Thirty fucking floors.
Beckett kept hold of Samara’s hand, ensuring that she didn’t trip as they raced down staircase after staircase, their bare feet slapping the floor. Too slow. In the distance, he heard sirens. With each floor they passed, the temptation to get to a window, to look out and figure out what the fuck was going on, rose.
“Beckett, I can’t.” Samara stumbled, her free hand pressed against her stomach. “We have to slow down.”
The door at the next landing marked the tenth floor. Closer to the ground—to safety—but not close enough. Beckett bit back his frustration. “Keep up or I’ll carry you.”
Her jaw dropped. “You can’t carry me.”
“This isn’t up for negotiation. You have five seconds. Decide.”
She set her jaw and her eyes went steely. “I’ll keep up.”
“Good.”
They ran.
Ninth floor.
Seventh.
Fourth.
The scent of smoke curled through the third-floor landing, though he didn’t see it. His breath sawed through his lungs, a burning brand in his chest. Samara looked as bad as he felt, her skin shining with sweat, her hair a tangled mass. Beckett slowed, just a little. “Don’t touch the doors.”
“I know how fires work,” she snapped. Real fear lurked in her eyes and she clutched his hand tighter. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
If they even could. Without knowing where the fire started or how fast it had spread, they were operating blind. They had two floors between them and the relative safety of the ground floor, but that didn’t mean they could reach the emergency exit. Leaving the stairwell was a risk—a big one. Staying was even worse.
He squeezed her hand. “We’re almost there.”
She choked out an exhale and nodded. “I can make it.”
In another life, he might fall head over heels for this woman with her strength and determination, no matter if she was facing down a corporate rival or a fucking fire. “I’m going to get you out, Samara. I promise.” He started moving before she could respond, half dragging her down the stairs toward the second floor, and then the first.
The smoke was thicker there, creating a thin haze that left everything looking surreal. It coated the back of his tongue, stung his eyes, burned his lungs. He staggered to a stop. They were in the northwest corner of the building, closest to the park that butted up against the building, rather than the street. The nearest emergency exit was roughly a hundred feet away. He touched the doorknob. Cold. “You ever see that movie Backdraft?”
“Beckett, that is not funny.”
He pulled her close and positioned them behind the heavy door. “Just making conversation.” And keeping you distracted so you’re not thinking too hard about how horrible it would be to die in a fire.
“You’re crazy.” She tucked herself under his arm, her body shaking despite her even tone. She was faking it just as much as he was.
“You bet your ass.” He didn’t think there was a wall of flames waiting for them on the other side, but he couldn’t afford to risk it. Beckett grabbed the door handle. “Fire’s bad, we run up to the second floor and take a different stairwell down.”
Her shaking got worse. “Beckett…”
“Don’t you dare.” He gripped her chin and kissed her. “We’re getting out of here, Samara. If it means I have to lower you by hand out of a fucking window, we’re getting out of here. Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He twisted the handle and yanked the door, keeping their bodies behind it. Smoke poured into the room in a thick cloud, but no flames burst through. Beckett coughed and pulled Samara down so they were crouching. They weren’t fully below the smoke, but the air was slightly more breathable there. “Don’t let go of my hand.”
“You don’t let go.”
“I won’t.” He shifted around the door and squinted into the lobby. The haze of smoke was too thick to see much of anything, but he couldn’t see any flames, either. He could see the front doors from where they were, and there seemed to be a clear path. “Stay as low as possible.” Right now, the smoke was more dangerous than any flames.
“Okay.” Samara started coughing.
I have to get her out of here. Now.
He shifted his grip to hold her wrist and rushed out into the lobby. No flames. Just smoke. It should have comforted him, but it meant there was a fire somewhere else in Morningstar. Doesn’t matter. It’s just a building. Samara is a person.
They hit the doors at a full-out sprint and Beckett registered a thick pipe jammed through the door handles. The delivery guy said the doors were locked. He yanked it out and tossed it away. They’d deal with that when they were both safe. He jerked open the door and shoved Samara through first, following close behind.
He’d never been so fucking happy to be breathing in Houston’s humid air.
A fire truck screeched to a stop in front of them and disgorged half a dozen firefighters. One split away from the others and hurried to them. “You just come out of the building?”
“Yes.” He kept Samara against him. They hadn’t come this far for him to let her collapse now. “I don’t know how many people are in the building. We don’t have a full staff on the weekends, so it could be anywhere from ten to a hundred people.” There had been no one else on the executive floor, but that still left twenty-nine other ones.
“Do you know where the fire started?”
“No. We came through the front doors. I didn’t see a fire. Just a hell of a lot of smoke.” Samara started to shake and he held her closer. “We need to sit down. We just ran from the top floor.”
The guy nodded. “We have an ambulance on the way. Grab a curb over there and I’ll get you set.” He motioned to the curb on the opposite side of the street. Another fire truck screamed up, blocking traffic on the other corner of the block, but that didn’t stop people from crowding on the side of the street the firefighter had indicated. Half of them had their phones out, and the other half were talking animatedly as the firefighters went to work suiting up.
Beckett shifted to give the onlookers his back, shielding Samara. He took her shoulders and looked her over. Her dress was haphazard from the run and her feet looked worse for wear, but she seemed fine otherwise. “How are you doing?” He pitched his voice low.
She looked over her shoulder as the building coughed out more smoke. “I don’t know. That was…” She shuddered. “I never want to do that again.”
He pulled her back into his arms and hugged her tight. Little tremors worked their way through her as she clung to him. “You’re safe now. It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
Even as he reassured her, he wasn’t so certain. The main lobby was all marble and steel. There wasn’t a damn thing that could start a fire there by accident—especially not on a Saturday when there was minimum traffic through the building. That pipe wasn’t jammed to block the doors by accident.
Things happened fast after that. The ambulance arrived, which made it impossible to watch what the firefighters were doing. Oxygen masks and blankets were pushed on both Beckett and Samara, and he submitted to the care to ensure that she did, too.
Time stretched on, and eventually there was a disturbance in the crowd. A leggy blonde in shorts and an oversized T-shirt shoved through two men muttering with their heads together. Her gaze caught on him, but then she focused on Samara. “Holy shit, you really are here.”
Beckett belatedly recognized Journey King, his cousin. “She’s fine.”
“That’s nice. I wasn’t talking to you.” She crouched down in front of Samara, her hazel eyes worried. “Unless the smoke damaged your vocal cords and you need him to translate?”
Samara coughed out a laugh and pulled her oxygen mask off. “I’m fine. I had more cardio in thirty minutes than I’ve had in the last three weeks, but I’m fine.”
“You’d say that even if you burned all your hair off and needed half your skin grafted.” She snapped her fingers at a bemused paramedic. “You—is there something wrong with her? Does she need to go to the hospital?”
The guy laughed, drinking her in. “Nah, she’s fine.” He made a visible effort to drag his gaze from Journey’s legs to Samara’s face. “If you get light-headed unexpectedly or have any trouble breathing, come in and get checked out, but you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“Thanks, handsome.” Journey pushed to her feet. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Don’t even pretend like you’re going home—you’re coming with me so I can make sure you don’t die in your sleep.”
Samara caught Beckett’s gaze, but allowed Journey to guide her to her feet. She hesitated. “Give me a second.”
His cousin finally deigned to notice his existence. “Beckett.”
“Nice seeing you, Journey.”
She cocked a single eyebrow. “You’re so cute when you’re lying. Holler if you need me, Samara.”
Samara shrugged out of her blanket and folded it neatly. She gingerly crossed to Beckett. He eyed her bare feet. “I’ll return your shoes as soon as they let me back in the building.”
“Beckett…” She sighed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything at all.” He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted her to come home with him where he would watch over her. Things might not have been actually as dangerous as it seemed when they were running for their lives, but that didn’t change the adrenaline letdown that demanded he take her to bed and hold her until they were both sure everything was okay.
It’s not okay. There’s no way that fire was an accident, which means someone’s gunning for me—and the only real suspect is Lydia fucking King.
Not that Samara will ever believe that.
Keeping their audience in mind, the only contact he allowed himself was to reach out and squeeze her hand. “You’ll feel better if you go with her.” The selfish part of him might hate watching her leave, but he was still glad she had someone who cared enough about her to bully her into staying over. He tightened his grip ever so slightly and stroked her wrist with his thumb where no one could see it. “If you need anything—anything at all—you can call me, Samara. It doesn’t matter what time it is.”
She smiled, though the expression was filled with sadness. “Thank you.” The two words sounded a whole lot like good-bye.
Samara looked at the spread of food piled on Journey’s kitchen island—and burst out laughing. “I’m fine, Journey. I don’t need you to feed me back to life.”
“Food is the answer for every problem.” Her friend motioned to the vat of soup and the delicious-looking round rolls that had come with it. “Chicken noodle soup, specifically, is known to cure a list of problems as long as my arm. I have whiskey and honey and lemons for hot toddies, which will help any residual pain in your throat and give you the feel-goods. And three varieties of cookies because no meal is complete without dessert, and cookies are comforting. Peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, and lemony sugar cookies.” She pointed at each item in turn.
Warmth started in Samara’s stomach and spread through her, gathering in the edges of her eyes. “What did I do to deserve such a great friend?”
“Ha! We both know you’re the better friend, so I have to rack up points where I can.” She waved the remote. “Now, are we going to decompress to some Desperate Housewives or are you going to tell me what you were doing all alone with my cousin at Morningstar Enterprise in the middle of a Saturday?”
She started to beg off, but the truth was that she desperately wanted to talk about what was going on with Beckett with someone. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to get into it. You’re not exactly known for your love for him.”
“Correction—I loathe his father. I have absolutely no opinion regarding Beckett himself.” When Samara just stared, she finally relented. “Okay, fine, I don’t like him on principle, but that’s mostly because I’m toeing the party line inflicted by my mother. Obviously something about him caught your eye.” She waggled her brows. “Or caught something else.”
“It’s not like that.” Samara managed to hold it together for a grand total of three seconds before relenting. “Okay, it’s exactly like that. Six months ago, when I lost out on that contract in Norway, I drank enough tequila that it seemed like a good idea to let him know all the reasons I found him loathsome.” She eyed the whiskey bottle. “And then I slept with him.”
Journey seemed to be struggling to keep a straight face. “That’ll show him.”
“Shut up. I know it was a bad idea.”
“Keep talking. I’m putting the hot water on.” Journey rounded the kitchen island and moved to the state-of-the-art stovetop. “You keep eyeing that whiskey and you’re going to start taking shots instead of drinking medicinal hot toddies. Focus, woman.”
God, she’d missed her friend. It felt like they hadn’t seen each other much lately between all the work Lydia had piled on their respective positions. As COO, Journey was a master juggler and kept all the moving parts of Kingdom Corp from crashing into each other. For her part, Samara had been kept busy handling the various projects and contracts Lydia set her sights on. They only seemed to grow in number as time went on, and as much as she loved her job, she wished she had the slightest bit more downtime.
Speaking of…
She checked the clock and cursed. “I have to go.”
“Nope.” Journey set her old-fashioned kettle on the stove and turned it on. “If you go home, you’re going to work until your body gives out, and then you’ll feel even worse when you wake up.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the counter. “Is twelve hours really going to make or break this presentation? You still have a couple days left, and knowing you, you could give that bid today and they’d be falling all over themselves to sign the contract.”
As grateful as she was for Journey’s unwavering support, it wasn’t earned this time. “The bid is done, but I can’t get the presentation right. Something’s missing, and I can’t afford to botch this.”
“You won’t botch it.” She walked over, grabbed the whiskey, honey, and two lemons off the table, and went about putting together the hot toddies.
Samara couldn’t just sit there while Journey sliced lemons, so she pushed to her feet. She was a little light-headed, and her throat felt like she’d chain-smoked a pack of cigarettes. “I’m not having a crisis of faith or anything. I’m just worried. There’s a lot of pressure on this one contract.” The majority of leasing rights in the Gulf of Mexico was a huge coup to secure, and if she pulled it off, she’d prove that she deserved to be Lydia’s second-in-command. “I can’t afford to let being preoccupied with Beckett screw it up.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
Journey poured hot water into the whiskey concoction in the two mugs in front of her and stirred it. “Are you preoccupied with Beckett?”
She started to deny it, but she didn’t make a habit of lying to her friend. “It’s not that simple.”
“Explain it to me.” She pushed one mug toward Samara. “I say that not in a judgy tone—I really want to understand.”
“I like him.” Saying the words aloud felt like a betrayal. “More than that—I respect him and the way he does business. He cares about the people who work for him.” She blinked and saw the betrayal written across Beckett’s face when he snarled about Lydia stealing his employees.
The man had no family, not really. His business might not be a true stand-in for that kind of relationship, but he took their defection significantly more personally than anyone else she’d known. He cared. “But he and Lydia are heading for a clash of epic proportions and if I get caught in the middle, they’ll trample me.”
Journey contemplated her hot toddy. “I trust your judgment, so if you say he’s not half bad, I believe you. But you’re right about being caught in the middle. Mother’s been fixated on Morningstar Enterprise since before I was born. With Nathaniel gone, it only makes sense that she’s doing everything she can to seize the opportunity.”
It made sense, and it was even a good play if she looked at it without her emotions involved. That was the problem, though. Despite her best efforts, her emotions were involved. It didn’t change the fact that she wanted Kingdom Corp to come out on top, but she also didn’t see why Lydia couldn’t leave well enough alone when it came to Morningstar. “I know.”
“What’s stopping you from waiting until this all plays out, letting the dust settle, and then seeing if there’s something there with him without the countdown ticking in your ear?”
She almost didn’t answer, almost changed the subject to avoid talking about it. Journey and her mother didn’t have the best of relationships, and her friend was fiercely protective when it came to anything she viewed as taking advantage of Samara. Since she felt the same way about Journey, they’d come to an agreement of sorts in that they didn’t try to fight each other’s battles unless requested.
This was different.
She pulled at the edge of her tunic-length shirt. They’d stopped over at her place so she could shower and change before coming to Journey’s. Stop stalling and spit it out. “I think your mother was implying I should use Beckett’s attraction to me to get close to him.”
“The fuck she did.” Journey slammed her mug onto the kitchen island hard enough that hot liquid splashed over the countertop and her hand. She didn’t seem to notice. “That’s bullshit. It’s one thing to encourage you to flirt up the competition so they’ll spill information. We’ve all done that. She knows you slept with Beckett, doesn’t she?” She held up a hand. “You don’t even have to answer. I know my mother, and I know how she operates. She suspected you had unfinished business with him and she decided to leverage that to her advantage and to hell with the consequences. Goddamn it. That is such a dick move, and I can’t even say I’m surprised.”
Samara sipped her hot toddy and waited her friend out. It would do no good to interrupt until Journey ran out of steam, and she didn’t have the energy to get into a fight about what she was and wasn’t okay with. If their situations were reversed, she would react the same way.
Journey hissed out a breath. “Okay, I’m done.”
“You sure? I can sit here and keep drinking.”
She laughed. “Yes, O Patient One. You’re about to tell me that you can fight your own battles, aren’t you?”
“Journey,” Samara said seriously. “I can fight my own battles—even when it comes to your mother.”
She grabbed a pink dish towel and wiped up the spilled hot toddy. “My mother is good at getting people to shift their boundaries to accommodate her needs.”
Samara couldn’t argue that. She’d both seen it in action and been on the wrong end of Lydia’s manipulations. The worst part was that she didn’t always realize it had happened until much, much later. It’s all for the end result, which I support. I haven’t done anything I can’t live with. She ignored the uncomfortable twinge the thought brought. “Beckett’s a big boy—”
“Didn’t need to know that.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, get your mind out of the gutter.” She laughed, but sobered almost immediately. “He walked into this thing with eyes wide open. If anything, he sees me as a pawn to be moved around the board the same way Lydia does.”
“That doesn’t make it right. You’re not a fucking pawn, Samara—you’re a person.”
She knew she wasn’t a pawn, but that didn’t change the fact that she wasn’t a big player in whatever conflict Beckett and Lydia had coming. She might be damn good at her job and work her ass off, but she wasn’t a King. She could work at Kingdom Corp for the rest of her life and, twenty years down the road, she’d still be cut out or moved about by Lydia because ultimately Samara was replaceable. Beckett wasn’t. Journey and her siblings weren’t. Samara was just another ambitious woman who had her eye on the prize.
Could I be any more depressing?
She shook her head and took a large drink of the hot toddy. It warmed her stomach, a nice contrast to the air-conditioning Journey had cranked on high. “You’re right. I can take twelve hours off.”
“Fuck, Samara—that wasn’t even a good dodge.”
“I know. And I’m not sorry.” Samara grinned. “You know what would make me feel immeasurably better?”
Journey laughed, the infectious sound rolling through the room. “I bet you’re about to tell me.”
“Brownies. Brownies would cure all my woes.”
“I suppose I could whip up a batch.”
“You’re the best.” Samara tugged on the ribbing of her sleeve. All the thoughts and fears and anger swirled inside her. Things weren’t finished with her and Beckett now any more than they had been two days ago. If anything, they were infinitely more complicated. She should just walk away from the whole damn thing. It was the smart choice to make.
I don’t want to.
Proving yet again that some things are hereditary. Both my amma and I have shitty taste in men.
Journey set out all the ingredients and paused. “I just can’t believe there was a fire. What kind of ship is my cousin running that his building is spontaneously bursting into flame?”
“Things only spontaneously burst into flames in the movies.” She thought back over the mad race down to the ground floor, to the smoke coating everything and making it impossible to see clearly. No flames, though. “I wonder what caused it? There isn’t exactly a lot of burnable material in that lobby.” She shook her head. “What am I saying? It was probably faulty wiring or something.”
“Faulty wiring is another thing that happens a lot more in movies than in real life.” Journey went to work making her famous brownies. Well, famous as far as Samara was concerned.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter what started it. We got out, no one was hurt, and the firefighters were able to save the building.” Not that she cared overmuch about Morningstar Enterprise’s headquarters. She definitely didn’t.
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
She looked up to find Journey uncharacteristically sober. “Beckett got me out.” She might have managed on her own, but he’d been the one to make sure it happened in the shortest amount of time. She made a face. “I should send him flowers or something. As a thank-you.”
“Trust me, honey—if you want to thank Beckett, I’m sure there are half a dozen ways to do it more effectively than sending flowers.”