“Your brothers were right about you,” she spoke softly. “You really are a superhero. An idiot, but also a superhero.”
Gabriel scowled. “Thanks. I think.”
Angel was too overjoyed at having Daniel safely returned to her to berate Gabriel any further for what she considered to have been his reckless behavior today. They would have plenty of time to talk once they were all safely back in England.
“That wasn’t very polite, Mummy,” Daniel turned to whisper loudly.
She had hardly been able to believe her eyes when, sure enough, within an hour of her sitting down on the beach staring out to sea, a small boat had rounded the headland, the hulking figure of Zander easily recognizable at the tiller, two other figures seated in front of him, one almost as big as he was, the other one much smaller.
Gabriel and Daniel.
No Lena.
But Angel hadn’t really expected there to be, after Clive’s taunting remark when she asked the whereabouts of Daniel’s nanny. Gabriel had confirmed the nanny wasn’t on the estate, only Daniel. Angel wasn’t looking forward to explaining Lena’s disappearance to her family. How to even begin to go about doing that was something she would have to think about once they were all safely away from here.
She had stood as soon as she spotted the boat, waving her arms and shouting, tears of happiness and relief streaming down her cheeks. Daniel had attempted to stand too once he saw her, rocking the boat precariously until Gabriel persuaded him to sit again.
Angel hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Daniel as she waded out into the water to meet the boat, ready to catch Daniel as he launched himself off the side and into her waiting arms, both of them crying and then laughing at the same time.
And she had Gabriel to thank for returning Daniel to her safely. “No, it wasn’t, was it?” she answered her son ruefully. “I apologize for calling you an idiot, Gabriel.” For Daniel’s benefit, she only allowed her tone to convey “even if I still think you are one.”
Daniel was a little thinner than he had been five days ago, he still wore the clothes he had on the day he and Lena were taken, and his face and hands looked in need of a wash, but otherwise, he appeared unharmed. Physically, at least. Who knew what psychological repercussions there would be?
“Daddy took Lena away when we got to Majorca and locked me in my bedroom,” Daniel confided in that loud voice that was his version of whispering. “I was scared on my own. Daddy forgot to feed me a lot of the time and was acting strange.”
Angel saw Gabriel’s jaw tighten, whether at hearing Clive referred to as Daniel’s daddy or because of the other man’s treatment of Daniel and his nanny, she was unsure. “We can talk about that some more on the plane home, Daniel,” she soothed.
“Is Gabriel coming too?” There was an edge of anxiety in his tone.
“I’m coming too,” Gabriel was the one to reassure him. “In fact—”
“Not now, Gabriel,” Angel warned. This was hardly the time or place to explain to Daniel that he was his father and not Clive.
Gabriel’s eyes were as hard as the emeralds they resembled as he glanced at her before turning back to Daniel. “The two of you will be staying with me for a while once we get back to England.”
Daniel’s expression brightened. “Really?”
“Really,” Gabriel confirmed evenly, one raised eyebrow daring Angel to disagree with him.
Why would she? Angel no more wanted to return to the rented apartment than Daniel did. They weren’t safe there. Even less so now they had a vengeful Clive looking for them. Because she had no doubt her husband would follow them and try to take Daniel away from her again. Daniel had been Clive’s only guarantee she wouldn’t release the evidence she had against him to the police.
“That will be fun, won’t it, Daniel?” Angel was trying very hard not to crush Daniel against her and keep him crushed against her. A sign of her desperation and happiness, which was sure to alarm her young son.
But it was so good to have him back with her. Such a relief, apart from his slightly bedraggled state, to see that Daniel was unharmed.
She had no idea how to even begin to thank Gabriel for what he had done today. Or if he would want her to.
“I’ll sit with him for a while if you would like to go and talk to Gabriel,” Caleb offered quietly as he stood in the aisle of the plane beside her seat. “I’ll give you a call if he wakes up.” Daniel had fallen asleep in the window seat almost as soon as they had changed out of their wet clothes and eaten breakfast together, probably from exhaustion and a release of tension at no longer being with the daddy who was “acting strange.”
Whether it was because Daniel had become used to seeing so many of Clive’s men these past few days or just the normality of once again being with his mother, Daniel had taken the appearance of Gabriel’s men in stride. Ash, Caleb, and Ethan possibly more so, because of their resemblance to the man Daniel obviously now considered his new hero.
Ash, rather than Gabriel, was piloting the jet back to England. No doubt because Gabriel was also feeling exhausted, after piloting the jet to Majorca yesterday, making love with Angel last night, and then safely escaping Clive’s estate with Daniel today. Angel had yet to hear what had happened when he and Clive met, or how he had managed to escape with Daniel.
She glanced at the back of the plane, where Gabriel was strapped into an aisle seat, with the only vacant seat on the plane next to him. No doubt the other men on board had sensed he didn’t want company.
Gabriel’s head was resting against the back of the seat and his eyes were closed, as if he was sleep. And yet Angel knew he wasn’t. She knew what Gabriel looked like when he was asleep, and right now, his body was nowhere near relaxed enough for that to be the case.
“I would, thank you.” She smiled at Caleb as she stood. He might be a little intense in manner, but she had absolutely no doubt she could trust him to watch Daniel for her. “He seems to be sleeping quite deeply.”
Caleb made himself comfortable in her seat before glancing at the little boy beside him. “His likeness to Gabriel is remarkable.”
“It is.” The similarity was even more noticeable when Daniel and Gabriel were together. No wonder Clive had made the connection between biological father and son so readily. So much so, he had instructed Jack Kramer and his associate to kill Gabriel.
The belligerent Kramer was seated beside Zander toward the front of the plane, all but two of the Knight Security men traveling back to England with them, those other two left to keep watch on Clive and his men. It was all Angel could do to stop herself from walking up the aisle of the plane and punching Kramer on the nose for his involvement in stealing her son. Instead, she settled for the satisfaction of Kramer knowing he had been tricked into believing she was dead, and as a result revealing so much to Gabriel.
She gave Caleb a distracted smile before moving tentatively down to the back of the plane.
“I’m not in the mood to talk, if that’s why you’re here,” he muttered without opening his eyes.
“How did you know it was me?”
His lids opened abruptly and he looked at her with cold green eyes. “I would recognize your perfume in a crowd of ten thousand.”
“I’m not wearing— Oh.” Color warmed her cheeks as she realized what perfume he was referring to.
He gave a hard smile. “Still want to talk to me?”
Her jaw firmed. “Yes. Shift over,” she instructed with a pointed glance at the empty seat beside him.
His jaw tightened as he unclipped his seat belt before sliding into the adjoining seat. “Satisfied?”
Not exactly gracious or inviting, but Angel wasn’t about to be put off by his lack of welcome. “Now that everything is a little calmer I wanted to thank you properly for bringing Daniel back to me,” she said as soon as she had taken the seat next to him.
He gave their surroundings a mocking glance. “This is hardly the time or the place for a proper thank-you. Besid
es, you already thanked me,” he taunted.
“What…?”
“I’ll take last night as your thank-you.”
Gabriel thought their lovemaking…? “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Gabriel was still trying to decide what the hell was wrong with him. They had Daniel back, no one had been hurt in the rescue, and all but two of them were their way back to England. He should have been as happy as Angel obviously was.
Except he wasn’t.
Because he knew it wasn’t over. One thing he had learned from his brief meeting with Sinclair earlier was that the man was arrogance personified. So much so that Sinclair hadn’t recognized defeat when Gabriel was staring him in the face. Maybe because at the time, Gabriel had been tied up and two of Sinclair’s men were standing either side of him as Sinclair assured him he intended keeping Daniel and Angel.
Maybe megalomaniac more aptly described the older man. Or psychopath. Because Gabriel had sensed something cold and deadly inside Clive Sinclair. The will to destroy whatever and whoever stood in the way of what he wanted.
He had made it clear earlier today that what he wanted wasn’t just Daniel, but Angel back as his wife. That the two of them belonged to him in a way they had never, nor would they ever, belong to Gabriel.
It wasn’t going to happen, of course. Now that Angel knew exactly what sort of man Sinclair was, she was obviously terrified of the bastard and what he was capable of doing.
But Sinclair’s last comment still played on Gabriel’s mind, as it was no doubt supposed to. Gabriel knew that, and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about it anyway.
They could explain the situation to Daniel, that Gabriel was his real father. With the huge dose of hero worship the little boy currently had for Gabriel, that relationship might eventually work itself out.
Angel was a different matter.
Physically, Gabriel knew every part of her.
Emotionally and in every other way that mattered, he had no idea what was going on inside her head. Last night, the two of them had made love in the wild and passionate way they always had in the past, but Angel’s emotions, apart from the amazing sex, remained an enigma to him.
He knew what his own were for her. Nothing had changed for him in eight years. None of the other women he had taken to bed in that time, or the undoubted success of Knight Security, had succeeded in filling the void left by the loss of his Angel.
Sinclair, the bastard, had known that. Played on that when he taunted Gabriel with the years Angel had been his wife, sharing his bed, his life, along with Gabriel’s son.
It was standard tactics to hit where the torture victim was most vulnerable, Gabriel knew that; he had done the exact same thing himself to Kramer yesterday. Logically, Gabriel knew that. Emotionally, it destroyed him to think of Angel anywhere near Sinclair.
“There’s nothing wrong with me that a good fuck wouldn’t cure. How do you feel about joining the Mile High Club?” he bit out insultingly.
Her eyes widened in shock, but she quickly brought the emotion under control. “It’s passé,” she scoffed.
“Been there, done that?” he taunted.
“No!”
“Why don’t I believe you?” His voice was hard.
She frowned. “Why are you being so…so…”
“Crude?” he suggested. “Maybe because that’s what I am? A crude ex-soldier who, when the mission is over, likes to drain off the adrenaline with a good fuck.”
Angel flinched as images flooded her brain, of Gabriel with other women, when those dozens of missions she knew he had been on were over. “You weren’t a crude soldier. You were a major.”
“Who led by example,” he scoffed. “Sinking my cock between a willing woman’s hot thighs is the best way in the world to bleed off the tension after killing another man.”
Other images filled Angel’s head now. Broken and dead bodies, dozens of them, left in Gabriel’s wake. “Is that what you told your men?”
“Yes.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “Did you kill anyone today?”
He grimaced. “I made sure a few of them will never procreate.”
She snorted. “That’s probably a good thing!”
He eyed her mockingly. “So it’s okay to emasculate them but not to kill them?”
“I understand today was unpleasant for you—”
“Unpleasant?” His hand snaked out, and his fingers curled tightly about her wrist. “I’d call it more than fucking unpleasant to have to sit and listen to Sinclair telling me and half a dozen of his men how much you like being fucked. Roughly. In the mouth. In the pussy. Especially in the—”
“That’s a lie!” Angel gasped, knowing her face had gone pale. “We didn’t share a bed at all until after Daniel was six weeks old, and even then, it was—it was—” She gave a shake of her head. “If Clive likes rough sex, then it wasn’t with me.”
“You were his fucking wife! With emphasis on the fucking!”
She had known these recriminations had to come from Gabriel at some time. Knew the anger he felt toward her, for not believing him when he said he would be back, and the events that followed, would have to bubble up to the surface and be given vent at some time. But not now. Not here. They couldn’t discuss this now, when they were surrounded by over a dozen other men and their seven-year-old son.
She looked down at Gabriel’s fingers curled just short of pain about her wrist, his knuckles showing white against his darker skin. “You have every right to be angry with me. I know that. But no amount of apologizing from me will change what happened. It can’t—can’t make up for the years we lost.” Her voice quivered with emotion. “I can’t change the past, Gabriel.” Tears blurred her vision so that his face, the face she loved, was only a misty outline.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“Because—because…”
“Don’t mistake going to bed with me ‘for old time’s sake’ as anything more than it was.”
“You bastard!”
“Exactly.” He released her abruptly. “Now go back to your seat.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Angel,” he spoke quietly. “Physically or emotionally. I just want… I want to be left in peace. Is that too much to ask?” He sighed deeply.
“No.” She didn’t want to hurt him either, but it seemed they both succeeded in doing that without even trying. When they tried, it was even worse. And destructive. Totally destructive.
Gabriel was right. They couldn’t talk about this now. Maybe they never would be able to.
She nodded, holding on to the back of the seat in front as she stood up, not sure her legs were strong enough to support her after their hurtful conversation. They certainly shook as she made her way down the plane to where Caleb was sitting beside a still-sleeping Daniel.
Caleb stood to allow her to resume her seat. “It isn’t you he’s angry with,” he spoke softly.
“Yes, he is.” Angel nodded. “And he has every right to be. Some things are unforgivable.” She glanced at Daniel. “I denied him the first seven years of his son’s life, Caleb.”
“You were very young and very frightened for the future, and Gabriel was off rescuing me.”
She glanced up at him. “Gabriel told you that’s what happened?”
He gave a half smile. “Gabriel and I are close. Always have been. Besides, I asked.”
Angel’s smile was tearful. “It hasn’t been my experience that Gabriel always answers.”
Caleb placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “He’s slightly high on adrenaline right now. More than a little concerned for what’s going to happen in the future. Give him time, hmm?” He nodded before walking back to his own seat.
Angel was very much afraid that no amount of time was going to change how Gabriel now felt toward her.
Clive was a bastard. A lying bastard. Their sex life had been vanill
a at best, and in the last few years, it hadn’t even been that. Publicly, their marriage had remained a happy one; privately, Angel had seen very little of him. She had hoped it was because he had taken a mistress. As long as he left her alone, she hadn’t really cared.
And she should have cared.
Should have looked more deeply into why Clive was away so much and always so preoccupied when he was at home.
Preoccupied selling illegal drugs and weapons.
Selling young women’s lives.
Lena.
No matter what else happened, whether she and Gabriel ever worked things out, she had to find Lena and return her to her family. She had to make that right, at least.
Even if it felt as if nothing else in her life would ever be right again.
Chapter 10
“We aren’t going to London?”
“No.”
Angel was very aware of Daniel sitting in the back of the black SUV Gabriel had commandeered at the airport for the three of them. Daniel had fallen asleep again almost as soon as Gabriel drove the vehicle out of the private airport.
There had been several consultations in the cockpit of the plane between the Knight brothers during the flight back to England. None of the other brothers had raised an eyebrow as Gabriel put Angel and Daniel into the SUV once they landed at the private airport, so obviously, wherever they were going had been discussed and decided by all four of the brothers.
But not Angel.
Gabriel had barely acknowledged her presence during the remainder of the flight or once they landed. An attitude she had accepted because she had no idea how to even begin to break through the emotional barriers Gabriel now had in place.
He spoke easily enough with Daniel as he secured his seat belt in the back of the SUV, leaving Angel to climb into the passenger seat up front before he settled in beside her.
She realized as soon as they left the tiny airport that they weren’t going toward London. “Am I allowed to ask where we’re going? And why?”
Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2) Page 12
