Fallen Angel (The London Ruthless Series Book 2)

by Sadie Kincaid

  I nodded. Phil was right. I knew all too well why even the strongest of women felt powerless against men like Milton Carver.

  ‘So, in a nutshell, he’s desperate for money and he’s a sadistic fucker?’ I said as I ran a hand over my jaw.

  ‘Yep,’ Phil replied as he took a mouthful of his coffee. ‘He’s dangerous, mate. I’d tell you to be careful, but I’m sure you’ve dealt with worse.’

  Chapter 48

  Gabriel

  I’d had one of my drivers, Scott, pick me up from the Service Station after my meeting with Phil. I had a meeting to get to in the middle of the city and it was always a nightmare to find somewhere to park.

  I asked him to make a quick detour to Samantha’s office. I was still planning on buying her a car but we were having trouble agreeing on the safest one. I’d seen the car I’d suggested on the front of a car magazine while I’d been waiting for Scott to pick me up and had bought it for her – along with a packet of M&M’s to sweeten the deal.

  Scott pulled over outside the offices of Donovan Cook.

  ‘I’ll only be a minute,’ I said to him as I picked up the bag from the seat beside me. Then I opened the passenger door and climbed out before jogging up the steps of Donovan Cook. I came face to face with Samantha’s business partner, Nick as I walked into the reception.

  ‘Forgotten something?’ he said with a smile.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Samantha only left for her appointment ten minutes ago. Did she forget something?’

  I frowned at him. ‘I was just dropping something off for her. She said she was in court this afternoon.’

  Nick’s face turned a few shades paler than it already was. ‘What?’ he stammered.

  ‘Where did she tell you she was going?’ I snapped.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to get in between anything–’

  ‘Where is she, Nick?’ I interrupted him.

  He blinked at me. ‘She said she had a doctor’s appointment. I assumed you were taking her. Maybe she just decided to go on her own?’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘But she doesn’t have a doctor’s appointment. At least none that I know of. I spoke to her earlier to see if she wanted to me to pick her up from work and she specifically told me she’d be in court all afternoon. In fact, she told me you were giving her a lift home,’ I snarled at him. What the fuck was going on and why had she lied to me?

  Nick shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘How did she seem when she left? Was she okay?’ I barked.

  ‘Yes, she was fine,’ he said. ‘I feel like shit for dropping her in it. Look, Gabriel, I don’t know what’s going on with the two of you, but I’d rather stay out of it. She’s my best friend, and I’ve come to see you as a friend too. Please don’t put me in the middle of the two of you.’

  I scowled at him. Where the hell had she gone? My heart started to hammer in my chest.

  What if something had happened to her?

  I turned around without another word to Nick and walked back to the car. I took out my mobile phone as soon as I was sitting in the passenger seat of Scott’s car.

  My overriding fear was that she was in some danger. I opened the find my Iphone app on my screen and entered her details. It felt invasive to be tracking her movements, but she knew I had the app and I had her ID. If the technology was available, then I would be a fool not to use it.

  ‘Drive,’ I said to Scott as I waited for her location to show up on my phone. After a few seconds, it did. She was in a coffee shop in Chelsea, on the other side of the city. Nowhere near the court she claimed to be working in. What the hell was she doing there?

  I dialled her number, my fear and anger growing each with each ring.

  ‘Hi, Gabe,’ she said when she finally picked up.

  She sounded fine. I could hear the noise of the coffee shop in the background. I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. Surely, there was a perfectly legitimate explanation for her lying to me? ‘Hi, baby. Just calling to see how you are.’ I said, my jaw clenched in anger.

  ‘I’m great,’ she said. ‘But I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can I call you back later?’

  ‘Of course. Where are you?’ I asked as casually as I could. This was her opportunity to come clean.

  ‘In court,’ she said without missing a beat.

  ‘Oh? Sounds a bit noisy?’

  ‘I’m in the coffee shop on the ground floor. We’re just waiting to go in.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ I replied as my blood started to thunder around my body. Liar! ‘I’ll see you at home later?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll pick us up some steak for tea,’ she said breezily, as though she hadn’t just told me a blatant lie.

  ‘Bye, Sam,’ I said and ended the call.

  I put my phone back in my pocket and slammed the side of my fist against the door panel.

  ‘Something wrong, Boss?’ Scott asked.

  ‘Yes, something is very wrong,’ I snarled but I didn’t elaborate any further and Scott had the good sense not to ask. I had a good mind to have him drive me to the coffee shop she was sitting in but I couldn’t miss my meeting. Besides that, I was too fucking angry to confront her right now. I still hoped there was a good explanation for what had just happened, but that didn’t make me any less furious at that moment.

  I hated liars.

  Chapter 49

  Samantha

  I slid my phone back into my handbag and swallowed. Why had I just lied like that? Why hadn’t I just told him the truth? At least half of it? I didn’t know, but I did know that the look on the face of the woman sitting opposite me was making me incredibly nervous. It was the half smile she’d given me as she’d sat down that had done it.

  Smug bitch!

  Jennifer Sloane had looked at me like she knew something I didn’t and it made me falter momentarily. It made me doubt him – if only for a second.

  ‘Hello, Samantha,’ she’d said sweetly when she’d walked into the coffee shop we’d agreed to meet at. Just as I’d been about to respond, my phone started ringing on the table. I’d looked down to see Gabriel’s handsome face flashing on the screen. I glanced around me before I answered. Did he know I was here?

  Then he’d asked me where I was and I’d lied outright and that wasn’t like me. I didn’t lie to him. I’d only done it once before and that was when I’d told him I didn’t love him and I didn’t want to be with him. But that had been different – that had been to protect both of us from my sadistic ex-husband.

  I had contemplated not answering at all. I’d already told him I was in court and so it wouldn’t be unusual for me not to answer my phone. But it could have been something important – and if it was, he would get a message to me somehow. He’d phone Nick at my office, or the court. I’d had to pick up just in case.

  When I did answer, I should have told him the truth. He would have been angry with me, but he couldn’t have done anything to stop me now.

  I hadn’t wanted Jennifer to hear us arguing though. It would have felt like she had some insight into our lives that I didn’t want her to have. I didn’t want her to know anything about us. I wanted her out of my life forever. But, to do that, I needed closure.

  I put my handbag on the floor and lifted my gaze to meet hers. She looked me directly in the eye.

  ‘Hello again, Jennifer,’ I said.

  She gave me that cocky half smile again and I resisted the urge to slap it off her face. Gabriel had always made out that she was this meek, mild woman who was clingy and lacking confidence. But she was far from it.

  I looked down at her pregnancy bump. She was close to the end now and it was obvious. I already knew that Gabriel was telling me the truth, and this was just added confirmation. But she would never know that I had doubted him again because of her.

  ‘Just how exactly did you expect to cover up your lie for much longer than you did?’ I asked her as I leaned forward. ‘You’re clearly a lot further on
than I am. You could hide it at first, but now …’ I didn’t need to finish my sentence.

  She shrugged. ‘To be honest, I didn’t realise Gabriel would know the exact date your baby was conceived because I didn’t realise you two were separated when he and I got together.’

  Her words felt like a slap in the face. ‘So, you thought he was in a relationship with me, and you went after him anyway?’

  She laughed. ‘Went after him? He didn’t need much encouragement, I can assure you.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ I snapped. ‘He was drunk and you just happened to be there.’

  She shrugged as she took a sip of her coffee.

  ‘And that was no coincidence, was it? That you just happened to be in his club that night? You planned to seduce him all along so you could try and convince him you were having his baby?’

  ‘Like I said, he didn’t need much encouragement. I suppose I’ve still got whatever it is he wants,’ she said with that bloody smug grin on her face. ‘Whatever he doesn’t get from you.’

  It was my turn to laugh now. ‘You can’t seriously believe that?’

  She frowned at me.

  ‘He was hurting because we’d split up. He hardly ever drinks but that was why he was so drunk that night.’

  ‘He wasn’t that drunk.’

  ‘But you said yourself he was so wasted he might not have put the condom on right. That was your excuse for why he’d got you pregnant.’

  She blinked at me. She had no comeback for that.

  ‘So, I’ll ask you again, how long did you honestly think you could get away with your little charade for?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I had no idea he’d be so interested in the baby’s gestation and what was supposed to be happen at how many weeks. He never used to be so bloody dull. That kind of put a dent in my plan.’

  ‘So, you just tried to destroy our lives and our relationship on a wing and a prayer? Hoping that he wouldn’t even bother putting the dates together in his mind?’

  ‘It wasn’t quite as ill thought out as you think. I’m no fool, Samantha! I was going to tell him the baby was born a few weeks early. I was planning on going into the hospital alone and pretending I couldn’t get hold of him. I had it all worked out. Kind of,’ she said with another shrug.

  ‘Kind of!’ I spat. ‘You’re fucking unbelievable. Just how stupid do you think we are?’

  ‘We,’ she snorted. ‘You’ve barely been together five minutes and you’re calling yourselves a we! I was married to him, darling. I know exactly what makes him tick. I know exactly what he needs – and it’s not you,’ she hissed.

  ‘Really? I don’t think you know him at all, Jennifer. I think you know a small part of him. A very specific part of him that he wanted you to see.’

  ‘You’re not his type at all. He likes submissive women who will bend to his will,’ she snarled. ‘Has he tied you up yet? Spanked you with his belt?’ she said as she sat back with a look of triumph on her face.

  I sat back too feeling temporarily winded. I had to admit that stung. Knowing that he’d done those things with her too, hurt me. But of course he had. They’d been married for three years.

  I looked at the woman in front of me and made my peace with the fact that Gabriel had once loved her. But I knew with one hundred percent certainty that he didn’t any longer. Whatever had been between them was long over.

  It was me he loved now. That knowledge suddenly made me feel like I was invincible.

  I placed my left hand on the table and saw her eyes darting to my engagement ring. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you we’re engaged. So, he’ll be my husband soon,’ I said with a smile. ‘I might not be his usual type, Jennifer, but I am the woman he’s in love with. I am the woman who gets to spend the rest of her life with him.’

  I picked up my handbag and stood up. ‘I don’t know what I expected to gain from meeting with you today, but I can guess why you agreed to it. You wanted to create some tension or distance between Gabriel and me. You wanted me to doubt him. To doubt us. But you’ve done the exact opposite. You have shown me how much I trust him.’

  She looked up at me in shock, her mouth hanging open.

  ‘Bye, Jennifer,’ I said and then I turned on my heel and walked out of the coffee shop.

  Chapter 50

  Samantha

  I went straight home after my meeting with Jennifer and decided to make a start on dinner. My chat with her had been cathartic. I now saw her for the manipulative, desperate woman that she was.

  If I was honest, I had always felt threatened by her. If not by her, than by her memory. She was the first woman Gabriel her ever loved. But, now I saw the situation for what it truly was. She was his past, and she had no place in his future. That was my domain.

  Gabriel walked into the kitchen as I was just about to take the steak I’d bought for dinner from the fridge.

  ‘Evening, handsome,’ I said with a smile.

  He didn’t smile back. He placed his car keys on the worktop and glared at me. I could feel the anger radiating from him as he stalked across the room. In two long strides he was standing before me. I closed the fridge and looked up at him. His eyes burned into mine.

  Shit!

  He must have found out where I’d been today. I swallowed and stood fixed to the spot as he held me captive with the ferocity of his gaze.

  ‘When we first got together, you presented me with a list of your demands. Do you remember?’ he growled.

  I licked my bottom lip as my legs trembled. Not from fear, but from anticipation. I wondered if a part of me enjoyed pushing his buttons so much because he was smoking hot when he was angry.

  ‘I do,’ I said softly, recalling our conversation where I had reeled off all of the things I’d said I would never allow him to do. Then I had told him how I would never be his property, that he would never get to tell me what to do, and how I would never belong to him. It had been a remnant from my awful marriage and stemmed from my desire to be fiercely independent.

  But over the time we’d been together, Gabriel had broken down each of those barriers one by one. He had broken me down piece by piece and rebuilt me into the woman I was now. The woman who was squaring up to this six foot two wall of muscle and anger and fire, and not for one millisecond feeling an ounce of fear or uncertainty.

  I was sure of him.

  Of myself.

  Of us.

  ‘Do you remember I had rules too?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  ‘And what were they?’ he said in that low growl that resonated through every cell of my body.

  ‘That I should let you fuck me senseless at least twice a day–’

  ‘Epic fail,’ he interrupted me.

  I raised one eyebrow at him. ‘How so?’

  ‘Have I fucked you every single day since you made me that promise?’

  ‘Well, no. But that was because we were broken up. And whilst the first time was all on me, the last time was because you fucked your ex-wife instead.’

  He moved a few centimetres closer to me and my breath caught in my throat. I felt the heat from him deep in my core. The closeness of our bodies had every nerve in mine on edge and desperate for his touch. Not to mention, he looked and smelled good enough to eat.

  ‘And what was my only other rule, Sam?’ he asked, ignoring my attempt to get a rise from him.

  I swallowed again. God, he was so bloody intense. ‘Never to lie to you,’ I whispered.

  ‘So, where the fuck where you this afternoon?’ he snarled.

  ‘I went to see Jennifer,’ I replied.

  ‘Why?’ he said with a scowl.

  ‘Because I needed to speak to her. I needed to hear her side of things.’

  ‘You didn’t believe my side then?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ I said honestly. ‘But I still needed to hear it from her. I needed to know why she did what she did, Gabe.’

  ‘So, why didn’t you just tell me that?’
<
br />   ‘You’d have talked me out of it, wouldn’t you?’ I challenged him.

  ‘Yes. But that doesn’t excuse you lying to me, Sam. I asked you where you were and you lied to me as though it was as easy as breathing.’

  ‘I was with her when you called. I didn’t know what else to say,’ I said and suddenly I felt awful about what I’d done. I’d known it was a big deal earlier – but I hadn’t realised just how angry it would make him. It was a huge red flag for him. He hated liars. So did I.

  ‘What else do you lie to me about?’ he growled.

  ‘Nothing, Gabe,’ I said as I stared into his dark eyes. ‘I swear. I’m sorry I lied to you today. And I promise it will never happen again.’

  ‘Tell me why I should believe you?’ he snapped, his eyes narrowed as he glared at me.

  ‘Because you know me, Gabe. You know I’m not a liar, despite what happened today.’

  He lowered his head and leaned close to me so his lips grazed my ear as he spoke. ‘I think I’ve made a big mistake in being too lenient with you, Sam.’

  ‘What do you mean,’ I breathed as I felt goose-bumps prickle along my forearm.

  ‘I told you once that I need to be in control. I told you that I wanted you to do as you’re told, when you’re told. I know that’s not always easy for you, so I made adjustments. But, I think maybe in doing that, I’ve become too soft.’

  He pressed his body close to mine and my insides trembled. ‘I don’t think anything about you could ever be considered soft,’ I said as I looked down between us. His rock hard erection was currently straining at the zip of his trousers.

  He moved his head so he could look into my eyes again and I swore he could see into my soul. ‘Maybe? But my punishments have been,’ he said and took a deep breath.

  He stood there for a moment, licking his lower lip as he studied my face. I realised he was deciding what to do next. ‘I need to make a call. It won’t take me long. By the time I’m done, I want you naked and upstairs waiting for me.’

  ‘Then what?’ I asked as my pulse quickened.