoon sun hung over the brightly painted buildings along the street, the day uncomfortably hot and humid. It was only June. He hated to think what August would be like. Palm fronds rustled in the hot breeze off Biscayne Bay. Somewhere in the distance came the screech of tires, the blare of a horn. Had she not heard him?
“Caroline?” She’d said little since he’d met her here and he wasn’t going to let her get away until they talked. Really talked, something his family avoided at all costs.
She’d stopped and seemed to be leaning against a wrought-iron bench as if she felt ill.
Alex caught up to his sister and saw that she was flushed and appeared close to tears. He took her arm. “Hey, are you all right? You don’t look so good. What’s going on?”
He couldn’t shake the feeling that his sister asked him here today to confide something in him—and changed her mind.
“I told you, I’m fine,” she snapped, pulling free. “I just need to get to the car and sit down for a minute. The heat.” She blew out a breath and fanned herself, stepping away to head for her car and driver waiting at the curb. “I’ll call you later,” she said over her shoulder, her pace increasing as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him. “Thank you for meeting me here.”
Alex swore under his breath, wondering what he’d done. Nothing. They hadn’t even spoken two words from the time he’d met her in the Weddings Your Way lobby. It wasn’t him this time, he told himself. She was upset about something else. Being forced to change the date of the wedding?
He saw her look around as if she’d been expecting someone. Her fiancé?
Where was he anyway? Why hadn’t he met Caroline here? Alex had the feeling she’d been expecting him. Maybe that’s what had her upset—the fact that he hadn’t showed.
Alex had yet to meet his sister’s soon-to-be-husband but he already disliked him based simply on the man’s name: Preston Wellington III. He, no doubt, was a clone of their brother, Brian, which meant that once Caroline married him she would be spending most of her life never seeing him. Just as they had hardly ever seen their father. He was always too busy making more money to spend any time with them. Alex couldn’t bear to think what his sister’s life would be like. He’d wanted more for her.
He sighed and started after her, hoping he could change her mind about leaving. Maybe they could go somewhere, have a cool drink, talk.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a white limo pull up to the curb behind his sister’s car. He slowed, thinking it was probably the missing Preston Wellington III.
The driver got out to open the rear door. An attractive dark-haired young woman stepped out onto the curb. Caroline had stopped as if she also thought the limo contained someone she knew.
And then everything happened too fast. At first Alex heard rather than saw the commotion that ensued. He turned as a black limo pulled up behind the white one. Two men leaped from the rear doors. They grabbed the woman who’d just exited the limo in front of them. Her driver tried to fight them off but was knocked to the ground as they dragged the woman to the open doors of the black limo.
Alex charged across the lawn toward the two men who’d shoved the woman into the backseat of the waiting black limo and jumped in after her. The limo engine roared, then to Alex’s horror, the large black car jumped the curb as if aiming directly for the woman’s limo driver who was still on the ground.
The driver managed to roll out of the way as the limo shot toward Alex. He yelled to Caroline as he dived aside, hitting the ground and rolling, coming up in time to see that the speeding car had turned and was aimed directly at his sister.
Caroline seemed frozen to the spot. He let out a howl of anguish as he heard the limo hit her, her body flying off to the side.
The dark limo had no rear license plate and the windows were too tinted to see inside as it crashed between two cars at the curb and sped off down the street. Everything had happened so fast, he didn’t even get a good look at the two men who’d taken the woman.
“Caroline. Oh God, Caroline.” Alex was on his feet, running to where she was slumped on the grass. He dropped to the ground next to his sister and felt for a pulse with one hand as he fumbled out his cell phone and dialed 911 with the other. “Oh, Caroline,” he whispered as he brushed her hair back from her beautiful face.
He felt a hand on his shoulder but it wasn’t until later that he recalled the feel of the woman’s touch, let alone remembered her name. Samantha Peters.
INSIDE THE SPEEDING black limo, the man in the back made the call. “We’ve got the girl,” he said when the phone was picked up at the other end.
There was no reply. Just a soft click. In the backseat Sonya Botero’s eyes fluttered.
“Give her more of the drug,” the man ordered. “I don’t want her waking up.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. The job hadn’t come off as clean as he’d planned. Unfortunately, he’d left loose ends, he thought glancing back.
CRAIG JOHNSON SAT on the grass in front of Weddings Your Way and watched the black limo disappear down the street, tires squealing and engine roaring.
The limo driver-bodyguard was too shocked to move. The blow to his head had left him dazed but not so dazed that he didn’t realize what had just happened.
The men had taken the woman he’d been hired to protect and there would be hell to pay.
But what was utmost in his mind was one startling realization: the men had tried to kill him. If he hadn’t rolled out of the way when he had…
Suddenly he couldn’t catch his breath at just the thought of how close it had been. He gasped, the weight of the knowledge like a weight on his chest.
He was glad that no one was paying any attention to him now. They’d all crowded around a woman on the ground a dozen yards from him and he realized that unlike him, she’d been hit by the car.
He felt light-headed, his stomach weak and queasy. That could be him over there on the ground.
He tried to get up but his legs wouldn’t hold him. Sitting back down heavily on the ground, he watched people rushing around, calling for help. More people were running over. He heard voices above him asking if he was all right. Did he need an ambulance?
He was shaking so hard he couldn’t answer. He closed his eyes and lay back on the ground, lucky to be alive. But for how long?
