The Billionaire's Secret Flame Page 3

  She enjoyed going out to eat with him in the various places they visited, and he never let them only work when they went somewhere. He loved to sight-see and take dirty taxis and ride motorcycles down the coast. She’d learned to do all of those things from him, and a sense of appreciation for the man warmed her heart.

  The image of him kissing one of their data analysts under that mistletoe stole into her mind. She didn’t like it there, didn’t like the way it made her feel jealous, didn’t like that she wished she was Leeanne in that moment.

  “Maybe you need to loosen up on this trip,” she said to her empty house at the very end of the lane where most of the Addler family lived. Andy was forever telling her to loosen up. Mia too. Her mom.

  Sami was as loose as she knew how to be, but she picked up her phone and called her best friend. “Erin,” she said when the woman answered. “It’s me.” Erin always answered the phone, no matter the time of day or what she was doing.

  “What’s going on?” Erin asked. “There’s a client here, and she is so mad we don’t have any technicians because she has an appointment.”

  She managed a salon in downtown Forbidden Lake and she could talk on the phone and give a manicure at the same time.

  “That does seem strange,” Sami said, thinking she should get a manicure and a pedicure before flying to Costa Rica after work. Maybe Andy would let her go in the afternoon. She almost scoffed. If she wanted to leave the office, she could. She didn’t need his permission; she never had.

  “I mean, we’re a walk-in service salon,” she said. “So yes, she had an appointment, but it’s been five minutes, and she’ll be with someone in like three more.” Erin sounded pretty perturbed by it all, and Sami smiled at her friend’s exuberance.

  “Listen, I’ll be real quick,” Sami said. “Maybe just yes or no answers from you.”

  “Oh, I love this game,” Erin said, already sounding happier.

  Sami knew she did. She also didn’t like it when Erin lectured her, because she knew she wasn’t the only one hearing it. So the yes-no game had been born a few years ago. It allowed Sami to speak and Erin to just blurt out what she thought in short words.

  “Okay, so Andy and I are going to Costa Rica after work tonight to close a deal. The meeting isn’t until Monday, but he wanted a ‘relaxing beach weekend.’ Is that normal?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going with him, as I often do. I…think he might have feelings for me.”

  Erin sucked in a breath but didn’t say anything.

  “I can’t act on those, right?” Sami asked.

  “No,” Erin said.

  “No, I can’t, or no, I can?”

  Erin said nothing, always so true to the game they’d set up. Sami cleared her throat and tried again. “He’s my boss, so I shouldn’t date him. Is that what you think?”

  “No,” Erin said.

  “So you think I should go out with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it because he’s hot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rich?”

  “Double yes.”

  Sami sighed. She could list a dozen more positive attributes about Andy, including that he knew all of her favorite things and made sure she had them when she wanted them. Food for dinner. Candies in the office. Soda in the fridge. He knew it, and he provided it for her.

  He was the smartest man she’d ever known, and he was geeky and brainy and brilliant in all the right ways.

  “I’m afraid,” she said, thinking of the last dating disaster she’d had—with her last boss. “I know he has secrets. Things he hasn’t told me. Shouldn’t I be worried about those things?”

  “Yes,” Erin said, validating Sami’s emotions.

  “I sense a but.”

  “Yes-no game,” Erin said.

  “What about Eric?”

  “No,” Erin said with more emphasis than necessary.

  “Game over,” Sami said, deciding to take the risk that whoever was sitting across from Erin wouldn’t care about this conversation. “Why should I be worried? And why can’t I think about how horrible things went with Eric?”

  “You should be worried,” Erin said. “But you’ve worked with him for eight years. You’re good friends already. And friends make the best lovers.”

  “Ew,” Sami said. “Never say that again.” But of course, now her mind couldn’t let go of it. Her and Andy—could they be lovers?

  She shook her head, too many confusing thoughts already residing in it. Erin had started talking again. “So yes, go out with him. Wear all the bikinis in front of him. And ask him. Talk to him. He’ll tell you.”

  “You think so?” Sami wasn’t so sure. She had known Anderson Tanner for a long time, and there were some things he kept very close to the vest. Very, very close. She didn’t even know what they were. And if she didn’t, no one did.

  “Yes,” Erin said. “Listen, Sami, I have to go. But you haven’t been out with anyone in a long time, and I think I know why.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you like this guy. You have for a while. And he’s your boss, so you’ve been denying it. Maybe this beach weekend is the perfect time to stop denying it. See what he thinks. How he feels. And find out the answers to your questions.”

  “Yeah,” Sami said, though she didn’t want to do any of those things. Maybe she liked living in denial. “Thanks, Erin.” She hadn’t mentioned Eric at all, probably because that relationship was over eight years old.

  But Sami had been forced to get a new job when the relationship with her boss had taken a nosedive. Crashed. Burned. Unemployed.

  “Love you lots,” Erin said. “Send me pictures from the plane.” And just like that, the call ended.

  Sami sat on her couch for a few more seconds, letting the silence infuse her soul. Then she got up, put her bag in the back of her car, and drove over to the tallest building in Forbidden Lake.

  The shine of the sun on the Caribbean Sea made Sami’s heart soar. Yes, she lived beside a lake. She spent a lot of downtime in the summer on the beach, the sand, the water.

  But it was not the same as this huge body of water. A lake wasn’t an ocean. And all these miles south, it definitely was hotter here than in Northern Michigan.

  She basked in the heat, the sunshine, the sense of vacation as she got off the plane. An attendant wheeled her bag for her, as if she couldn’t do it herself. But she never did. She’d learned that Andy paid people to do certain things, and it was simply better for everyone if she just let them do them.

  She strolled next to Andy, her work clothes starting to suffocate her. Once they arrived in the terminal, the attendants passed over their bags, and Andy bid them farewell. His plane would be parked somewhere safe until they left on Wednesday morning, and he led her to the curb, where a shiny, black car waited.

  Sami had put together all of these details, of course. But Andy was the one that seemed to know right where to go and which car to duck inside. It wasn’t their first time making trips like these, and she forwarded him every detail of their itinerary.

  He actually read them too, because he leaned forward and said, “Grand Marquis Palace, please.”

  The driver nodded, and the car eased away from the curb. Sami sighed into the cool leather seats and grinned at Andy. “Maybe I did need a beach weekend.”

  He laughed, and half of her hoped he’d reach over and take her hand in his. He didn’t, only looked out the window at the world beyond the car. He’d been unusually quiet on the jet too, and Sami dug down deep for her courage.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  She reached over and touched his arm, his skin hot against hers. Almost burning her. She pulled back as he looked first at her hand and then her. “Andy,” she said. “We’ve worked together for eight years. I know when something’s going on.”

  His eyes were hidden behind a mirrored pair of shades, so Sami couldn’t get a good read on him. “So
mething is going on,” he said, his voice low. He looked to the front of the car, but the driver had put up the divider.

  “Well,” Sami said, her heartbeat pulsing a little harder now. “What is it?”

  “I’ll tell you once we’re in the bungalow,” he said, turning back to the window.

  Sami wasn’t satisfied with that answer, and she asked, “Why can’t you tell me now?”

  “I’m still figuring out how,” he said to the glass.

  “Andy.”

  “Sami, you know I usually appreciate your frankness with me.” He looked at her again, his mouth tight and straight. “But I need a few more minutes.”

  Sami nodded, adjusted her own sunglasses, and folded her arms. The sight out her window wasn’t the ocean, and she closed her eyes as the landscape flew past. The beach bungalow behind tall and guarded gates was only a few minutes down the road, and the driver helped them get everything inside before he left.

  Andy took his bag to the west wing of the bungalow, which was accessed down a sidewalk and in an attached part of the house. Sami wheeled her suitcase into the only bedroom in the main house, just behind the living room and kitchen.

  She returned to the kitchen to make sure it had been stocked as requested, and it was. Andy didn’t come in right away, so she moved through the double-wide doors off the back of the house and stepped onto the patio.

  The breeze kicked up and ruffled her hair, almost an invitation to put her swimming suit on right now and go lie on the sand.

  She didn’t see anyone, which made sense as this was a private resort that boasted private beachfronts. Clothing optional. Sami would be keeping hers on, thank you very much, but her awareness prickled as Andy joined her on the patio.

  “There you are,” she said like he might have gotten lost. This place as five thousand square feet, with the best amenities anywhere on the east coast of Costa Rica—exactly what they needed for three conference calls and a virtual meeting next week.

  Andy stood at the edge of the patio, his tie gone and his hands loose in his pockets. The tension between them felt like it might snap at any moment.

  “Andy—” she started at the same time he said, “Anderson Tanner is not my real name.”

  She blinked, pure shock flowing through her and making anything involuntary absolutely impossible. “What?”

  He faced her, his sunglasses gone now to reveal those stormy, beautiful eyes. “It’s a pseudonym I created nine years ago, after my father tried to have me killed.”

  Chapter Five

  Andy had wrestled with the decision to tell Sami who he was for the past forty-eight hours. He didn’t want to do it while they were in the country, and she’d already picked up on the fact that something was going on with him. How he’d thought he could hide it from her, he wasn’t sure.

  The feelings he had for her had become too real and too big to contain. When she’d joined him for dinner and a supermoon viewing, the box he’d packed everything into sprang open again.

  “Andy,” she said, pressing her palm over her heart. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

  “Surely you’ve noticed I never talk about my family.”

  Her dark eyes were so wide as she nodded.

  He did too, this story having never been vocalized to another human before. He’d tested it out on Rusty last night, but the dog hadn’t seemed to care. Andy smiled just thinking about his golden retriever.

  “My mom passed away about ten years ago now,” he said. “I already owned a version of Tanner Global Communications in Chicago.” He started to sound like a robot, his voice monotoned and removed. He didn’t like that, though it was a method of survival for him.

  He cleared his throat. “My dad didn’t work. He’d lost his job some years before that. My older brother helped. I helped. But after Mom died….” He trailed off, the memories flowing through his mind too thick to think between.

  Sami inched closer to him and slipped her hand in his. Instant fireworks exploded through him, and he looked down at her to find sympathy and concern on her face.

  “Eventually, I stopped helping, because my brother quit his job and moved back in with my dad. They didn’t do anything.” He hadn’t seen or spoken to either of them in just over nine years.

  “It’s a very long story,” he said, needing to skip past a few parts of it. “But my father tried to have me killed. He did seriously injure my girlfriend at the time. I left town. Got new paperwork, new names, registered the company as something else, and started the construction on my building in Forbidden Lake.”

  He returned his attention to the water in the distance. “You know the rest.” That was definitely the short version of what had happened, but Andy wasn’t sure he was capable of saying more. The fact that Sami hadn’t run away yet comforted him.

  “What was your other name?” she asked.

  Of course she would want to know that. He’d debated over whether he’d tell her or not. So much of him didn’t want to. But another, smaller piece of him did.

  “Daniel Anderson,” he said.

  “Daniel Anderson,” she repeated, as if she couldn’t quite get her tongue around the words. “I’m surprised you kept the Anderson.”

  “Half a lie,” he murmured. “And Anderson is a very common name. It could take forever for them to find me.”

  “So they haven’t?”

  “No.” At least, not to his knowledge. He paid a private detective to keep an eye on his father and brother. Pull phone records. Check their Internet searches. They’d looked for him several times, but they didn’t seem to actively be doing so at the moment.

  Some of his tension bled from him as she continued to hold his hand. The scene before them felt like a postcard, and Andy wished he could just stay in Costa Rica with Sami forever.

  He could, if he really wanted to. Tanner Global could sustain itself for years to come, as long as people used cell phones and needed cell phone towers to do it. He constructed some of the most expensive towers in the business, but they lasted an average of ten years longer than his nearest competitor, and that alone had secured his bid several times in the recent past.

  The initial investment for a cell phone tower was almost two hundred thousand dollars, depending on the cost of the land, and he didn’t make a dime off it until it was finished and the monthly rental fees came in from cellular companies. But once that happened, the income was perpetual and collected on time every month, month after month, year after year.

  He worked with his accountant to make a budget to pay off each tower within the first year of its use, and everything after that was profit. They put money in an account for repairs and emergencies, as well as money in an account for construction of new towers. He hadn’t been in debt, personal or corporate, for years.

  “Are you ready to hit the beach?” she asked, drawing him out of his introspection.

  “It’s evening,” he said. “I was thinking dinner.”

  She removed her hand from his and backed up a couple of steps, a pretty little smile on her face. “Andy, I thought you were the big thinker between us.”

  “Oh, that’s definitely not true,” he said, following her back into the house.

  “Obviously.” She strode into the kitchen, her gray slacks and yellow blouse some of the sexiest clothes he’d seen her wear. Which made no sense. She wore slacks everyday. Blouses and sweaters and cardigans all the time.

  She held up a black binder. “Because Andy, we can have dinner on the beach.”

  He laughed, some of his melancholy mood lifting as she began leafing through the binder. He really appreciated that she hadn’t tried to call him Dan or Daniel. That she hadn’t asked question after question, demanding to know more.

  That simple fact made him want to tell her more, of his own free will. Maybe not tonight, but soon. In fact, he wanted her to know everything.

  He seized at the thought, tried to put the brakes on his raging hormones and runaway thoughts. He couldn’t risk
her getting hurt.

  Your dad doesn’t even know where you are, his mind whispered, and Andy pulled out his phone. “Order whatever you want, Sami. I have to make a phone call, and I’ll see you out there.”

  “All right,” she said, her eyes heavy on his back as he walked away from her. Outside, on the way to his private part of the rental, he scrolled until he found Tony’s number. It said Tiger for the contact, should anyone but him look at his phone. He knew Tony didn’t even store numbers in his phone, which had been a major selling point for Andy when he’d hired the man.

  The line rang, and he bypassed his door in favor of the patio between the two buildings. There was a hot tub there, with three loungers surrounding it. The clear water looked cool, but Andy knew it wouldn’t be.

  His thoughts about lounging in the hot tub with Sami were interrupted by Tony’s voice saying, “Hello?”

  “It’s Tanner,” he said by way of hello. “It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a report.”

  “Yeah,” Tony said, and Andy got the distinct impression he couldn’t talk at the moment.

  “Busy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Call me back or email me if there’s anything I should be worried about,” Andy said. “Nothing to worry about, I don’t need to hear from you.”

  “Just like always,” Tony said, and a blip of foolishness ran through Andy.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks, Tony.” He hung up, feeling more settled than he had before calling. He knew Tony would let him know if there was any movement or anything suspect with his family. Still. It was nice to hear and get the reaffirmation.

  He went in his room then, but it was really a guest house. A pool house. Whatever. It was fully furnished, with a small living room that bled back into a kitchen on the right half of the house. A fireplace filled the wall between the door and the hall, and if he bent down and looked, he’d be able to see into the master bedroom.

  The suite with a huge king bed, outdoor veranda, and bathroom filled the left side of the house. It was perfect for Andy, though probably a quarter of the size of his penthouse in Forbidden Lake.