Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (28 page)

“Well, if you’re gonna dole out punishments, Sammy—” he leaned in. “I’d prefer you near me when you do it.”

“Go to hell, Wes.” She managed to side-step him the moment he reached for her again. “And stay the fuck away from me.”

June 2000

Houston, Texas

W E S L E Y

“W
hat the hell
am I doing?” Wes murmured to himself as he stood outside the massive cathedral where the funeral service was being held in honor of Rob Wyatt and his son. It was late morning, but already Houston’s infamous humidity was making his brand-new dress shirt cling to him as he pulled at the tie around his neck, heat and anxiety making his skin feel itchy. Wes watched as a number of the country’s richest and most powerful joined the procession into the church to pay their respects. Businessmen, lobbyists, heads of state with their security teams—there had to be nearly a thousand people gathered around the cathedral.

He’d flown all night to get here, bought a scratchy, cheap suit from an outlet advertised on a billboard he’d seen off the highway during his drive over, only to stand outside indecisively, wondering if Sam would even want to see him after the letter he’d sent her in a fit of self-pity and recrimination.

“What the fuck am I doing?” he muttered again, looking at the thick envelope sitting in the front seat of his shitty rental car. Rob Wyatt’s attorneys had sent the non-disclosure agreement Wes had signed when he’d just started dating Sam. It was a silent reminder that Wes was not to oppose Rob’s wishes for Samantha, and that he could still inflict maximum damage on Wes’s career, even from the grave.

But Wes wasn’t kidding himself. The only reason he’d landed his assignments to-date was because of Rob’s considerable influence. And it behooved Rob to have Wes busy working in Europe while Sam finished college. Wes had taken every opportunity that had come his way and run with each and every one of them, intoxicated with his early successes, the headlines a junior journalist should never have been able to land, high off the thrill of chasing stories that he knew would make international headlines.

And it’d all come back to bite him in the ass the moment he’d opened up the heavy envelope, seen Rob’s dark scrawl on Wyatt Petroleum letterhead, speaking to him—even in death.

“A deal’s a deal,”
was all it said – all it needed to say. A reminder of his deal with the devil. An agreement he’d signed under duress and the only secret he’d ever kept from Samantha.

Long before Wes had even realized he was in love with her, Rob had seen the writing on the wall. He’d also understood the extent of Wes’s ambition—maybe even better than Wes himself. So Rob had guaranteed his assistance, had connected Wes with all the right people to get him going upon graduation, in exchange for one promise: that Wes would never publish any photos or articles about Samantha and their family. A promise he’d kept secret from Sam, even as he leveraged her father’s connection to get exactly what he wanted.

“I’ll make sure the editors of all the major newspapers are aware of who you are. Money can’t buy that kind of leading edge,” Rob had told him when he graduated. “You just have to produce the stories and the photographs that make it worth their while.”

Wes had been completely focused, totally driven to do just that. He hadn’t come home to the U.S. since he began taking assignments, allowing his relationship with Samantha to slowly die on the vine, withered by distance and time. He’d gotten almost everything he wanted—dreamed of since he was a boy, everything except Sammy.

Now Wes pulled the ring out of his pocket. Not an engagement ring—he couldn’t afford that, not yet—but a gold Claddagh ring he’d meant to give her when he finally saw her in London.

But when he’d heard from Rita about what had happened to Sam’s family, his heart had torn in half for her. He knew what it meant, how it would crush her. Samantha’s destiny had arrived faster than either of them had ever imagined. She would be forced to helm the Wyatt empire long before she’d ever planned to be, because she was the rightful heir.

And Wes would always just be the boy who loved her.

In that awful moment, Wes saw the truth that he hadn’t been willing to face until that point. He could make all the promises he wanted to her, but when it was all said and done, he was less sure about those promises than he was in himself. He was standing at a precipice, his career just beginning to take off. They’d spent a year apart already, and with Rob’s death, they’d likely be apart for longer, if she decided to take the tour of duty after all.

And then what?

Samantha would return to Houston to take over Wyatt Petroleum. And he’d be… her lover at best? Her project at worst?

Would she marry him one day?

Did he want her to?

Did he want to be the man who adored the one person he could never really be a true partner to? A woman so out of his league they barely breathed the same air?

They’d intersected for a powerful, but fleeting span of time at A&M, two comets on divergent paths, colliding for a few ultraviolet moments before traveling their separate ways. Was that all it had been meant to be?

Wes’s eyes fell on the envelope again. Her father had foreseen this happening one day—had even warned him, though Wes wouldn’t listen.

“I raised Samantha to be a commander, Wes. She will rule one day. She will eclipse everything I have created for her. She’s smarter, braver, and tougher than you and I will ever be,”
Rob had told him the night he’d graduated.
“But a deal’s a deal. I promised you I would help you get your career off the ground. But if you want what I have to offer, then you need to leave…”

As Wes stood outside the cathedral, listening to the choir sing
Plorate, Filii Israel,
he realized that as much as he loved Samantha, he couldn’t hold onto her. He gripped the promise ring, watching it glint in the mid-morning sunlight. He had nothing to promise her. Not now. Not yet.

His
Dear John
letter would hurt her. But not as bad as would making a commitment that he wasn’t ready for. Not as bad as breaking his word.

“Forgive me, Sammy,” he whispered, his heart breaking. “Forgive me.”

*

April—Present Day

Wyatt Ranch, Texas

S A M A N T H A

Dawn slowly lit
up the sky, transforming the atmosphere from a hazy, pale pink calla to a stunning citrine, as the sun gilded the dewy grass with its warm yellow rays. Sam sat alone on the porch swing, wrapped in a quilt her Aunt Hannah had sewn for her when she was still a girl.

She’d been up all night, unable to sleep, thinking about what Wes had told her—about himself and about her father—and what it meant to her now, years later.

Did she really want to know the truth about her father? Would it even help?

Sam rubbed at her chest under the quilt, her heart aching. She wondered if it hurt so bad because she was holding onto the past with a vengeance, and if Wes was right—she couldn’t move forward without unveiling the secrets hidden behind the truth.

Was she angry with him for leaving her then, or because he’d been right to do so?

In her heart of hearts, Sam knew what he had said seared right through her because there was a truth to it. She’d gotten over Wes by believing that he’d been in the wrong, when the sobering reality was they probably
wouldn’t
have made it. And because she loved him and didn’t want to let him go, she would have drawn their relationship out to its most painful conclusion, trying to make a future where there was none. Their destinations were mapped before her family’s funeral, and she and Wes weren’t even remotely on the same trajectory. Maybe they never were, but she’d been naïve enough and too full of hope to see it.

Sam thought about Alejandro’s confession, his admission that he’d been spying on her for Jack. God, it was just like him to do such a thing, relentless, infuriating man that he was. But for the first time since they’d split up once and for all, Sam allowed herself to think about him—really consider the man who’d taken up residence in her heart in such a startlingly short period of time. A man who’d fought for her in his own way. A man who continued to try to protect her, despite being so out of his element when faced with her world.

Sam could rattle off the dozen things Jack had done to piss her off since walking into her life, but the truth she allowed herself to admit in the calm quiet of the night was that she missed him. She missed the way his eyes lit up when he looked at her, the possessive way he touched her, the ferocity with which he loved her. Sam hadn’t permitted herself the luxury of thinking about him since she’d walked out on him in Chicago.

Because you never thought he’d stand beside you, so you cut him loose,
her mind whispered
… and he’s proven you wrong
.

For all of Jack’s flaws, for all his mistakes—he’d consistently surprised her. She’d expected him to run screaming in the opposite direction, and instead he held on, consoling himself with meager updates from Alejandro, even as he dismantled Lightner’s lifework and offered a bounty on his head that had turned even the underworld against him. Sam also recognized she needed Jack’s help if she was going to get anywhere with finding out the truth about her father. If her dad had been working with the CIA, Sandro would be the quickest and easiest way to get to the heart of the matter, and Sandro would only help her if it was on Jack’s behalf.

Sam pressed her fingers to her forehead, closing her eyes. She and Jack had so much unfinished business, it was breathtaking. The confrontation was inevitable, brewing on the horizon like a thunderstorm. Seeing him again would be overwhelming. There were so many feelings she had to sort through when it came to him—she almost didn’t know where to begin.

The porch door swung open, and Sam turned to see her Aunt Hannah shuffle out into the early dawn light in her house coat and slippers. She carried two steaming mugs in her hands.

“You look like you’ve been chewed up, spit out, and stepped on, missy,” Hannah told her as she handed her a coffee.

“And I did it to myself too,” Sam admitted, chagrined. “Thank you for the coffee.”

“Thought you might need it.” Her aunt looked at her knowingly. “You been out here all night worryin’, haven’t you?”

“Maybe,” Sam admitted, as Hannah sat down beside her.

“I used to find your daddy out here, just like this, except he had an empty bottle of whisky in his hand.”

Sam slanted her a look. “I’m not my father.”

“No, you aren’t,” Hannah agreed. “But you’re so trapped in the past, you can’t see the present standing right in front of you.”

“What are you saying?” Sam asked, frowning.

“Honey, you’ve been stewing in your own juices since you got back,” Hannah told her bluntly, though she softened the statement by squeezing Sam’s hand, her blue eyes gentle. “Now you were hurt and you deserved a little time to lick your wounds in peace, but sitting up all night, fretting and overthinking ain’t gonna do you a bit of good. It’s time to take the bull by the horns, Sammy girl. Whatever’s bothering you—you need to deal with it head on.”

Sam frowned at her. “I’m too angry. I need to calm down first.”

“Bullshit,” her aunt replied succinctly.

“Aunt Hannah!” Sam exclaimed. “I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever heard you cuss!”

“Well, this is one of the times that warrants it,” Hannah replied tartly. “You’re always looking for those perfect moments, Sammy, getting all your pieces in a row to take on the board, trying to control all the outcomes—but you’re wasting valuable time stuck inside your head when you could be doing instead of thinking.”

An excuse came up but never left her mouth. Her aunt was right. Sam could stay inside her head, strategizing, or she could act, and put to rest once and for all the questions she had.

“Can I at least finish my coffee first?” Sam finally answered.

Hannah smiled. “ ’Course you can; just don’t dawdle about it.” Her aunt leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “I love you, Sammy girl,” she said, patting her cheek.