by Annie Dyer
Copyright
White Knight is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WHITE KNIGHT: A NOVEL
Copyright © 2018 by Annie Dyer
All rights reserved.
Editing by Michelle Areaux
Cover design by KP Designs
Published by Kingston Publishing Company
The uploading, scanning, and distribution of this book in any form or by any means—including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions of this work, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
White Night
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Dedication
To Suzanne and Elizabeth. May the legacy of SS Radio and PPFB continue.
White Night
White Knight: A company that is the target of an unwelcome takeover bid may search for a white knight, an alternative bidder that is acceptable to it.
Prologue
Claire
It was the first time in more than eighteen months that all six of my siblings were present under the same roof. That very fact, alone, would make my step-mother Marie look like all her Christmases had come at once, plus a throw in of birthdays and bar mitzvahs and may be a lottery win. To have all of us, suited and booted and trussed up like Barbie dolls, celebrating the career of the man who was the love of her life, meant she looked like she’d won the lottery after a quadruple roll over.
I watched my four brothers pose for a photograph with my dad, all of them looking ridiculously smart. Jackson, my second eldest brother, grinned like a mad man when his eyes fell on the woman who was soon to be his fiancée, and the marketing guru who had arranged this event. Vanessa Moore had changed his life, managing to make him see that there was more to his existence than just work. Vanessa’s friend, Sophie, had spent the previous day attacking my brothers with tweezers and face masks – I had been promised photos – and they did look absolutely delicious: well-groomed and wearing tuxedos. Even Callum looked tamed after nine months in some remote African country. All to celebrate the retirement of my Grant Callaghan, the hot-shot lawyer and businessman.
And my dad.
“You’ve done an amazing job,” I said to Vanessa, who was wearing a dark blue fishtail gown, long hair trailing down her back in a mass of big curls. She was watching my brothers too, but her eyes were really only focused on Jackson. They were stupidly in love to the extent where they could barely stand to be apart. Even a few hours away from him for a prosecco and pedicure night at Sophie's required a text every twenty to thirty minutes to share sweet and nauseating chatter, unnecessary photos and queries to make sure she was having fun.
“It was all Alice,” Vanessa said, gesturing to the petite blonde who was working the room as if she was born to do it. “This is her favourite thing to do. I’ve told her she should be an event planner.”
“All credit to you for improving Jackson’s mood though,” I told her, noticing him staring at Van and smiling. I could see he was nervous, and I knew exactly why that was. He’d demanded dinner with Max and I the week before, seeming rather twitchy to begin with. We’d chatted as normal, discussing work and our parents and whether Callum would actually stay, then Jackson had blurted out that he wanted to propose to Vanessa and did we think it was too soon.
We’d both sat there, a little stunned, until Max had shaken his head and said it was nothing to do with time. I’d agreed and then cried as my youngest big brother would be getting married. If she said yes.
I watched as Jackson came over to her, pulling her into his arms and whispering something in her ear that made her blush and forget everyone else was there.
“It’s gone well tonight.”
I jumped, the voice surprising me as it was wont to do. “I swear to god, Killian, if you keep doing that I won’t need security any more. I’ll be undergoing therapy for having my nerves wrecked. Can you not put a collar and bell on you?”
I could smell him, his cologne, musky and so very male, and I felt his body heat even when he was ten feet away, which should cue me in to when he was around.
“Here’s another champagne.” He gave me a glass and I bit my tongue to stop the cutting remark that was about to launch.
“Thank you.”
He nodded, eyes scanning the room continually. He needn’t be here, except as a family friend. “When’s Jackson going to ask her?”
“Before the band starts,” I said. “There’s a room prepped just for them. Candles, flowers. I never expected him to be a non-closet romantic.”
“Maybe it just takes the right girl. Do you think she’ll say yes?”
“I do. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m an auntie within eighteen months too. I think Seph was organising a sweep. It’s a hundred quid to enter. Closest person wins,” I said, not looking at Killian. I rarely looked at Killian.
“Claire,” Marie swept by. “Can you and Killian rescue your father from the bank person. Why he was invited, I don’t know, but he’s discussing investments and your dad’s half cut so will probably agree to anything.” Marie smiled and floated off to continue mingling.
“Let’s go stop him from locking up your inheritance.” He put his hand on the small of my back, the heat seeping straight through the thin material I’d chosen for tonight, a floaty number with a plunging neckline that had required tape to ensure there was no embarrassing moments of exhibitionism. Not that I was bothered, but I didn’t want to enforce my C-cups on the general public.
I saw Jackson slip away with Vanessa, leading her out of the main room. My father watched him, the man from the bank still talking. “Dad,” I said, linking my arm through his. “I think it’s time.” He knew. Jackson had asked our father if it was okay to propose to Van tonight as he didn’t want to steal his moment. Dad had liked the idea, liking the bottle of whisky Jackson had brought even more. We walked to the doorway, stopping to chat to various people on the way. A stunning blonde wearing a skin tight red dress grabbed Killian’s arm and tried to instigate a conversation, but he politely disengaged himself, resuming his position so he could either celebrate as Jackson and Vanessa came through, or console Jackson as any good friend would.
“They could be a while,” Killian said quietly so my dad didn’t hear. “Max and I went round for poker night last week; Jackson went upstairs to check something with Van – he didn’t explain what – and came back down forty-five minutes later looking a lot more relaxed.”
“I really don’t want to think of my brother and friend sneaking in a quickie right now. It’s bad enough when Van cracks that smile, the one that says she’s been up all-night fucking, and tha
t’s without me allowing my brain to connect that smile to my brother,” I said, grimacing.
Killian laughed in a way that I knew he was finding something amusing that I was unaware of. I elbowed him in the stomach. He was huge, a mountain of a man, with thick fair hair and a dense blonde beard. I’d been hitting him since I was seventeen and I’d never asked myself why.
“I think you’re jealous,” he said.
I eyed him. “Of what?”
“Vanessa’s getting laid and you’re not.”
I chewed my tongue but before I could come up with a suitable snarky response Jackson and Vanessa emerged through to door, together and wrapped around each other as if getting engaged had turned them into Siamese twins. They were joined together for most of their spare time.
A loud cheer was led by Marie and Payton, the rest of the room catching on fairly quickly, which was no mean feat for four hundred guests.
“She said yes,” I heard Jackson say. Vanessa stood glued next to him, looking up at him with complete love in her eyes.
“We clearly did something right with bringing you up if you managed to persuade this wonderful lady to marry you,” my father said, shaking Jackson’s hand and kissing Vanessa’s cheek.
I smiled, my eyes filled with tears, utterly happy for them and completely cut with jealousy at the same time. “Congratulations,” I said, moving forward into the hubbub of my family. “Let me see the ring.”
Vanessa held out her hand and I recognised our mother’s engagement ring. Jackson had checked with us – me, Max and Callum, and we’d all been happy for him to give it to Van. I hugged her, feeling my eyes overflow.
Over her shoulder I saw Killian, shaking Jackson’s hand and saying his congratulations. Jackson was pulled away by Max, and Killian looked over at me, our eyes catching and I understood exactly what he was saying, his face like stone.
“You’ll have sisters, and irritating brothers,” I said to Vanessa. “Package deal.”
“I can’t wait,” she said, admiring the ring. “I was so surprised.”
“Really? No one else was!”
Vanessa laughed. “Clearly. It was a good job I said yes.”
Seph shimmied over, and I realized he'd chosen to wear his old glasses rather than his usual contacts. I felt for a moment that I'd been shoved back in time before my model-worthy brother had looked quite so fantastic. I half expected to see acne speckling his forehead. “So, when am I going to be an uncle?”
Vanessa smacked him arm.
“You’re allowed to hit him harder than that,” I said. I looked up to where Killian had been, but he had disappeared. I checked behind me and found no sign, which was odd as either he or one of his employees were my shadows since I’d taken on the Katie Worthington case. “Where’s Killian?”
“He’s had to make a phone call,” Seph said. “He didn’t look too happy.”
I didn’t think that the phone call was why he wasn’t happy. “Excellent. I’ve lost my babysitter for a bit.” The band started up and Jackson led a half-embarrassed Vanessa to the dancefloor to a round of applause. They looked beautiful, swaying together as the band played. My father and Marie joined them, then other couples, Seph and Payton who were my twin siblings, Callum and Ava who was the youngest of us and Max, stepped up as well. All of my world together.
Almost.
Chapter One
Claire
“There’s something else I need to tell you.”
Rain bounced against my office window, rhythmic and loud and a suitable soundtrack to my life at this current moment in time. A statement like the one Katie Worthington had just made was not my favourite thing to hear from a client. It was loaded, full of warning signs and I felt my eyebrow twitch.
Katie nervously picked at her fingers, nails which were painted every few days chewed down too far. I looked at her and smiled sympathetically. This was going to be one of the most challenging and multifaceted cases I’d had in my career and each week had brought yet another curveball to add to the layers of complexity. “Tell me,” I said, encouragingly. She was no longer the woman portrayed in the media: her skin was pale and lacked lustre, her hair hung lifelessly around her shoulders, roots visible and hair extensions poking through and today she wore no make-up, except yesterday’s mascara.
“I think I’m pregnant.”
I stood up and walked around my desk as her shoulders began to shake and tears fell as heavily as the raindrops outside. She grabbed onto the chair as she got to her feet and then clutched on to me as I hugged her, feeling that she was too thin and bony. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her, and it would be, that I could make sure of, but I didn’t know how long it would take to be okay, or what we were going to have to go through to get there.
Eventually, she let me go and sat back down in the antique leather chair that had belonged to my grandfather, a previous partner in Callaghan Green, the law firm that had been owned by my family for more than a century. Now it was run by my second eldest brother, Jackson, while another three of my siblings were all partners in the firm too, specialising in different areas of law. I loved my family and I loved working with them, except when they irritated me, which to be fair, was relatively frequently.
“Are you going to ask me if it’s Dean’s?” Katie said, clutching her hands, her eyes still pooled with tears.
I wished I didn’t have to but her divorcing one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in London meant that I had no choice. This was going to ensure that tonight, at least, was sleepless. Not that I ever slept much, not since I was in my second year at university. “Yes,” I said simply.
“It’s his. He will want a paternity test. He will want custody.” Her expression was pained and I ached for her. Pregnancy shouldn’t be like this: it should have been exciting for her, full of love and joy. Not dread. “I think I’m two months gone. It must have been the last time that I slept with him.”
“Have you been to your doctor yet?” I said, trying to keep my emotional distance but aching to cry for her. My siblings, friends and colleagues saw me as the ambitious workaholic, the prickly family lawyer who hung husbands out to dry and made pre-nups vanish like they had never existed. You had to appear tough to coach someone through a divorce or help mediate custody of children who were caught completely in the crossfire of a war they never should’ve been a part of. And I was - tough. But every case had my heart.
Because the man I had given my heart to couldn’t have it anymore.
“No. You’re the first person I’ve told. I’ve been in denial for a month. I put down missing my periods to stress, but I’d started being sick. I haven’t done a test and I know I should but I can’t…” She looked down at her hands. “If it says I am I have decisions to make. Big ones.”
I gulped a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. “It’s a big decision either way and you do have a little time. Is there anyone you can talk to?”
Katie shook her head. “I can’t trust anyone. Even my own parents. He’s contacted them three times, via other people, to issue threats if I don’t go back to him. I know they’re threats – he’s made it sound like I’m in the wrong, that my mental health is questionable and maybe it is.”
“What’s he said exactly?” I asked, glad to get away from the topic of her pregnancy for a few moments at least.
“That the scandal I was causing would jeopardise my father’s job. Dean knows the chief executive where my dad works and I suspect he’s invested in the company. My dad didn’t tell me the finer details of what was passed onto him, just that it was hurting all of them by me being so pig-headed,” she bit her lip. “They have no idea of how controlling and manipulative Dean is. Everyone sees him as being this perfect business man who is constantly supporting charities, not sleeping with seventeen-year olds into submission or knocking his wife about when she won’t fuck who he says on his command.”
I winced. Some of the details of the abuse she’d suffered had already been given. I’d recorded her ov
er several hours over several days, not knowing yet who was going to transcribe it or when she was going to go to the police. She wanted to divorce him, but the pre-nup would leave her with nothing except a tarnished reputation and her name dragged through the sewers of the gutter press. And there was more; more that she refused to tell me.
“How could I bring a baby into this mess, Claire?” she said, wiping away tears. “Part of me longs for it. I think about it growing inside me and wonder if it will be a boy or a girl and I love it already. But then I think what sort of life it would have if Dean somehow gets custody. You know he’s got medical records and enough money to make it seem as if I’m unfit. How can I put myself and a baby through that?”
Thoughts sprinted through my head considering a multitude of possibilities and potential outcomes. “Okay,” I said. “I need you to take a holiday. Get away from the city. I don’t need you here to speak with you, and when we start to issue proceedings I don’t want you anywhere about at first. We need to get you settled somewhere, registered with a doctor, seeing a counsellor – because you need it – and have you undergone a mental health assessment in preparation for what Dean might throw at us.”
She looked panicked. “But I can’t just up and leave. I have two events with my charities next week and where would I go?”
I bit my bottom lip and told my heart to slow down, thinking quickly, logically but as more than a lawyer. I liked Katie; if she hadn’t been my client we would’ve been friends. “My parents have a house an hour or so drive away. They have a spare cottage you can use and you wouldn’t be too far away. I just need to make a call.”
“Would he be able to find me there?”
“Potentially,” I said honestly. “He knows I’m acting for you. It wouldn’t take long for his lawyers to find what properties people around you own and find out where you’re staying. You have security.” My brothers had already engaged a bodyguard to keep an eye on Katie, and I’d had someone ‘getting to know me’ for the past few weeks because my over-protective older brothers were nothing if not fucking irritatingly thorough.
