I left the room as quickly as I could and it had been a relief to walk outside into the fresh air before climbing into the waiting car. Now, sitting here, stuck in an endless snake of traffic, I could still smell her sweet scent. As though even a moment in her presence had left her lingering on me. Instead of preparing for the meeting I was on my way to, all I could think about was how she would taste; how her skin would feel underneath my fingertips; what she would look like bent over my desk. Leaning my head against the headrest, I closed my eyes and tried to clear the unwelcome thoughts from my mind.
Samantha Donovan was the last person I should be thinking about. Not only was she my best mate’s daughter, but she deserved much better than me. She had been through enough already. Besides that, I had more important things to deal with than chasing women, even a woman like Samantha. The muscles in my chest and arms tensed as I thought about the man I was on my way to meet.
‘You all right, Boss?’ Scott, my driver for the afternoon asked, snapping me from my thoughts.
‘Yeah,’ I replied, thankful for the temporary distraction. Opening my eyes, I turned to him. ‘Did you bring me what I asked for in case this meeting goes south?’
‘Of course, Boss. In the glove box,’ he replied with a nod.
I didn’t need to open it to know that there would be a Beretta handgun inside. ‘Good. Now get us to the docks so we can get this fucking charade over with.’
‘Want me to come in with you?’ Scott asked.
‘No. I can handle Jimmy Fenton myself.’
Scott nodded and remained silent for the rest of the drive. He pulled up at the Fenton’s builders yard near the docks. I slipped the gun out of the glove compartment and tucked it into the back waistband of my trousers. I had a set of brass knuckle dusters in my trouser pocket too — just in case.
‘This shouldn’t take more than half an hour, Scott,’ I said as I stepped out of the car.
‘And if it doesn’t, Boss?’ he asked with a cock of his eyebrow.
‘Then you’d better call the cavalry.’
I buttoned my suit jacket as I walked across the court yard of Fenton’s. I’d known Jimmy Fenton for over twenty years. I’d first met him when I was eighteen and I’d disliked him almost immediately. He was a snake. Jimmy Fenton had set up Fenton Security Services around the same time that Sebastian and I established Archangel and our two firms were always going to be rivals. But whilst Sebastian and I specialised in providing security for clubs and pubs, the Fentons focused on retail. So, for the most part, we had an uneasy truce.
As I walked through the yard and into Jimmy Fenton’s office, I wondered how much longer that truce was going to last.
I sat back against the worn leather chair in Jimmy’s office and watched him pour me a glass of Scotch that I hadn’t asked for. I didn’t drink much as a rule, especially with people I didn’t like.
‘It’s good to see you, Gabriel,’ Jimmy said as he placed the glass in front of me.
‘You too,’ I lied.
‘How long’s it been?’ he stared at me as he sipped his own drink.
I shrugged. ‘Fuck knows. Probably not long enough.’
Jimmy laughed before drinking back the rest of his whisky. ‘I see you’ve come alone?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ I asked. This was all a power display and it was becoming tedious already.
‘Well, I thought you’d have your partner with you. Some men would think twice about coming to my place without some back up, that’s all. Especially with all my lads hanging around outside.’
I thought about the gun I had tucked away. Jimmy would have one to hand too, I had no doubt about that. He wasn’t stupid enough to invite me for a business meeting and then shoot me in the head, but who knew what he was up to? What I did know was that bringing Sebastian to a business meeting with the Fentons was a recipe for disaster. Sebastian hated them with a passion. He’d had a run in with Jimmy’s brother, Martin years earlier that had left Sebastian with a six-inch scar across his neck and Martin deaf in one ear. It had been smoothed over by me and Jimmy, but understandably, Sebastian and Martin still held a grudge.
‘Well, I assumed I wouldn’t need any back up for a business meeting?’ I snapped, my temper already frayed.
He laughed. ‘Of course not.’
‘So what was this proposition you had for me? You mentioned a new business venture?’ I asked. It had come as a shock when Jimmy had phoned me a few days earlier asking me to meet to discuss a business proposal. I had little intention of going into business with the Fentons. I didn’t work with people I didn’t trust. But, my curiosity got the better of me, and I wanted to know what his plan was. Sebastian and I had been developing Archangel Securities, cultivating a new image and a kind of client that could bring in national contracts. I hoped that in a few years, the two of us would be able to take a back seat and reap the rewards of all our hard work now. So, if there was a new opportunity on the horizon, I at least wanted to know what it was.
‘Well, it’s more of a new business venture for me actually.’ Jimmy replied.
I frowned at him, my fists clenched by my sides. ‘Then why the fuck am I here?’
‘I want to take over Archangel Securities.’
I must have misheard him because that was the funniest thing I’d heard all day. I started to laugh. Surely this was a wind up? ‘Are you being serious?’
He glared at me. ‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘I’m fucking serious. I heard you were looking to go legit. This could be the perfect opportunity for you. Let me buy Archangel. We’ll take over the clubs. You have a re-branding and stick with your new, less demanding, contracts.’
Fuck! He was serious. The arrogant little prick! I glared back at him as I felt my heart start pounding in my chest. I should have known Fenton was going to pull some shit — the man was a Grade A prick. ‘Archangel Securities is not for sale.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ he challenged me.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘Well, maybe it would be better to sell it now and walk away with a good profit before someone simply walks in and takes it from you, Gabriel?’
‘Are you fucking threatening me?’ I snarled at him, ready to launch myself across his desk and use his face as a stress ball.
Jimmy leaned across the table. ‘Think about my offer, Sullivan. Don’t forget how I helped you out back in the day,’ he said with a grin, revealing his gold canine tooth. ‘I think it’s about time I called in that favour. Don’t you?’
I felt the anger surging through my body and had to take a deep breath to stop myself from putting a bullet straight through Jimmy’s head. I hated the fact that he had something on me. I had always known it was only a matter of time before he played that hand, but if I was honest, I was surprised the little snake had waited so long. It had been over twenty years. I wasn’t even sure there would be much of a body left to find after all this time.
But Jimmy Fenton had just as much to lose as I did if that particular ghost ever resurfaced. Calvin Stewart certainly wasn’t the only man I’d ever killed, but he was the first, and the only one who hadn’t deserved it. I still saw his face in my dreams.
I stood up from my chair and couldn’t help but smile when I saw Jimmy flinch. ‘Fuck you!’ I snarled before walking out of the office.
‘Think about it, Sullivan,’ he shouted after me.
Chapter 3
Samantha
I headed back to my office, unable to stop thinking about what had just happened. My first encounter with Gabriel Sullivan hadn’t gone exactly as I’d hoped. The first time I saw him again, I was supposed to be groomed to perfection, not wearing my boring work clothes and dripping with rain! But then nothing about my interactions with him had ever worked out as planned in the past. Of course, teenage me was a trembling mess around him, I was a walking hormone bucket and he was hotter than molten lava, but come on! I was a grown woman now. Confident and successful. So, why did being around him still make
me feel like I was a teenage girl?
And how dare he be so bloody polite and stand offish. As though I was just some random who’d dropped by, and not the same person who used to cook him bacon and eggs every Sunday morning. Someone who had almost been like a little sister. I shook my head in annoyance. Perhaps it was for the best. I didn’t want him acting like my big brother anymore anyway. I already had one over-protective relative in my father and he was more than enough.
As I rounded the corner, I heard Nick Cook’s distinctive laugh before I saw him, and then I almost bumped into him and a red-faced sign-writer.
‘Samantha!’ Nick said when he saw me. Grabbing me by the shoulders, he spun me around to face the row of offices.
He could barely speak for laughing. ‘Look. Look what it says.’
I read the freshly painted sign aloud. ‘Donovan Cock Solicitors! Oh, for God’s sake, Nick. How old are you?’ I snapped, still smarting from my encounter with Gabriel. I was aware that any other time I’d have been laughing along with him.
Nick Cook was my best friend and business partner. I’d met him at university, where we’d had a few unmemorable, drunken liaisons before we’d agreed we’d be much better off as friends. And we had been ever since. Despite my ex-husband Jackson’s best efforts to cut me off from everyone I knew, Nick had managed to cling on like a limpet, and I loved him for it. I knew that it was in part due to Jackson’s arrogance and his mistaken belief that Nick was absolutely no threat to him at all. And I supposed that Nick didn’t look threatening. He was tall and lean and had a boyish look about him. He wore thick, dark rimmed glasses and could go days without shaving and still have barely a hint of stubble. But what Jackson didn’t realise was that Nick was by far one of the smartest men I had ever met. People did tend to underestimate him when they first met him. He was quiet and unassuming — but that was his superpower, especially in the courtroom.
When I’d decided to move back to Dagenham, Nick had been looking to move on from the solicitor’s firm he’d been working at too, and as we’d both recently made the change from criminal to family law, it had seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to open our own practice together. Although to look at him now, doubled over and barely able to control his bodily functions because of a juvenile spelling mistake, you’d never know he had one of the sharpest legal minds in England. Watching him laugh uncontrollably, I was reminded why I loved being around him so much.
I turned to the sign-writer, who was staring up at the sign and rubbing his chin, a mild look of confusion etched on his round face. ‘Who in their right mind would open a solicitor’s office called Donovan Cock?’ I asked him.
He started to stutter, his face reddening further as he responded. ‘I just copied what was on the paper, Miss.’
‘Cook! Not Cock. Cook! How long before you can fix it?’ I asked.
‘Not long,’ he said taking hold of his ladder and leaning it back against the front of the building. ‘I’ll get it sorted.’
Nick patted him on the back before following me up the few steps to our office. The tears were still rolling down his cheeks as he shouted. ‘Thanks for that, mate. Made my week.’
Despite my bad mood, I smiled at him once we were inside. ‘You’re such a boy,’ I gave him a playful nudge in the ribs.
Nick grinned at me. ‘Oh, there you are, Samantha. I thought you’d been abducted by aliens or something. How could you not think that sign was hilarious?’
‘Sorry, Nick,’ I replied as I rubbed the back of my neck. ‘I’m just feeling a bit wound up today, that’s all.’
‘Anything I can do?’ he offered.
‘No thanks. I’ll be fine. Getting stuck into those case files will take my mind off it,’ I lied before walking into my office and closing the door. There was only one person I could think of who could take my mind off it – Gabriel bloody Sullivan. I hadn’t stopped thinking about him since I’d left Archangel Securities. Sinking into the chair in my office, I closed my eyes and allowed myself a few moments to imagine all the wonderful ways Gabriel could ease the tension in my neck and shoulders.
Chapter 4
Gabriel
I walked into my office at Archangel Securities to find Sebastian hunched over his laptop with a smile on his face.
‘You’re not watching porn, are you?’ I asked.
Sebastian shook his head. ‘Nah. I’m booking me and Kayleigh a holiday to Turkey,’ he grinned.
‘Kayleigh? I thought you two had called it a day?’
‘What can I say? I’m an old romantic,’ Sebastian laughed. ‘Anyway, what did that prick Fenton want?’
I frowned. My visit to Jimmy Fenton had pissed me off and I had an idea it wasn’t going to be the last we heard from him. I pulled up a chair across the desk from Sebastian.
‘He wants to buy Archangel Securities.’
‘What?’ Sebastian snapped. ‘What did you say to him?’
‘I told him to fuck off, obviously.’
‘And then what?’
‘Well, in a nutshell, he basically threatened he’d take it from us if we didn’t accept his offer.’
‘What the fuck?’ Sebastian snarled as he slammed his laptop shut. ‘Who the fuck does that cheeky cunt think he is? Threatening us? Has he got a death wish or something?’
I shook my head. ‘Who the fuck knows, mate?’
‘So what are we going to do about it?’
‘Nothing. For now.’
‘What? Jimmy Fenton threatens to take our business from us and we do nothing? Are you fucking kidding me?’ Sebastian shouted.
‘Just for now, Seb. Let me think about what we do next. Fenton won’t make a move yet. He’s not stupid and he doesn’t need a war. I need to figure out why he’s suddenly trying to buy us out.’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe now is the perfect time to make a move before they start getting any more ideas?’
‘We don’t do that anymore,’ I reminded him. ‘At least not quite so openly. We’d lose half of our new contracts if they knew that was how we did business.’
Sebastian shook his head. ‘I know that you want us to be more legitimate now, Gabriel, and so do I, especially now that Samantha’s back. But if we don’t deal with people like Jimmy Fenton the minute they step out of line, people will start to take the fucking piss.’
‘Let’s just sit back and see what Fenton does next,’ I suggested. ‘I’m not saying we can’t, or we won’t do the lot of them in if we need to, but let’s consider our options, eh?’
‘Okay,’ Sebastian replied with a sigh. ‘But if I see any of Fenton’s boys anywhere near one of our places I will personally shoot the fucking lot of them.’
I nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
I sat back in my chair, stretching my legs and letting my head hang back between my shoulders and sighed. ‘Any chance of a drink?’ I asked.
Sebastian stood up and poured us both a generous measure of Scotch before handing one to me. ‘Not like you to drink in the afternoon,’ he said. ‘Something else on your mind, mate?’
I took the drink and shook my head. ‘Nah. Fenton just pissed me off, that’s all,’ I lied. How could I possibly tell my best mate that the other thing on my mind, was his daughter, and all the things I’d like to do to her.
Chapter 5
Samantha
It was almost dark by the time I reached Archangel Securities. I’d been planning on going there straight after work. I’d made some loose plans with my dad to go out for dinner, but Nick had persuaded me to have a quick drink with him. Two glasses of wine later, I remembered dinner with my dad and managed to make my escape. Peering out of the taxi window, I could see the office was still open and was relieved to see I hadn’t missed him. Despite his penchant to be an over-protective tyrant at times, I adored my father and now that I had moved back to Dagenham, I intended to make up for all the time we’d missed out on.
After paying the driver, I stepped out of the cab and walked into Archangel Securities.
Making my way through the dim reception area, I could see the faint light coming from his office.
Pushing open the door, I flashed my best smile. ‘You still up for taking a hungry lady to dinner?’ I asked.
‘I’d love to, Samantha,’ Gabriel replied as he looked up from his desk and smiled. The pale glow of the computer screen illuminated his handsome face and I blinked at the sight of him. ‘But I already have plans.’
‘Gabriel!’ I blushed. I hadn’t seen him since I’d walked into this same office two days earlier. ‘I assumed my dad was here. Sorry. I didn’t mean...’
‘He’s left already. He thought you’d changed your mind. And he has a hot date — apparently.’
I could feel the heat spreading up my neck and over my cheeks and desperately hoped that he didn’t notice in the darkness of the room. ‘What? Another one?’ I asked breezily. ‘My father has more girlfriends than Hugh Hefner. I’ll be on my way then,’ I smiled and started to turn for the door.
Gabriel rose from his chair. ‘Hang on. Let me drive you home.’
‘There’s no need. I’ll ring a cab,’ I said. I didn’t want to disturb whatever plans he had for the evening.
‘Come on. I’m leaving anyway. Let me make up for not taking you to dinner.’
I looked at him. Twenty minutes in a confined space with this sex god, who turned me into a nervous wreck, and made me think very, very inappropriate things would be tough. But, I supposed that being driven home in the comfort of his nice warm car was infinitely better than having to make small talk with a cab driver. ‘Okay. If you’re sure?’
Gabriel turned off his laptop and walked towards me, crossing the office in two quick strides. He stopped in front of me, his body inches from mine, and then he leaned towards me. My breath caught in my throat. I could feel the heat from his body and smell his expensive aftershave, and it made me want to bury my face in his neck.
Dark Angel: A Dark Romance: London Ruthless Series Book 1 (The London Ruthless Series) Page 2