Gwenyth attempted to squelch the positively glowing feeling that knowledge engendered, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop her traitorous heart from being pleased by the way Sam was barreling toward her, looking fiercely and magnificently determined, any more than she could stop the sun from setting at day’s end.
Too stunned by Sam’s presence to come up with anything quick and witty to say, she simply shook her head and forcibly closed her unhinged jaw. “Sam?” she finally peeped. “What are you doing here?”
Sam, however, had no intention whatsoever of discussing anything about their relationship in front of a hangar full of strangers. Without glancing once in Gwenyth’s direction, he ripped her ticket unapologetically from the gate agent’s hand. “There seems to be a mistake. Ms. Jones will not be on this flight.” He drew Gwenyth to his side, still without acknowledging her, and inclined his head toward the gate agent. “We’ll be needin’ her bags before this plane can leave.”
Gwenyth didn’t hear the gate agent’s reply over the pounding in her ears. When Sam led her to a seat and gently but forcibly lowered her into it, she didn’t argue. When he walked over to the ticket counter and had a conversation with the agent standing there that was out of her earshot, she thought nothing of it. She was simply too stunned to do anything other than gape at Sam’s back. Never once had it entered into Gwenyth’s mind that Sam would stop her from going. She hadn’t even considered it as a viable outcome.
So why then? Why was Sam here? What could he possibly hope to accomplish with this stalling tactic? This was insane. Flattering as she didn’t know what, but insane nonetheless.
Ten minutes later, Sam set Gwenyth’s luggage at her feet, plopped down into the chair next to hers, and regarded her in stony silence. Gwenyth studied him back. And for the first time since Sam had come tearing toward her at the gate twenty minutes ago, she noted the visible signs of his anger. Sam’s nostrils were flaring. His breathing was choppy. Even the veins on his forearms were bulging out more than usual from the pressure of clenching his hands into fists. Good grief.
“Sam, I—”
Sam held up a silencing hand. He shook his head in the negative. “I don’t want to hear it, Gwen. The only thing I want to know is why you did it.”
Gwenyth opened her mouth to answer him, but he forestalled any explanations with an interruption. “Is this how you plan to deal with our relationship for the rest of your life, Gwen? Are you going to run away like a little girl every time the water gets a little rough?”
Ouch. Accurate blow. “Well, I—”
Sam laughed humorlessly. He shook his head and scowled at her. “Are you enjoyin’ this, Cupcake? Do you like makin’ me beg?”
Not fair. “Of course not! How was I—”
“Enough!” Sam bellowed, causing a few passersby to turn their heads. He lowered his voice and bore into Gwenyth with his gaze. “I find that your words today please me even less than your actions have.”
That got Gwenyth’s attention. Her look of shock turned into one of anger. “How dare you! How was I to know that you would follow me? I thought you’d be too busy getting felt up by your trio of groupies to even notice the fact that I’d left!”
Sam snorted incredulously. Her words stirred a little guilt deep within him, but he concentrated on his anger instead. “Oh I noticed alright! And after the way you let Frenchy fawn all over you this past week?” He made a rude noise. “You’ve got no room to criticize.”
“Fawn all over me?!”
Sam’s eyes narrowed into predatory blue slits. “Yes, fawned.” He cocked his head and imitated Etienne, using his best Parisian accent. “Ah mon chere,” he mimicked in a falsetto voice, “that Sam iz no good. Let us go to ze hotel and make amour for the whole of ze night.”
Gwenyth hid her smile behind a look of outrage. Well, she was outraged truth be told, but it was hard to maintain a proper amount of ire when the man you loved was batting his eyelashes dramatically and making kissy-fish lips. Especially when said man was thirty-one, well over six feet in height, and had the body of a warrior to boot. “Sam, you’re being ridiculous. Etienne never asked me to go to bed with him. He merely asked me out on a date.”
At Sam’s rapidly reddening face, Gwenyth knew she’d chosen the wrong time to inform him of Etienne’s interest. “But I turned him down!” she quickly amended.
That seemed to placate him—somewhat. “I won’t have any more of this foolishness, Gwenyth Marie.” He slashed his hand through the air. “Never again.”
Gwenyth sat up straighter in her chair and crossed her arms defensively over her breasts. “If you came all this way just to tell me you don’t want to see me anymore, you could have done it over the telephone. Or in an email. You didn’t have to stop me from boarding the—”
“Enough!” Sam grunted in satisfaction at the incredulous look on Gwenyth’s face. Good. Let her be shocked into silence. He was too damn frustrated with himself, with her, and with the world in general to think clearly. “I did not come here to end it.” His voice turned hard, unrelenting. “I came to make sure that somethin’ like this never happens again.” Sam glanced at his watch, then made to stand up. “Speakin’ of which, let’s go. We have a plane to catch.”
Gwenyth’s jaw dropped open. She had never been one given to obeying a command. Sam’s domineering attitude was suddenly too much. “This part of we isn’t going anywhere with you!” She narrowed her eyes and huffed. “Sam, are you listening to me?”
Sam grunted as he rose to his feet. The fact that he seemed to be paying Gwenyth’s outrage as little attention as he was her words, only served to pique her temper all the more. “Sam! I’m not going anywhere! Let go of my arm!”
Sam gestured toward the suitcases. “Will you carry one or do you plan to make me carry both of yours plus my own?”
“You’re not even listening to me!”
“Amazin’ly perceptive, Cupcake. Now pick up a suitcase.”
Gwenyth started to hurl a choice sentiment at him, but stopped when she got a close-up view of the look on Sam’s face. Quite frankly, it chilled her to the bone and made her regret running out on him without nary a word. Never in all of her life—and Gwenyth had known Sam Tremont for twenty-one years—never had she seen him look so hurt. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Please Sam. I don’t want to argue with you.” She nibbled on her lip and regarded him. “Where is it that you want us to go?”
Sam drew in a deep breath, his blue gaze never breaking contact with Gwenyth’s green one. “Las Vegas.”
“Las Vegas?” She cocked her head speculatively, not understanding. “Why?”
