“Yes, dear, as we always do.” Meg gave her an unapologetic grin.
“From that first day she came back to office with her face shining like the sun I knew she’d been bit by the bug. The love bug.” Her father’s laugh echoed in the tiny office.
“Anyway,” Sam said, with a sigh of exasperation, “I want you to meet him. When’s good for you two?”
“Bring him over Sunday afternoon,” Meg said, her face eager. “We’ll do a barbecue. I’m sure he’ll love that. He must have been so lonely stuck in that big old house all by himself.”
“He’s not going to be lonely anymore.” Alvin nudged Meg with his elbow and they both laughed.
Sam rolled her eyes then smiled and shook her head. She could only hope these two would be on their best behavior on Sunday. The last thing she needed was for Jake to think he was marrying into a family of loonies.
To Sam’s surprise and relief, Alvin and Meg took off their troublemaker hats and were the perfect hosts that Sunday evening. She could see Jake relax in their presence and at the end of the day when he kissed her goodnight he gave her his verdict. He loved them.
“Relax, Sam,” he said with a chuckle. “Your parents aren’t on trial here. I could see you watching their every move. But you forget,” he said as he pulled her close, “they’re not the ones who have to pass the test. I am.”
She chuckled then. “The results are in,” she said as she leaned against him. “You passed with flying colors.”
“Thank God.” He gave an exaggerated sigh of relief and they both laughed.
The following weekend they paid a visit to Mary who treated them to an elegant five course meal.
“Mom, you outdid yourself.” Sam couldn’t believe her mother had gone to so much trouble but she was grateful. She could see that Jake was impressed, not just with Mary’s culinary skills but also with her artistic talent. After dinner he visited the room she used as her art studio and admired painting after painting. Within half an hour he’d bought four of them and commissioned her to do a painting for placement over the mantelpiece in his living room.
At one point Sam pulled him aside. “You don’t have to do this, Jake, just because it’s my mom.”
“But I want to,” he said, pulling away from her to look at yet another painting, “not because she’s your mom but because she’s a really good artist. I want our home to be ready for when you move in,” he looked back at her then, “as my wife.”
That made Sam blush. That word – wife – always had the same effect on her. Whenever he said it her heart swelled with joy and pride till she felt she’d burst with happiness. Okay, so it was corny, but she couldn’t help how she felt. She could hardly wait until the day she walked down the aisle and finally became his.
The week that followed was so busy for Sam that she only got a chance to see Jake once. It was as if the universe had conspired to keep her away from him so she would miss him all the more. As if she wasn’t suffering enough already, anxiously awaiting her wedding. They’d decided on a spring wedding and it was only October. And although she would need the time to get everything organized the wait was sheer torture.
Still, even when they didn’t get to see each other they always spoke on the phone, sometimes as many as three or four times a day. Sam had never thought herself the sentimental type but something had happened to her. She was a new, softer Sam who couldn’t wait to hear from her man.
Next morning, very early in the morning, she did. But it was not the kind of phone call she was expecting. Jake was on the phone, but it was not the man who had called the night before to wish her a loving goodnight. No, this man was angry.
“How could you do this to me?” The voice on the other end of the line vibrated with a rage Sam didn’t know Jake possessed. “I trusted you and this is what you do to me?”
“What?” Sam’s heart leaped into her throat. What the hell was going on? "What did I do to you?”
“You’re asking me that?” he raged. “You know me by now, Sam. You know how important my privacy is. And you go and sell me out like that?”
“What in the name of heaven are you talking about?” she practically shrieked into the phone. “What did I do to your privacy?”
“Don’t play stupid. It’s all over the newsstands.” He gave a grunt of annoyance. “I was in the drugstore this morning, standing in line, and there I was, on the front cover of the National Observer, with you.”
“What?” She gasped, her body going cold at the news. “How could that happen?”
Jake laughed but it was a laugh so cold, so bitter, that she shivered even as she clutched the phone to her ear.
“Sam, all I can say is, I’m very disappointed in you. You were the one woman in the world I thought I could trust. But not anymore.”
Before she could respond he hung up. Just like that, he was gone. And just like that, all her dreams of exchanging wedding vows with Jake went flying out the window.
Now she realized that what she’d had, had only been that – a dream. It had all been too good to be true.
CHAPTER TEN
When Sam was finally able to move from her frozen state she rested the phone receiver back into the cradle then clutched the bed sheet in her fists. Things had gone terribly wrong and she had no idea why. She had to find out what happened.
She tumbled out of the bed and ran to the bathroom where she did a quick wash then threw on jeans and a sweater then she was racing down the stairs and out the door. She drove to the nearest newsstand and bought a copy of the National Observer. And there she saw it – a headline that slapped her full in the face, ‘Mystery Billionaire Writer Revealed’. She almost dropped the paper in her shock.
There on the front cover was Jake and, to her horror, she was in the picture, too. She was standing slightly behind him but her face was quite visible. As she stared at the photograph she realized it had been taken the day after they’d had dinner at her mother’s house. They’d gone hunting for picture frames and were standing close together, admiring one with gilt edges. She’d reached out a hand to touch it and that was when somebody had snapped the picture.