Secret Weapon Spouse - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,24
shook her head. “He’s rather intense and he doesn’t miss much. I have to watch myself around him all the time.”
Rachel frowned. “I’ve seen you turn hysterical bridezillas into purring pussycats, deal with drunk wedding guests and irate fiancés, but if you think you can’t handle Alex Graham…”
“No, I can handle him,” Samantha said with more confidence than she felt. She was a trained professional. Surely she could handle one handsome fireman. One very handsome, charming, intelligent fireman. “If I tried to hand him off to someone else on the team now, it would only make him more suspicious. He’s suspicious enough that we’re hiding something from him.”
“Under the circumstances, I suppose we can’t blame him,” Rachel said.
“Any news on Sonya Botero?” Samantha asked, not wanting to discuss Alex Graham further.
“No. No ransom demand. Nothing.”
“I saw Juan DeLeon as I was coming in,” Samantha said. “He looked devastated.”
“He is. He’s inconsolable, blaming himself for Sonya’s presumed kidnapping,” Rachel said. “He assumes, as we do, that it’s politically driven, but he hasn’t been able to find out who’s behind it and neither have we.”
Samantha nodded. “I suppose the wedding will be postponed.”
“No. He insists we continue with the wedding preparations vowing that there will be a wedding in August,” Rachel said. “He refuses to believe he might have lost her. That’s why you have to stay on this end of the investigation. If Caroline Graham’s fiancé lied about who he was, who knows what else he might be hiding.”
Samantha nodded absently and realized she’d been thinking about Alex again and hadn’t heard what Rachel had just said. “Sorry?”
Rachel cleared her throat. “I was saying I want you to continue working on this end of the investigation. Clare hasn’t been able to come up with any connection between Sonya and Caroline other than what you have about them possibly crossing paths here. But let’s not take any chances especially given what we know about the fiancé. The fact that he’s missing worries me.”
Me, too, Samantha thought.
“The rest of the team will be working on the theory that Sonya’s abduction is political and connected to the assassination attempt on Juan DeLeon and the unrest in his country.” Rachel rose to leave. “Be careful,” she said her gaze going again to Samantha’s bruised cheek. “Keep your eye on Alex Graham. He could be more dangerous than you think.”
Samantha already suspected just how dangerous Alex could be—at least to her. That’s why he had her running scared.
“I’ll write up my report and then make sure everything is ready for the Holcom-Anders wedding,” Samantha said, mentally shifting gears back to her other job.
Rachel had stopped in the doorway. “Are you sure you don’t want me to put someone else on this?”
Samantha wasn’t completely sure if she meant the wedding, or Alex Graham. “I have it covered.”
Rachel seemed to study her again as if trying to make up her mind about something.
“The next time Alex Graham sees me I hope to be working on the Holcom-Anders wedding,” Samantha said. “I think the best thing that could happen is for him to see me doing my job as a wedding planner.”
Rachel nodded. “Yes, I think you’re right about that. Watch your back. In this business, you never know who you can trust.” She could just as easily have been talking about the wedding planning business as their sideline.
But Samantha was more worried right now about when she would see Alex Graham again—and how to break the bad news about Preston Wellington III. Alex was no fool. He wasn’t going to believe this kind of information just fell into a wedding planner’s lap.
The last thing she wanted was to make him more suspicious of Weddings Your Way—or worse, of her.
“Keep me informed,” Rachel said as she saw someone come in through the front door of Weddings Your Way.
Samantha nodded distractedly, knowing that Alex wasn’t going to give up on finding Preston Wellington III, either.
“Sonya’s father Carlos Botero,” Rachel said quietly and straightened her immaculate suit as if bracing herself for the worst.
“What is going on?” Carlos Botero demanded as Rachel went to meet him.
Samantha couldn’t hear the soft words that Rachel spoke to him as she led the older man to her office.
“I’ve already lost one daughter,” Samantha heard Botero say. “I can’t lose another.” Rachel closed her office door.
NOT FAR AWAY, a man made a call he’d been dreading. “We haven’t been able to get to DeLeon.”
“You fool. First you botch his assassination attempt and now you mess