Staying On Top(79)

“So I can just go?”

“Yes. We can take you to the airport.”

“Can I talk to Blair first?”

He watched me for several moments, his expression impregnable. Finally, he shrugged. “I suppose it can’t hurt anything. You have five minutes, then I’m reconsidering this entire situation.”

I nodded, standing up and stretching my legs. It was weird walking around without an escort while Blair was handcuffed in a cell, but the captain was right. Blair could take care of herself. I was already too involved with this thing between her and her father, and it was time for me to exit this world that I didn’t understand. I’d lost thirty million, but at least I’d gotten out with the rest intact.

My heart was a little worse for the wear. So was my confidence.

Her face lit up when she saw me outside the cell, but she rearranged her expression quickly into one of indifference. I couldn’t blame her. I’d said some terrible things in my embarrassment and anger, and we had both fallen back into the mode of protecting ourselves first.

Still, she did get up and walk over, until we were less than a foot apart even with the metal bars separating us. I wrapped my hands around hers, which clung to the bars, even though the feeling of her skin against mine shredded my heart into tinier pieces.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to tell them I was ignorant.”

“Yes, I did. None of this is your fault, Sam. You don’t deserve to pay for my lifetime of sins.” Tears filled her eyes for the third time today.

Every bone in my body wanted to lean forward, to capture her lips in mine and kiss her until we both forgot what had brought us here. In the end, I couldn’t resist a portion of that and our lips connected for too short a time. She tasted salty and pure, exactly like the Blair I’d made love to in that boat, like the one who had jumped into the Danube at my side.

The one who had been lying to me. How could she be the same?

“Thank you,” I whispered again. “You’ll never know how sorry I am that this turned out to be what was real. I could have fallen in love with that girl in Santorini.”

I waited for Blair to say something in response but she only gave me a sad smile and pulled her hands away from mine, leaving me cold and lonely in a way I couldn’t remember ever being.

“Good-bye, Sam.”

“Good-bye.”





Chapter 20


Blair



Saving Sam the embarrassment of being charged with breaking and entering and theft had been a no-brainer. An easy decision, even though the idea of my dad finding out—and he would find out—caused an itchy sweat to break out on my palms. The captain had understood what was going on, and knew I was lying about Sam’s level of complicity, but lucky for me had turned out to be a huge tennis fan who also happened to have six daughters of his own at home.

Instead of making Sam’s life harder, he had simply put him on a plane. I had to believe my dad wouldn’t let me rot in prison. If not because I was his daughter, because he needed me, but Sam had left the Cayman Islands three days ago. My confidence in fatherly instincts had started to wane when the cute British accent, whose named turned out to be Darcy, came to get me.

“Your attorney is here to see you.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Attorney?”

I had expected my dad to come himself, but then again, he was a fugitive wanted for fraud on six continents. Even with the inherent secrecy of the Caymans, taking unnecessary chances wasn’t part of his modus operandi.

Darcy led me to the conference room. I spent the short walk wishing they had given me a shower, or a brush, or fresh clothes. At least they had provided a toothbrush, toothpaste, and food three times a day, but prison outside the United States left something to be desired. Not that I’d ever been in prison in the United States, but it had to be better than this place.

My rank smell took a backseat to my curiosity when the man at the conference table came into view. He wasn’t my dad, and he wasn’t anyone I recognized as being in my dad’s employ. It shifted my curiosity into overdrive, along with my nerves.

Darcy unlocked my handcuffs, which was kind of him. He’d also played a couple hours’ worth of gin rummy with me, for which I would send him a basket of his favorite liquor if I ever got out of here.

I sat down at the table and gulped water from the glass in front of me while I studied my “lawyer” over the rim. His silver hair looked dull under the poor lighting, and had the look of an athlete—strong shoulders and a slim frame. He wore an expensive suit, navy-blue pin-striped and designer, and watched me with an obvious interest.

“So, you’re my lawyer.”