Defying Asher (Knight Security 1)

by Carole Mortimer

  Her mother’s indignation might have been amusing if the situation wasn’t so dire.

  Lissa put her face up very close to her mother’s. “Stop fighting him and be quiet,” she hissed softly. “Those men are putting their lives at risk by going in there to deal with your murderous boyfriend.” Asher was one of those men, and if anything happened to him…

  Claudia’s eyes widened, but she did at least stop fighting Jonas’s hold on her. Enough so that he removed his hand from her mouth and then released her. “Have you all gone completely mad?” she demanded incredulously as she secured the towel over her breasts.

  “Malcolm killed Harvey and shot Daddy,” Lissa told her mother distractedly. All her own attention was centered on what was happening inside the apartment at the end of the hallway.

  Which seemed to be nothing at the moment.

  There were no shouts, no gunshots—although Lissa was happy for there not to be any of the latter. She had just expected there to be something.

  Why hadn’t she told Asher she loved him while she had the chance? He might not feel the same way about her, but if anything happened to him, at least he would have known how much he was loved.

  If he survived, she was going to tell him how she felt, and to hell with never allowing herself to feel vulnerable or putting her trust in another man ever again. She didn’t need to trust Asher to know she had fallen in love with him a year ago, and she loved him still, that no one and nothing was ever going to change that. Not saying the words wouldn’t make it any less the truth.

  “Why is it so quiet?” She turned worriedly to Jonas. Not that she wanted anyone to get shot, but this total silence was just…anticlimactic. It was also doing absolutely nothing for her already frayed nerves.

  “Give it a few minutes.” Jonas didn’t look concerned.

  Lissa wasn’t sure if that was just his fallback expression or if he genuinely felt that way.

  He glanced at the large watch on his wrist. “Has to be over soon, I need to pick Lily up from the theater.”

  Lissa almost smiled at the look of astonishment on her mother’s face. Yep, someone was definitely going to be very pissed when this was over.

  “Lily is his wife,” Lissa explained economically.

  “I don’t give a—” Claudia broke off as they could hear the elevator descending the elevator shaft and then quickly ascending again.

  Jonas immediately went into tense mode as he put the two women behind him.

  “Perhaps the police have arrived?” Lissa said hopefully.

  “Too soon,” Jonas dismissed, eyes narrowed as the elevator arrived on the penthouse floor and the doors began to open.

  “Daddy!” Lissa stared at her father in disbelief as he stepped out, closely followed by Ian Knight.

  “He refused to stay away once he knew what was happening here,” Asher’s cousin told Jonas as he put his gun away.

  “Gabriel and Ash won’t be happy.” The other man grimaced.

  “I take full responsibility for my actions,” Jack assured the two men, his disabled arm in a sling.

  “Thank God you’re here, Jack.” Claudia recovered quickly from the shock of the arrival of her ex-lover. “Talk some sense into these people, will you?” she appealed. “They seem to think that Malcolm is responsible for—” She broke off, eyes widening in shock as there came the sound of a shot being fired in her apartment. Followed by another one.

  “Ash told you to stay put.” Jacob grabbed hold of Lissa’s arm and held on as she would have run down the hallway, needing to see for herself that neither of those shots had hit Asher.

  “Do as Jonas says, baby,” Jack instructed tensely.

  “Asher could be dead.” Her eyes stung with unshed tears at that possibly being the case.

  “And if he isn’t, he’s going to be more than a little angry if you disobey his instruction and get hurt in the process.”

  “But—”

  “Ash isn’t dead,” Jonas assured her.

  “How can you possibly know that?” Lissa demanded, frantic with worry now.

  He still looked unconcerned. “I would know if one of our men was injured or dead.”

  Strangely Lissa believed him. There was something about Jonas, an unexplainable sixth sense, as if nothing escaped the notice of his calm blue eyes.

  “Do you think Malcolm is dead?” Claudia looked horrified at the possibility.

  “The men from Knight Security aren’t allowed to carry guns,” Lissa answered her mother disgustedly. “Malcolm is the only one armed. No doubt it’s the same gun he used to kill Harvey in NY and shoot Daddy in London.”

  “Little fucker,” Jack muttered.

  “You’re all insane.” Claudia announced in exasperation. “Malcolm is vanilla to the point of—” She gave Jack a quick glance before looking away again. “I’m telling you, Malcolm isn’t capable of killing anyone,” she amended coolly. “You’re all making a terrible mistake.”

  “Lissa is quite correct in saying no one from Knight Security is armed,” Jonas put in evenly. “Which means Arnold is the one doing the shooting.”

  “It isn’t unusual to own a gun in the States.”

  “This is the UK,” Lissa reminded her mother exasperatedly. “He shouldn’t even have a gun here, let alone use it.”

  “I might have started shooting too if a horde of men had burst into the apartment while I was sleeping,” Claudia snapped. “Malcolm must think we’re under attack.”

  She did have a point, Lissa acknowledged worriedly.

  They weren’t wrong about Malcolm, were they?

  Gabriel and Asher didn’t seem to think so, and Lissa would rather put her trust in both of them than in Claudia’s questionable ability to discern a person’s true character. If she had ever possessed any of that, then she wouldn’t have thrown both Jack and Lissa away twenty-eight years ago.

  “Malcolm killed Harvey and shot Daddy,” Lissa stated flatly.

  “That is an utterly ridiculous accusation—”

  “—fucking bastards! You want her too, I know you do! Well, I killed Stein, and I’ll kill the lot of you too! You can’t have her, because she’s mine! Mine!” A wild-eyed and spittle-spraying Malcolm Arnold was escorted out of the apartment, disarmed and held prisoner between two of the men who worked for Knight Security.

  “Get the fuck away from her!” Malcolm seemed to become even more rabid, pulling against that restraining hold on his arms as he saw Jack down the hallway standing beside a towel-covered Claudia. “I should have put a second round in you while I had the chance,” he snarled. “Made sure you were dead.”

  “Still think we’re being ridiculous?” Lissa challenged her mother softly.

  Which was when the cool and controlled Claudia did something Lissa was sure her mother had never done before. She fainted.

  “You look as if you’re going to fall asleep on your feet,” Lily Knight sympathized.

  Lissa didn’t know when she had last felt this tired. Not physically, but emotionally, after an adrenaline rush caused by fear and then the tedious hours at the police station answering questions and making statements. She hadn’t been able to have so much as a single word with Asher, privately or otherwise.

  First her mother had fainted. The rest of the men had emerged from Claudia’s apartment unscathed, thank God. Detective Inspector Rourke and his men had finally arrived and taken charge of a still-ranting Malcolm.

  The detective inspector had also stated they were all going to the police station to be questioned and make their statements on the evening’s events. He had graciously allowed Claudia to dress first.

  They had been here for hours now. No one had been allowed to leave, not even Jonas to collect his wife from the theater, until those questions had all been answered. At Jonas and the Knight brothers’ insistence, one of Rourke’s men had been sent to collect the pregnant Lily Knight and bring her to the station to wait for her husband.

  Claudia and Jack were both still be
ing questioned too.

  Which was how, once the inspector had finished questioning Lissa, she and Lily Knight had ended up in a room together, waiting for Asher and the other men to be able to leave too.

  Lily Knight was beautiful, her coloring similar to that of her four brothers: dark, silky hair, her eyes blue-green. Of average height and voluptuous in build, she wasn’t obviously pregnant in the tight low-rider jeans and a loose top.

  The last few minutes had shown she was one of the nicest women Lissa had ever met. Warm and funny, with the same innate integrity as her brothers.

  Lissa was too restless and agitated to sit on one of the chairs in the soulless waiting room as Lily was doing. Asher had promised that the two of them were going to talk once this was over, and she was more anxious than ever to have that conversation.

  “Jonas tells me that you and Ash are…together?” Lily prompted, as if reading some of her thoughts.

  Not all of them, Lissa hoped. She had some explaining and apologizing to do to Asher, but that didn’t mean she wanted his whole family to know of the mistake she now knew she had made a year ago. “To be honest, I’m not sure what we are.”

  “My brothers can be…complicated.” Lily shrugged.

  Asher wouldn’t have been half as complicated if Lissa hadn’t jumped to the conclusion he already had a girlfriend a year ago.

  A conclusion that had been completely unfounded.

  Because she now knew Lily Knight to have been the woman who left a message for Asher on his answering machine the morning after Lissa and Asher had spent the night together.

  She had recognized the other woman’s voice the moment Lily spoke to her earlier. Low, melodious, her diction clear—no doubt because of her training as an actress—Lily Knight’s voice was definitely the one Lissa had heard on Asher’s answering machine a year ago.

  It had been Asher’s sister, not his girlfriend, who had been “looking forward to their special celebration” that night, and had told him she “loved him.”

  “What do you think is happening there?”

  Lissa turned to look at Asher as he joined her at the top of the steps leading down from the police station. It was a little after one o’clock in the morning. They were all free to leave now, and apparently Malcolm was being detained until the English police and NYPD had decided how they were going to deal with charging a United States citizen in two different jurisdictions for the murder of Harvey in New York and the attempted murder of Jack and the attack on Jacob in London.

  Lissa didn’t care where Malcolm was charged and stood trial as long as they locked him away for a long time.

  Lily and Jonas had already left for their apartment. Gabriel and the other men were going back to the Knight Security offices to stow away gear and write up reports. Jack was accompanying Claudia in her limousine back to her apartment.

  The latter was the reason for Asher’s question. “I wouldn’t read too much into the two of them being together,” Lissa dismissed ruefully. “They’ve occasionally spent the night together before.”

  “That must be confusing for you.” Asher frowned.

  “Not really. Not anymore.” She shrugged. “I’ve heard a lot of exes do it. A remnant of a past passion rekindled.”

  “If you’re referring to the two of us—”

  “I wasn’t,” she assured him quickly. “And I’m guessing Jack and Claudia’s…friendship was more of a problem for Malcolm than it is for me.”

  “Were Harvey Stein and Claudia ever lovers?”

  She frowned. “Years ago, I think. Maybe. He was a widower so… Yes, I think they probably were. At one time.” She gave a humorless smile. “I’m afraid Malcolm had a job for life if he intended eliminating all Claudia’s past lovers.”

  Ash couldn’t hear any bitterness in Lissa’s tone, and yet he knew Claudia’s behavior must have hurt her daughter time and time again over the years. Lissa might have those trust issues, and quite rightly so, but it was testament to her strength of character she had turned out as well balanced as she was.

  “Jonas said you and he had your work cut out keeping Claudia calm until Jack arrived.”

  She nodded. “Daddy has always been the only one she listens to.”

  Daddy, not Jack. Which told Ash that Lissa was far more shaken by tonight’s events than she was showing outwardly. “So.” He straightened. “Your apartment or mine?”

  Her eyes widened. “We’re spending the night together?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t I say so earlier?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Well, I’m saying it now.”

  “What about Sherlock?”

  He sighed. “He can stay too. I’m sure I have some salmon in the freezer we can give him.” The cat had been stuck in his basket in the car for hours. It was going to take more than a tin of salmon to placate him this time.

  “I… Your apartment, then.” It seemed only fair to Asher that they were in his apartment, the place where Lissa now knew she had made the biggest mistake of her life, when she admitted to having totally misjudged him a year ago.

  “Good choice.” Asher cupped a hand beneath her elbow as they went down the steps together and walked to where the SUV was parked in the police car park.

  “I met your sister earlier.”

  “I thought Jonas was going to rip someone’s head off when they wouldn’t allow him to leave to go and collect her from the theater.” He chuckled at the memory.

  Lissa smiled. “They’re very much in love.”

  “Yeah.” He unlocked the SUV before opening the passenger door for Lissa to climb inside.

  Instead, she placed her hand on his arm. “Asher, I…I made a mistake—”

  “You’ve decided you don’t want to spend the night with me, after all,” he said wearily.

  “No! Of course I want to spend the night with you,” she assured him, flustered. “That wasn’t the mistake I was talking about.”

  “For the moment, all I care about is that you’re coming back to my apartment with me. We’ll deal with everything else later.” He didn’t wait for her to get in the SUV but instead lifted her up onto the seat. “I’ve been pumping adrenaline for hours. Right now, I need a whisky, a shower, and you, and not necessarily in that order. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Asher grasped the front of her sweater and pulled her toward him for a slow and lingering kiss. “I promise I’ll listen to whatever you have to say, but later, hmm?”

  She winced. “After we’ve talked, you may not want me to stay the night.”

  He gave a shake of his head. “I would have to be dead or unconscious not to want you with me tonight.”

  Her heart skipped several beats. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “As long as you hold me.” He closed the passenger door before going round to get in behind the wheel. “Whatever this is about, Lissa, we’ll work it out, okay?”

  She hoped so.

  Oh God, how she hoped so.

  Chapter 15

  “Want some?” Ash held the whisky decanter up invitingly.

  “Yes. Please,” she accepted tautly.

  Lissa was even more nervous and on edge now they were in his apartment. Worse, she looked ready to bolt at the least wrong move or word on his part. If that happened, he was holding the cat as hostage. Sherlock may have been more than a little disgruntled when they let him out of the travel basket when they arrived, but it hadn’t taken the grumpy animal long to down the cooked and cooled salmon, or to make himself comfortable on Ash’s bed.

  Ash and Lissa were now free to drink the whisky he had poured for them both and take care of the conversation she wanted to have. Ash wanted that out of the way as soon as possible, because he had a few things he wanted to discuss with her too.

  He sat beside her on the couch before taking a sip of his whisky. “So?” he prompted once the alcohol had slid down his throat and warmed him all the way down to his stomach.

  “So,
” she repeated uncomfortably, nursing her own untouched glass of whisky in both hands.

  “Take a sip,” Ash encouraged. “Then take a breath. And remember, whatever it is you’re going to say, I’m not kicking you out of here any time soon. I’ll use the cat as blackmail if I have to,” he warned teasingly.

  Lissa laughed softly. “You keep giving Sherlock salmon, and he’s going to want to come and live with you instead of me, anyway.”

  “We’ll see.” Ash took another sip of whisky as he waited for her to speak.

  Her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t seem to meet his gaze as she chose her next words carefully. “Asher, the morning I walked out on you last year.” She drew in a deep breath. “I— It was… There was a phone call while you were in the shower. I didn’t like to answer it, it seemed…presumptuous, so the caller left a message on your answering machine.”

  “Go on,” he encouraged softly.

  “It was a woman. She…she wanted to remind you about a special celebration that evening. She said she loved you.” Her eyes were awash with tears when she finally looked up at him. “I thought…” She closed her eyes briefly and those tears began to fall down the pallor of her cheeks. “I’m sure you can guess what I thought.”

  “You believed she was my girlfriend.”

  “Yes,” she choked. “But I know now that she wasn’t. The moment Lily spoke to me tonight, I realized…I knew it was her on the phone that morning. The woman who left you that message. I’m also guessing that special celebration had something to do with her and Jonas, not you.”

  “From the timing of it, I think it must have been their engagement dinner.” He nodded. “The whole family was under strict instructions to be there, no matter what,” he recalled ruefully. “I vaguely remember her leaving me a message that day, but not the details.”

  Lissa sat forward to place her untouched glass on the coffee table. “All this time, the accusations I made that day and since, and I was wrong about you. I was wrong, Asher.”

  At least he now knew the reason Lissa had walked out on him that morning, after telling him she never wanted to see him again.