Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2) (8 page)

“I was married to him. I should have realized what sort of man he was before this. Should have done something to try to stop him.” Her expression was fierce as she took the towel from Gabriel and wiped her face before discarding it. “I was married to that—to that
bastard
for seven years.” The last came out as a sob as she began to cry. “Oh God, Oh God, those poor children!” Her arms were wrapped protectively about her waist as she began to rock backward and forward, eyes so wide, the whites showed completely about her irises. “My God… Daniel…?”

Gabriel sat beside her and took her in his arms. “You said it yourself, Sinclair considers Daniel his heir. He won’t harm him.” He hoped to God that was the truth, because if Sinclair harmed one hair on his son’s head, then Gabriel was going to tear the other man apart limb from limb. Slowly. And then he would start inflicting the real pain. “I’m sorry, Angel.”

Angel looked at him uncomprehendingly as her head lay against his bare chest, not sure what he was apologizing for. The fact that Clive was even more evil than she had originally thought? Or for what had happened between the two of them earlier. Maybe both.

“Sinclair obviously kept the…seedier side of his life away from you and Daniel, but nonetheless, I don’t suppose it was a bed of roses living with such an egotistical bastard.” His chest moved beneath her cheek as he breathed deeply. “The way I behaved toward you earlier was… I was angry, and I should know better. My father and the training I received in the army taught me never to act in anger.” He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head.

Ah, so the apology was because of what had happened between the two of them earlier. “Why didn’t you come back eight years ago, Gabriel?”

He glanced down at her. “Obviously, I did come back.”

“Not to me.” Angel had started this conversation now, and she was going to see it through to the end. No matter what the answer was. “Why didn’t you at least come and say goodbye to me?”

Gabriel rested his head back against the door of the cupboard under the porcelain sink. “Because I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Do you really want to have this conversation sitting on the floor of the bathroom?”

She pulled out of his arms to sit back and look at him. “Considering it’s eight years overdue, I don’t think it matters where we have it. Where did you go?”

“Afghanistan.”

“Officially?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you come back to me?”

He released a heavy sigh, resting his forearms on his bent knees. “The mission took longer than I thought it would, and then when I tried to get out, we were caught up in some hand-to-hand fighting.”

“The new scar on your back?”

He nodded. “Caleb managed to get me out, but it was touch and go for a while. The knife had pierced one of my lungs, and I spent several weeks in intensive care. Then several more weeks recuperating.”

“Caleb was there too?”

“He was the reason I went. He was serving out there at the time, and he’d been taken prisoner by a group of rebel soldiers. I went to get him out. In the end, he was the one who had to carry me out,” he added ruefully.

“Is that the reason Caleb is…different?”

Gabriel’s lips tightened. “You would be different too if you had been tortured for days by your captors. Just for the hell of it, because Caleb had no information to give them, and they knew it. He has nightmares. The shakes. A reaction to loud noises. Sometimes all three.”

“PTSD.”

“Yes.”

Angel drew in a shaky breath. “So it wasn’t that you didn’t want to come back to me, but because you couldn’t.”

He turned his head to look at her. “I would have walked over broken glass and hot coals to get back to you. Unfortunately, a punctured lung prevented me from doing either of those things.”

“I called the army base where you were stationed.”

His brows rose. “You did?”

She nodded. “They told me you were on extended leave.”

“Officially, I was.” He shrugged. “Unofficially, I was pretty banged up and it took months to get back on my feet. By the time I was mobile again, you had disappeared. You were no longer at university. Had given up the lease on your apartment. You just disappeared,” he repeated bleakly.

Because ten weeks after Gabriel left, she had married Clive, to give her baby a name and a future. “You really came looking for me?”

“What the fuck— Of course I came looking for you!” Anger flared in Gabriel’s eyes before he quickly brought himself back under control. “I wouldn’t have left you in the first place if I’d had any choice. But Caleb is my baby brother. I couldn’t just leave him there. I had to go in and get him out.”

“I understand that. I… Why didn’t you tell me the reason you had to leave so suddenly?” Angel’s heart beat loudly and erratically.

“Again, because I couldn’t.” Gabriel rose restlessly to his bare feet. “I had already told you more than I should have done when I revealed I wasn’t regular army but worked special ops. That last mission was completely off the books.”

Her eyes widened. “Rescuing Caleb was your last mission?”

He nodded abruptly. “The army and I decided it would be better for both of us if I resigned. Caleb did the same, once it became obvious I was going to live after all. His nerves were shot to hell.”

“I didn’t know. Oh God, I didn’t know…” She felt sick again just thinking of Gabriel lying still and white in a hospital bed, his life hanging by a thread.

“There was no way you could have.” He shrugged, muscles playing beneath his tanned skin. “I couldn’t contact you when I was in Afghanistan. And when I came back, I was incapable of talking to anyone for several weeks. I spent my recuperation deciding I didn’t want to do that stuff anymore. Nearly dying and believing you have a girl waiting for you is apt to do that to you,” he added dryly.

Except the girl had already married someone else by the time Gabriel was back on his feet and came looking for her. Maybe if Angel hadn’t been pregnant… If she had waited… But she hadn’t. Had thought—believed—she had merely been a diversion for Gabriel during his weeks on leave from the army. That he had simply returned to that life and forgotten all about her.

“Are you crying again, Angel?”

Was she? Yes, touching her fingertips to her face revealed there was dampness on her cheeks. Because she had spent eight years believing Gabriel didn’t want her. Because he had spent those same eight years believing she didn’t want him. Because Daniel had been denied the love of his real father and he was now in the clutches of his sadistic stepfather. Because Lena was missing too, and Angel had no idea where she was. Because Caleb had suffered needless torture that had left him emotionally damaged, in ways Angel couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“It wasn’t all bad,” Gabriel continued dryly. “Knight Security was born out of the ashes of our past careers.”

“Where you sit behind a desk all day…”

“Out of choice.” He nodded. “I had no taste for any more ops after…well, after.”

After he almost died?

Or after the “girl waiting for him” had disappeared so completely?

She sighed deeply. “Clive was there, being supportive, and I accepted his marriage proposal because I was twenty years old and pregnant, frightened and alone, not because I was in love with him.”

Gabriel nodded. “I’ve pretty well worked that much out for myself. How come you never mentioned knowing him when the two of us were together?”

She grimaced. “We didn’t talk much at all, if you recall.”

“No,” he mused before sobering. “And it’s all past history anyway,” he said harshly.

He didn’t have to say anything else for Angel to know it was too late for them. Eight years too late. Oh, the sexual chemistry was still there, obviously, but a lot had happened to both of them in those eight years. They were two different people now. Even less suited to each other than they had been all those years ago. Gabriel had always been intense, overwhelming, but she was nothing like the uncomplicated student she had been when he first met her.

There was something else Gabriel didn’t need to say. He would never forgive her for denying him Daniel for that same number of years.

“I can’t let you leave here, Angel.” Gabriel’s voice was gruff. “Sinclair is a possessive son of a bitch. I suspect he’s still having you followed, so he’ll know where you are by now. I doubt it’s going to make him happy to know you’re staying at the apartment of another man. I thought I was keeping you safe by bringing you here, but going on what I now know about Sinclair, it appears I may have put you in even more danger.”

She held on to the vanity unit as she stood shakily. “You aren’t responsible for Clive’s sadism or his lack of a heart. I’ll continue staying here,” she conceded. “But we have to get Daniel away from him. Sooner rather than later. I’ll do anything, Gabriel, anything you ask, if you’ll do that for me.”

“I sincerely hope you aren’t suggesting I might want to take some sort of payment out of your flesh?” His tone was dangerously soft. “Is that what you thought I was doing earlier?” he added suspiciously.

“No, of course not,” she snapped, cheeks warming.

“Then what the fuck did you mean by
you’ll do anything
if I get Daniel away from Sinclair?”

“I was offering to…to give you Daniel, if you will only bring him back safely.”

Gabriel’s brows lowered as he stared at her searchingly, seeing only sincerity, and love—for Daniel—glittering in her eyes. “Jesus, what the hell sort of man do you think I am? Don’t answer that! I’m not going to take your son away from you, Angel,” he rasped, and instantly heard her shaky sigh of relief. “I will want you to tell him who I am, though. To get to know him. Have him get to know me.” He was now fully aware Daniel was the reason Angel had married a man she didn’t love. The reason she was now in this predicament.

Gabriel would never take Daniel away from her. But he had every intention of sharing Daniel, being a father to him. He accepted it was too late for him and Angel, but they had a connection through their son, and Gabriel intended taking every advantage of that connection. But
not
by taking advantage of Angel’s vulnerability. That would make him no better than Sinclair.

“Go back to bed,” he told her flatly. “Maybe all of this will look less…bleak in the morning.” Although he doubted it.

Sinclair would still have Daniel. Would still be a sadist and the man whose supply of arms had assisted in the genocide of thousands of people.

And Gabriel would still want Angel.

He hadn’t ever stopped wanting her.

Seeing her again, being with her again, told him that he never would.

“We didn’t meet yesterday.” The man, seated at one of the barstools in the kitchen when Angel entered the room the following morning, bore a striking resemblance to Gabriel. His dark hair was also the same color, if worn in a longer style. His eyes were a dark, shrewd brown with flecks of jade, rather than Gabriel’s piercing green. “Asher Knight.” He confirmed her suspicion that this was another brother as he held out his hand to her.

“Angela—Angel,” she corrected as she shook his hand, leaving off her surname altogether. Angela Sinclair was Clive’s wife, and she wanted no part of him, not even his name, after the things she had learned about him last night.

“Gabriel is taking a shower. He seems…a little the worse for wear this morning,” Asher supplied dismissively. “Coffee?” He stood up to replenish his own mug.

“Please.” Angel had no idea what to say to Gabriel’s brother. All his family must now know the two of them had once had a relationship, that they also had a son together. “I’m afraid Gabriel’s excess of whisky is my fault.” She sighed as she accepted the coffee mug before sitting on another of the barstools.

Asher grinned, giving him a devil-may-care handsomeness which probably drew women to him like bees to honey. The shiny gold wedding ring on his left hand indicated he had recently married. “Now that you mention it… I haven’t seen Gabriel that wasted for years.”

Angel groaned. “Exactly what have I involved you all in, Asher?”

“Ash,” he invited as he settled back on the stool opposite her. “We’re a family, Angel. All for one and one for all. It’s been that way since we lost our parents fourteen years ago.” He shrugged at her enquiring glance. “What affects one of us affects all of us. We’re a team. We stick together. Always have, always will.”

“But this is my problem—”

“Daniel is family, Angel,” Asher cut in softly. “As his mother, so are you.”

It had been so long since Angel had a family of her own she could rely on. The closest thing she’d had after her father died had been Clive, her father’s friend. And look how much of a genuine friend he had turned out to be!

“It’s very kind of you to say so, Ash.” She stared into her coffee mug as she swirled the black liquid from side to side. “But you must all be wondering how it is we have Daniel.” She very much doubted, no matter how close the Knight family was, that Gabriel had offered his siblings more than the basic fact of Daniel’s existence.

“Gabriel assured us it was in the same way most kids are conceived,” Ash teased. “But I’m not averse to hearing all the graphic details if you want to share?” He raised expectant brows.