Chapter 5 Samantha
SAMANTHA
I’m still smiling when I open the door to my room. My cheeks hurt from laughing, and my legs are pleasantly sore from skiing.
Kai made the afternoon fun in a way I didn’t expect. Easy and natural, like we’d known each other for years instead of days. But the whole time, part of my brain kept drifting back to that room. To him on his knees while his father and brother—
I push the thought away. Again. For the hundredth time today.
It doesn’t matter what I saw. It doesn’t matter that I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m here for Logan. For the plan. For revenge.
My smile dies the second I step inside.
Logan has Chelsea bent over the desk by the window. Her skirt is bunched around her waist, his pants around his ankles.
I’m frozen in the doorway, watching my boyfriend fuck his assistant in his family’s home like I don’t exist.
Chelsea’s head is thrown back, her mouth open in pleasure. Logan’s hand is fisted in her blonde hair, and he’s saying things to her I’ve never heard him say. Dirty things. Passionate things.
Like I never existed.
This is the fifth time. Fifth time I’ve caught him. Fifth time I’ve had to swallow my rage and humiliation and pretend it’s fine because breaking up isn’t part of the plan.
But standing here watching him with her, I realize the plan is falling apart anyway.
Ten months of playing the perfect girlfriend and convincing myself it will be worth it when he finally proposes, when I finally get access to the Hale family fortune and can make them pay for what they did to Mom.
If he doesn’t propose, I’ve wasted a year of my life for nothing.
Robert is going to ask what I have to show for my time here. What proof I’ve gathered. What leverage I’ve gained. And I’ll have to tell him I have nothing.
Fury burns through me, hot and sharp.
I turn and walk out, slamming the door hard enough that they definitely heard it.
I grab my coat from the hallway closet without thinking. My hands shake as I shove my arms through the sleeves. The side door is closest, the one that leads to the grounds, and I push through it before I can talk myself out of leaving.
Cold air hits my face and steals my breath. The temperature dropped while I was inside. Has to be in the teens now, maybe lower with the windchill. I don’t care. The cold feels good. Feels like punishment, and I deserve it for being stupid enough to think this plan would work.
Snow falls in thick sheets, the flakes so heavy they sting when they hit my cheeks. I can barely see the tree line twenty feet away. The smart thing would be turning around. Going back inside. Finding an empty room to sit in until I calm down enough to think clearly.
But I’m done being smart.
I start walking. My boots sink into snow that’s reaching my ankles.
The wind cuts through my jeans, and I realize I didn’t grab anything heavier than this thin coat. My fingers are already going numb. I shove them in my pockets and keep moving.
Robert’s voice echoes in my head. You need to get close to them, Samantha. It’s the only way to make them pay.
But how close am I, really? Logan barely acknowledges me. I haven’t learned anything useful about their business or gained any real access to the family.
I’ve failed. The whole plan is falling apart, and I have nothing to show for it except frostbite and humiliation.
My boot catches on something under the snow. A root, maybe, or a rock. I stumble forward, trying to catch my balance, but my other foot hits a patch of ice I couldn’t see.
The world tilts.
My feet go out from under me, and suddenly I’m airborne. I throw my hands out instinctively, grasping for something, anything to stop the fall. My fingers close on air. On snow. On nothing.
Then I’m rolling. Tumbling down a slope I didn’t even know existed. Tree branches whip across my face, and I taste blood. Something sharp digs into my side. The sky and ground trade places over and over until I can’t tell which way is up.
Shit.
I try to scream, but the air gets knocked out of my lungs. Try to stop myself, but there’s nothing to grab onto. Just snow and ice and the sickening sensation of free fall.
My shoulder slams into something solid. A rock, maybe. Pain explodes down my arm, and I’m spinning again, faster now, completely out of control.
This is how I die. Alone in a blizzard because I was too angry to pay attention to where I was walking.
My back hits the ground hard enough to stop my momentum. For a second, I just lie there, gasping, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Everything hurts. My face. My ribs. My knee is on fire.
I force my eyes open, expecting to see the sky. Instead, there’s stone. Curved and close. A ceiling.
I’m not outside anymore.
I push myself up slowly, biting back a groan when my scraped palms press against cold rock. My head pounds and warm liquid drips down my chin, and when I touch it, my fingers come away red.
Blood. Great.
I look around, trying to make sense of where I am. Stone walls on both sides. Dim emergency lighting mounted every twenty feet or so. The air smells like earth and metal.
A tunnel. I fell into some kind of underground passage.
Rich people and their secret hallways. Of course the Hale estate would have something like this. Probably so the staff can move around without being seen by the precious family members.
I need to find a way out before I freeze to death down here.
The tunnel stretches in both directions, barely lit by emergency lights mounted along the walls. I pick the direction that feels warmer and start walking. Each step sends pain shooting through my knee, but I grit my teeth and keep moving.
The tunnel goes on forever. Twisting. Branching. I take turns at random, hoping one of them leads to stairs or a door or something that will get me back to the main house.
Then the air changes. Gets warmer. The emergency lights give way to actual lighting, and the passage opens into a hallway that looks nothing like the rest of the estate.
It’s more intimate and masculine, with dark wood paneling and thick carpet that swallows sound.
Doors line both sides, all closed except one at the very end.
Warm light spills from that room. I hear the crackle of a fire.
I limp toward it, desperate for warmth and help and someone who can tell me how to get out of here.
I push the door open and freeze.
Grant Hale stands in the middle of the room.
Completely naked.
For a second, my brain refuses to process what I’m seeing. Then it all registers at once. The water dripping from his dark hair. The broad shoulders. The tattoos covering both arms in intricate black designs. His chest, solid and defined. The dark trail of hair down his stomach that leads to—
Oh God.
Heat floods my face, and I snap my eyes up to his face, but it’s too late. I saw everything. Every inch of him. And my body’s reaction is completely inappropriate, given that I’m bleeding and in pain and just caught my boyfriend cheating.
“I’m so sorry,” I stammer, spinning around to face the door. “I didn’t mean to—I fell, and there was a tunnel, and I didn’t know where I was going, and—”
“Relax.” His voice is calm. Amused, even. “Give me a moment.”
I keep my eyes fixed on a painting of mountains on the far wall. Don’t look. Don’t turn around. Ignore the fact that you just saw your boyfriend’s father completely naked and your brain is now storing that image in permanent memory.
I hear the rustle of fabric. A drawer opening and closing.
“I’m decent now.”
I turn slowly. He’s wearing a black robe, loosely tied at the waist. His chest is still partially visible, tattoos stark against his skin. He’s watching me with those silver-gray eyes, and there’s no embarrassment in his expression.
“What happened?” He moves closer, and I notice his gaze dropping to my hands, my torn jeans, the blood. “And how did you end up in my private wing?”
The question breaks something inside me. All the rage and humiliation and fear I’ve been holding in crashes over me at once, and suddenly I’m crying. Really crying. Ugly, gasping sobs that I can’t control.
“I caught Logan,” I manage between breaths. “With Chelsea. They were—”
Grant’s jaw tightens.
“It’s not the first time.” The words pour out now, unstoppable. “He’s cheated on me four times before. Five now. But I stayed because I thought—I thought he was going to propose here, and I just—”
I’m playing this up. I know I am. Crying harder than necessary, making myself as pathetic as possible because I need Grant on my side, need him to see me as the victim.
“You’re hurt,” he says, and anger bleeds into his tone. Not at me. At Logan. “Sit. We’re not having this conversation while you’re bleeding.”