Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2) (3 page)

He moved to sit behind his desk as a way of putting distance between them. “I can give you the names of several other reputable security companies who might be interested in helping you with whatever your problem is.” He pulled his notepad forward and wrote down three telephone numbers before ripping off the top sheet and holding it out to her. “As I said at the beginning of our conversation, Knight Security is not interested in taking you on as a client.”

Some of Angel’s anger returned at Gabriel’s easy dismissal of her after almost destroying her with his kiss. “You insult me, kiss me, and now you think you can just dismiss me?” she challenged. “Well, it doesn’t work like that, Gabriel. I was willing to let this go, was on the point of leaving, then you were the one who decided to kiss me as if you own me—”

“Eight years ago, I did own you, damn it!” A fire blazed in his emerald eyes. “Every fucking inch of you was mine.”

“I belong to myself!” she came back fiercely. “Then and now. No one owns me. Not you. Not Clive. No one. So if you—”

“Who is Clive?”

She looked startled. “What…?”

Gabriel’s hands clenched into fists on top of his desk. “Who. Is. Clive.”

Oh God…

Only a few seconds of being back in Gabriel’s company, and she realized how big a mistake she had made coming here.

Gabriel had been intense eight years ago, and at the time, Angel had reveled in his single-minded pursuit of her. Been flattered by it. Seduced by it.
Owned
by it; Gabriel was right about that. She had been his. As surely as he had been hers. Until he wasn’t. One day, Gabriel had been the center of her life, totally consuming her, and the next day, he had been gone. Leaving a vacuum and heartache in his wake that had almost broken her.

Almost.

Until she found a reason to carry on. To not only survive but thrive.

She didn’t know what had made her say Clive’s name just now. Maybe because he was so much on her mind? Whatever the reason, she knew Gabriel well enough to realize he wouldn’t let the subject drop now that she’d brought it up. “Clive Sinclair’s my husband.”

Gabriel’s teeth clenched. “Is he dead?”

“No, of cou—” Angel frowned. “I said Clive Sinclair, Gabriel.”

“I heard you— The billionaire?” He eyed her with sharp suspicion.

“That’s the one,” she confirmed dryly.

“Jesus Christ!” Gabriel looked stunned.

As well he might. Clive owned media all over the world, including several television stations. He also owned a hotel chain and an airline, but preferred to travel in his private jet and own homes in several major cities in the world. Clive Sinclair did things his way or not at all.

Much like the man seated behind the desk in front of her.

Except she knew Gabriel possessed a heart behind that arrogant exterior. A heart that might not belong to her anymore, but she knew it was there nonetheless. Or, at least, it had been…

The mistake she had made was in thinking Clive had a heart too beneath his ruthless exterior. Once they were married, she had quickly been disabused of that fact.

“You’re married to Clive Sinclair?” Gabriel was still having trouble getting his head round the idea of
his
Angel being married to anyone, let alone a man as powerful and rich as Sinclair. The billionaire had to be at least twenty-five years older than her, and so powerful he could ensure his private life remained exactly that: private.

Which is probably the reason I never realized Angel was his wife.

Not that it would have mattered if he had. Whatever had been between the two of them was over.

“Separated,” she said stiffly.

The choke hold about Gabriel’s throat eased slightly. “But you aren’t divorced?”

“Hoping to be.”

He scowled. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means Clive isn’t as…amenable to the idea as I am,” she answered guardedly.

“You’re fighting over who gets custody of the poodle?” he taunted.

The moment of truth had arrived, Angel realized. The moment when she either told Gabriel why she had come here, to him specifically, or she continued to fight Clive on her own.

She was tired, so very tired, of trying to fight this battle alone.

She was also heartsick. In a way that was threatening to crush her.

“Angel?”

Tears stung her eyes at once again hearing the name that had been lost to her for so long. A familiarity that even allowed her to release a little of the self-pity she had never indulged in the past, or since.

Gabriel had once entered her life like a whirlwind, sweeping her off her feet, before leaving as abruptly as he had arrived. Angel had been left in a vacuum to pick up the pieces of her life and carry on without him. Which she had done, in the only way available to her at the time.

With hindsight, it had been the wrong way, but she hadn’t known that until it was too late to do anything but persevere with the choices she had made.

Choices which were now tearing her apart.

She raised her chin and looked directly into Gabriel’s dark green eyes. “We don’t have a dog. We do, however, have a son. A darling little boy Clive feels no qualms about using in order to make me do what he wants.”

Gabriel felt as if someone had just punched him hard in the chest, robbing him of breath. Not only was Angel married, but she had a son. He couldn’t… It was…
God!

He might have tried not to think about Angel as the years passed, but even when he had allowed his thoughts to linger on her, he had never imagined her as someone else’s wife, and certainly not as a mother.

Stupid, he realized now. Angel was a beautiful and desirable woman. The same woman who had gone up in flames in his arms whenever they were together. Any man would want her. To claim all that fire and passion as his own.

The fact that she had come here now in order to seek Gabriel’s help in what appeared to be her acrimonious divorce was beyond comprehension. She couldn’t seriously think he would ever want to become involved.

He gave a firm shake of his head. “Knight Security deals in personal and professional security, not domestic disputes. If it’s any help.” His lips thinned. “It’s my experience men as powerful as Clive Sinclair like to assert that power with physical conquests outside their marriage. If you want evidence against your husband in order to attain a divorce, then I suggest you go to a detective agency.”

“This job isn’t for a detective agency or for Knight Security. It’s for you alone.”

“Me?” he scoffed.

Angel nodded. “It’s time for you to come out from behind that desk, Gabriel.”

He scowled darkly. “I’ll decide whether or not I ever do that, and becoming embroiled in your messy divorce certainly isn’t reason enough for me to even consider it.”

“If you won’t do it for me, then do it for Daniel.”

“Who the fuck is Daniel?”

“Your son.”

What the…!

Chapter 2

“My seven-year-old son Daniel is also your son, Gabriel.”

Why did Angel keep saying that? How could Angel’s son be
his
son too?

There was only one way that was possible. She would have to have been pregnant when she left him eight years ago.

If that was true—

Angel backed up several steps as Gabriel stood up to cross to her in forceful strides.

His expression was fiercely accusing as he grasped her painfully by the tops of her arms. “Where is he now? Where’s my son, damn it?”

“Gabriel—”

His eyes glittered as he glowered down at her. “How could you keep him from me? How
dare
you?” His face was pale, the skin stretched tightly across his cheekbones. “And why the
hell
did you marry Sinclair?” A nerve pulsed in the rigid set of his cheek. “Did you think I wouldn’t want you? That I wouldn’t want both you and our child?”

Angel had no idea what Gabriel would or wouldn’t want. How could she? He had already left her life by the time she realized she was expecting their baby. He’d left her with no choice but to fend for herself and their unborn child. She had done that to the best of her ability. Weighed up the options available to her and taken the one she had believed would give her baby the best future.

Angry color burned in her cheeks. “Don’t you dare attack and accuse me, Gabriel.
Don’t you dare!
” Her voice shook with emotion. “You weren’t there for me to know how you felt about anything. Maybe if you had been, I wouldn’t have made the lousy choice that I did.”

He released her so suddenly, she stumbled and almost fell. “So now this is my fault?” He ran an agitated hand through his short dark hair even as those fiercely glittering eyes remained fixed on her. “Where’s my son now, Angel?” he demanded again coldly.

“That’s why I came here to see you—” She broke off with a gasp as Gabriel grasped hold of her arms again.

“Where the fuck is he?” His eyes were narrowed. “If you intended telling me about him, why didn’t you bring him here with you so I could see him for myself? Did you leave him in the care of some fucking nanny while you swanned off in your designer clothes? Answer me, damn it!”

“I’m trying to.”

“Try harder!”

“I—” She broke off as the office door was suddenly flung open.

“What the hell is going on in here, Gabriel?” Another man stood in the doorway, his overlong dark hair and green eyes showing a marked resemblance to Gabriel. “I could hear you shouting at the other end of the hallway.” He raised his brows as he glanced at Angel. “I sincerely hope that isn’t a new client, because if it is, your people skills need a little working on.”

It was totally illogical, totally inappropriate, given the dire circumstances, but for some reason, this man’s dry humor struck Angel as being hilariously funny. Once she began laughing, she didn’t seem able to stop, even when the tears began to cascade down her cheeks.

“Gabe?”

Gabriel’s own frown matched that of his brother. Angel wasn’t just laughing, she was caught up in full-blown hysteria, crying as well as laughing.

He was feeling less than calm himself, as indicated by Caleb’s reference to his raised voice. Gabriel never shouted. He was always in control. Never lost his calm. His ability to reason. In the past few minutes, he had done all those things.

Learning he had a seven-year-old son would do that to any man
.

A son named Daniel.

Named for Angel’s father? Gabriel seemed to recall her father’s name began with a D. David, Donald, maybe, but it could just as easily have been Daniel. The man had been dead for almost a year when Gabriel met Angel.

An Angel he now realized was crumpling to the carpeted floor of his office. As if the hysterical laughter had taken the last of her strength.

“Gabe!”

He didn’t need Caleb’s warning to step forward and catch Angel before she hit the floor, his arms moving about her waist and shoulders as he lifted her to sit her down in the chair facing his desk. One glance at the pallor of her tear-streaked face was enough for him to bend her forward so that her head was between her knees to prevent her from passing out.

“What’s this about, Gabe?” A concerned Caleb moved to stand beside him.

He wished he knew. Angel had kept the existence of his son from him for the nine months of her pregnancy and the first seven years of Daniel’s life, and yet she was the one who was about to pass out.

Because he had frightened her with his violent reaction to the revelation?

How the fuck had she expected him to react?

I have a son. A son I’ve never met, never seen, and yet the tightness in my chest tells me that I feel protective toward him already.

And that I fucking
hate
the idea of some other man being his father and bringing him up for the past seven years.

As I hate Angel for keeping him from me?

No, Gabriel didn’t hate Angel. He didn’t think he could ever hate her. Especially now, when he knew she was the mother of his child. But he wasn’t feeling particularly kindly disposed toward her right now either.

He straightened. “Get over whatever is wrong with you, Angel, and tell me where my son is,” he advised icily.

“Your son…?” Caleb’s voice was hushed.

Gabriel glanced at his brother, noting Caleb’s pale face and dilated pupils. Caleb had suffered with PTSD for some years now. It didn’t prevent him from doing his job for Knight Security, his army training ingrained into him, but personal stress to himself or his family was always a trigger for an attack. “It’s okay, Caleb,” he soothed. “Angel and I just have a little catching up to do.”

His brother’s eyes widened. “More than a little, by the sound of it.”

Gabriel’s smile was reassuring. “We’ll figure it out. Go back to your office, and I’ll explain everything to you later. But it’s all good, okay?”

“Okay,” Caleb accepted doubtfully, casting another worried glance at Angel before leaving the office and closing the door behind him.