Fallen Angel (The London Ruthless Series Book 2)

by Sadie Kincaid

  ‘Just catching up on a bit of paperwork,’ he said.

  I nodded. That wasn’t unusual, but not eating dinner with his daughter was. ‘Samantha eating alone then?’ I asked him.

  He just stared at me.

  ‘What is it?’ I frowned. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Don’t freak out,’ he started and that statement obviously had the exact opposite effect.

  ‘Freak out about what?’

  ‘She’s gone out for dinner.’

  ‘Who with?’ I snarled.

  ‘I don’t know. Some bloke. But I’m sure it’s not a date,’ he offered.

  ‘What the fuck!’ I growled as my hands balled into fists. Samantha and my unborn baby were on a fucking date!

  ‘Where?’ I snarled.

  ‘I don’t know, mate,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you calm down –’

  ‘I don’t want to fucking calm down, Seb. She’s out having dinner with some geezer and I’m supposed to be calm about that?’

  ‘It won’t be like that,’ he said with a sigh. ‘She’s in love with you, you fucking plant-pot. She’s just having dinner.’

  ‘If it’s just dinner, then tell me where she’s gone.’

  ‘She honestly never said. All she mentioned was pizza.’

  ‘Pizza?’

  ‘Pizza,’ he nodded.

  I turned around and walked out of the office. Samantha loved the pizza at the Italian restaurant around the corner from her office. If she was out on a date with another man, I would fucking carry her out of there and take her straight home.

  Half an hour later, I walked into Vincenzo’s. The place was busy and I was approached by the maître d.

  ‘I’m meeting a friend,’ I said as I brushed past her and into the crowded restaurant.

  I stood by the bar and looked around, and then I saw her. She had her back to me but it was undeniably her. I had a good view of the man sitting opposite her though.

  He was older than her. Late-forties. He wore a dark shirt, open at the collar. Dark hair, peppered with grey. He was smiling as he looked at her.

  Well, of course he was. She was fucking beautiful and he was probably thinking about getting laid later. It had only been two days since we’d spent the whole afternoon in bed together, and now she was out with another man. I wanted to walk over there and ask her what the fuck she was playing at, but she was just sitting there having dinner and I was going to look like a raving lunatic in this restaurant full of unsuspecting diners.

  Suddenly, I felt someone walk up beside me and lean towards my ear. ‘If she sees you spying on her, she will go fucking ape-shit,’ he said with a soft chuckle.

  I turned to see the smiling face of Samantha’s business partner, Nick. ‘What are you doing here?’ I frowned at him.

  ‘Having dinner with Samantha and Russell. What are you doing here?’ he asked with a cock of one eyebrow.

  ‘You’re with them too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So her and Russell aren’t …’

  ‘God, no!’ he started to laugh. ‘He’s our old uni professor. Very happily married with three kids.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ I hissed and Nick gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m going fucking crazy here, Nick.’

  He nodded. ‘I get it. But she wouldn’t do that to you. I know you’re worried, mate, especially with the phone calls, but you can’t go around spying on her.’

  ‘What phone calls?’ I asked. Had I misheard him?

  He swallowed and the colour drained from his face. ‘Shit! She didn’t tell you?’ he shook his head.

  ‘What phone calls, Nick?’ I demanded.

  He looked over at their table and then back at me. ‘She’s been getting some weird calls, that’s all. Nothing threatening, just weird. I told her she needed to tell you and her dad about them and she promised she would.’

  ‘This is the first I’ve heard about them,’ I snapped.

  ‘Yeah? And now I feel like crap for telling you. You can’t say anything. She’ll kill me.’

  ‘But …’ I started as I ran a hand through my hair in exasperation.

  ‘Look, I need to get back to the table. I was only nipping to the toilet. I’ll have another word with her and convince her she needs to tell you, okay? But please don’t ambush her now.’

  I nodded. ‘If she doesn’t tell me by tomorrow, I’m going to have to tell her I know, Nick.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll talk to her. Now you should leave before she sees you.’

  I sucked in a breath. ‘Okay.’

  As I was turning to leave, Nick put a hand on my shoulder. ‘She’ll come round, mate. She’s just hurting right now.’

  I nodded. ‘I fucking hope so.’

  One hour later, I was sitting in Sebastian’s kitchen with a mug of coffee. I’d told him all about my visit to the restaurant and Nick’s revelation about the phone calls. We agreed that we’d give Samantha a chance to tell us herself, but then we’d have to ask about them.

  I’d apologise to Nick for dropping him in it, but I couldn’t sit on information like that and do nothing about it. I needed to know more. I needed to know what was going on, or I couldn’t protect her from any of it.

  My mind was already racing wondering what this new phone call situation was about. More specifically, I was worried whether it was linked to the events of a few months earlier, when Samantha had been the target of a spate of threatening letters and an attempted assault at the hands of the ex-husband of one of her clients, Anthony Garvey.

  Samantha had been worried that someone else was behind it after something Garvey had said to her. Sebastian and I were convinced that if anyone was, it could only have been her ex-husband, Jackson Carver. However, Samantha hadn’t been so sure.

  Now Carver and Garvey were dead, and I had assumed that would be the end of it. But now there were phone calls and I had a terrible feeling Samantha might have been right all along.

  All we could do now was sit and wait for her to come home and hope that Nick had persuaded her she should tell us what was going on.

  Chapter 17

  Samantha

  I kicked off my heels and walked down the hallway of my dad’s house to the kitchen where I could see a light on.

  ‘Are you home, Dad?’ I shouted.

  ‘In here, love,’ he called back.

  Walking into the room, I was met by the sight of him and Gabriel sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea each. The sight took me back almost sixteen years.

  My eyes were drawn to Gabriel. He was wearing one of his finely tailored suits, his shirt open at the collar, a glimpse of one of his tattoos peeking out. I took a deep breath and willed my heart to stop racing. The two of them stared at me, as though they were waiting for something from me.

  ‘What are you two doing in here? I feel like I’m sixteen years old and I’m in trouble,’ I said, thinking of the many nights I had arrived home after my curfew to find the two of them waiting for me, and how I’d try and pretend to be completely sober, but eventually end up breaking into fits of giggles.

  ‘Gabriel just stopped by. We had some business to discuss,’ my father said. But Gabriel continued to stare at me and I had the feeling there was something I was missing.

  ‘Then why do I still feel like I’ve done something wrong?’ I asked as I walked to the refrigerator and took out the jug of filtered water.

  ‘Have you?’ Gabriel asked with a cock of his eyebrow.

  I frowned at him but the area between my thighs started to thrum with energy and anticipation. There was something about the low rumble of his voice that reverberated throughout my whole body. ‘No.’

  ‘How was your dinner, love?’ my dad interrupted our awkward exchange.

  ‘Lovely, thanks, Dad. It was nice to get out.’ Was that why Gabriel was here and scowling at me? Did he think I’d gone on a date?

  ‘Dinner?’ Gabriel asked and my dad shot him a look.

  ‘Yes. With Nick and an old friend of
ours,’ I snapped as I walked to the cupboard and took out a glass before pouring myself a drink of cold water. I took a large gulp and then held the cool glass to my cheek.

  ‘Everything okay, Sam?’ Gabriel asked me.

  I wanted to say that no, it wasn’t. That having him sitting there in my kitchen, looking good enough to eat, and glaring at me with those incredible green eyes, was making me feel hot and faint – and horny! ‘Yes, why?’ I lied instead.

  He shrugged. ‘You look a bit flustered, that’s all.’

  I walked over to the table and took a seat. Nick had been right about them needing to know about the phone calls. ‘Actually, there’s something I should probably mention,’ I said as I ran my finger around the rim of my glass. ‘It’s probably nothing at all. But, well after everything that happened earlier this year …’

  ‘What is it?’ my dad asked.

  ‘There have been a few strange calls to the office. They come through reception, and it’s a man who calls himself Edward Lewis asking for me. But then when they get put through, the line goes dead.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’ my dad snapped.

  ‘Five or six weeks.’

  ‘What?’ he shouted. ‘Then why haven’t you said anything before now?’

  I sat back against my chair and groaned inwardly. My father’s temper was legendary and I didn’t feel like dealing with it right now.

  ‘Seb!’ Gabriel snapped. ‘Let her explain, mate.’

  I smiled at him, thankful for his interruption, although I could see his hands balled into fists and knew he was feeling just as angry as my father.

  ‘Well, at first, it didn’t seem like anything at all. The first couple of times it happened, I thought that maybe he’d just been cut off or something. But then it started happening every day. Now, none of my calls are put through to me and Beth takes a message instead, which is a pain in the arse. He still calls a few times a week but he never leaves a message.’

  ‘Have you contacted the police?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘Yes, although not officially. That Sergeant who dealt with the letters came and spoke to me. They don’t think it’s connected though. There are no threats made or anything like that. No heavy breathing. The line just goes dead. We’ve just got to monitor it. But, like I said, I don’t take any calls now. And there could well be a perfectly innocent explanation for it all.’

  ‘Or it could be much more sinister?’ Gabriel suggested. ‘I know you always thought there was someone else behind Garvey’s threatening letters, Sam?’

  ‘But that was Jackson, wasn’t it?’ my dad interrupted.

  ‘Sam didn’t think so,’ Gabriel said. ‘And I’m sorry I didn’t look into it more at the time.’

  ‘Who knows what it’s about. But, it doesn’t feel threatening. Just a bit weird. I feel fine about it. I only mentioned it to that Sergeant because he called in to discuss a domestic abuse case that I’m working on.’

  ‘He didn’t ask you out again, did he?’ Gabriel frowned.

  I looked down at my bump. ‘I think this kind of put him off.’

  He looked down at the table but I didn’t miss the flicker of a smile on his face.

  Suddenly, the sound of my dad’s phone was filling the kitchen. ‘

  It’s Kayleigh,’ he said, referring to his soon to be ex-girlfriend. They were engaged to be married but it seemed like their honeymoon period was already over and my dad was doing his best to let her down gently. She’d been trying to get him to commit to setting a wedding date, or at the very least moving in together, but he’d been dodging her for weeks now.

  Annoyingly, it seemed he was using my return to the family home as his excuse, when in fact, it was just the fact that he didn’t know how to tell her that he wanted to end things. Despite being engaged five times, my father was actually a massive commitment phobe, and he seemed to have an innate inability to remain monogamous.

  ‘I promised I’d pick her up. I’ve decided to tell her that it’s time for us both to move on. But we still need to talk about this more when I get back, Sam. I’m not happy,’ he said as he answered his phone and walked out of the kitchen.

  Then there was just Gabriel and I. ‘You sure you’re okay?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I know I let you down, Sam. But please don’t keep stuff like this from me. Don’t shut me out.’

  I felt the lump in my throat. ‘It’s hard to talk to you, Gabe.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because when I look at you, all I can think about is how much you’ve hurt me.’ I saw the pain in his face and I felt the tears springing to my eyes. ‘And I know that you’re hurting too. I know that you feel just as shit as I do, and then that makes me feel guilty.’

  ‘You have nothing to feel guilty for, Sam,’ he said as he reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘I’m the one who fucked up. I hate that I’ve hurt you like this. If there was some way I could make it better, I would. But please don’t cut me out of your life. I couldn’t handle that,’ he said softly and as much as I hated what he had done, I was reminded of all the reasons why I loved him so much. I hated to see him in pain.

  ‘I wouldn’t ever cut you out of my life,’ I admitted as I wiped a tear from my cheek. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘Your dad is going to insist on you being driven to and from work again, you know that?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘I know. I suppose it might not be so bad. Standing on the tube in the heat was getting a bit uncomfortable anyway. I think I’ve got too soft being chauffeured around everywhere. Besides, my last bodyguard turned out to be plenty of fun,’ I smirked at him.

  ‘Well, don’t be getting any similar ideas with your new one,’ he growled.

  I smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry. I’m still completely hung up on the last one,’ I said and then wondered why I’d said that. I needed to change the subject – and fast. ‘I don’t feel like talking to my dad when he gets back. I’d rather leave it until tomorrow when he’s calmed down. I think I’m going to go to bed,’ I said as I stood up.

  Gabriel nodded and stood up too. As I walked around the table, he reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling me towards him. He wrapped his arms around me and I responded in kind. ‘If anything ever happened to you …’ he breathed.

  I pressed my face against his chest. God, he smelled so good. My heart pounded as I stood there, breathing him in.

  ‘Don’t make me go, Sam,’ he whispered and my insides melted into hot liquid. I seriously considered letting him stay. There was nothing I would like more than to have him take me to bed. I wanted to fall asleep in his arms and wake up with his body against mine.

  ‘We can’t, Gabe. I can’t do this.’

  ‘Just give me tonight. No sex. Just sleep. Just me and you.’

  I looked up at him. He looked so tired, there were dark circles under his eyes and lines on his face that I was sure hadn’t been there a few weeks before. I wondered if he’d been sleeping at all these past six weeks.

  ‘Just sleep,’ I agreed.

  I stepped back from him and took hold of his hand before leading him up the stairs.

  Chapter 18

  Gabriel

  I followed Samantha upstairs and into her bedroom with my heart hammering in my chest and my cock straining at the seam of my trousers. I closed the door behind us and watched as she started to peel off her clothes.

  I had never felt so out of my comfort zone. I was in charge, especially when it came to her body. But tonight wasn’t about fucking. It was just about being with her, and I didn’t know how to do that when we were hardly even speaking.

  ‘You coming to bed in your suit?’ she asked me as she took off her bra. Then she slipped under the covers, wearing just the tiniest scrap of black lace and I felt my dick twitch uncontrollably. I readjusted myself and then shrugged off my jacket.

  A minute later, I’d removed the rest of my clothes and shoes and slipped into bed beside her wearing just my bo
xers. I usually slept naked but my massive erection was getting in the way of my attempt to behave like a gentleman.

  I held up my arm and Samantha nestled against my chest. I pulled her close to me and closed my eyes. I was so fucking tired. She planted a soft kiss on my chest and I groaned. Then she draped her leg over me, her knee nudging at my groin.

  ‘Are you always hard?’ she purred.

  ‘Around you? Yes,’ I planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘But don’t think I don’t know the feeling is mutual, Sam. I know you’re desperate for it just as much as I am.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘You think I don’t know that you’re dripping wet?’

  ‘Well, you might suspect that I am, but you can’t know, because you promised no sex, remember?’

  I placed my hand under her chin and tilted her head up so I could whisper in her ear. ‘I don’t need to touch you to know that you’re ready, baby,’ I growled. ‘You smell so fucking good, you’re lucky I’m exhausted or I’d have my face buried in your delicious pussy.’

  She flushed pink and punched me lightly on the chest. ‘Has anyone ever told you, you have a filthy mouth,’ she laughed.

  ‘Only you,’ I said as I hugged her tighter. ‘Now, let me get some sleep before you make me break our no sex agreement.’

  I woke the following morning just as it started to get light. I hadn’t slept this well in weeks. Samantha’s warm body was still pressed against me. She murmured in her sleep and pushed her body closer to mine.

  I sucked in a breath and tried not to think about how good it would feel to be inside her. The promise I’d made about eight hours earlier now seemed impossible to keep. But, a promise was a promise and I had taken her trust for granted before and got my fingers well and truly burned.

  I kissed the top of her head and tucked her hair behind her ear. Her hair always smelled so beautiful. I considered untangling myself from her soft body as my erection was becoming increasingly painful. I wasn’t sure if it had subsided at all in the night. But it was worth the discomfort to hold her a while longer.