Rescue Me

by Faye Avalon

  Bloody hell. She was making this up as she went. She had no intention of doing any of those things, but Gabe was really starting to piss her the hell off. He’d largely given her the silent treatment again, going all contemplative and leaving her to her own devices during the flight to London, then said barely a word on the taxi ride to the hotel.

  After what they’d shared last night—both out of and in bed—she’d thought they’d reached a new understanding. Gabe had been incredibly attentive, holding her as if he never intended to let her go. He’d told her things. Like how beautiful she was, how amazing. How much he enjoyed having her stay with him.

  Then this morning? Poof. Tender Gabe had disappeared, only to be replaced by his I-don’t-care-about-anything-but-business persona.

  Gabe stalked around the bed and came right up in front of her. He pointed his index finger at her. “You fucking stay away from Kingston.”

  She folded her arms across her chest, raised her chin. “You don’t wag your bloody finger at me. And you don’t tell me what the hell I can and can’t do.”

  He narrowed his eyes, and the slits of grey glinted like polished steel as he prowled up and down in front of her. “Money laundering. Kingston’s involved in money laundering. I got the tip-off from a source I trust, and I’ve been following through with my investigations since.”

  Maddie swallowed. “I had my suspicions it would be something like that.” She swallowed again, but her throat was dry. “Do you think my father—”

  “Nothing seems to link him directly, but I need to speak with him before I confront Kingston. He’s agreed to see me at midday.”

  Maddie walked toward him. “I’m coming, too.”

  Gabe wrapped his hands around hers and drew her down to the sofa. “Think about it,” he said calmly, but she could see the tension oozing from his every pore. “Do you think your father will be forthcoming if you’re there? He didn’t want you to know about his addiction, and he sure as hell didn’t want you to know about the sale of shares to Kingston until his back was against the wall.”

  “Until Oscar had control of the company,” Maddie said almost to herself.

  “Right. So before I can act further, I need to know how involved your father is. He’s more likely to come clean with me if I go alone.”

  Although she hated the thought of all this, Maddie could see the logic. She looked Gabe straight in the eye. “But I’m coming to see Oscar with you.”

  He drew in a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. She thought he would refuse again, but then he gave a slight nod. “We’ll talk when I get back from seeing your father.”

  No point arguing the matter further. At least not right then. Gabe would only dig in his heels. Well, she was about to dig in her own.

  “We’ll talk all you like,” she agreed. “But I’m coming with you.”

  * * *

  Maddie didn’t know how she did it, but she managed to convince Gabe that she was agreeable to his plan. After he left to go visit her father, she changed into fresh clothes and called a taxi from the room.

  Several minutes later she was on her way to her father’s home overlooking Hyde Park. She didn’t have any plan beyond getting there and seeing if she could eavesdrop on the conversation between the two men. This cloak-and-dagger stuff wasn’t her forte, but she was heartily sick of being kept out of the loop.

  She asked the cab driver to drop her off a few doors down from her father’s three-storey Georgian home and made her way quickly down the narrow, paved walkway which led to the back of the house.

  If her father was home, the door to the kitchen would be unlocked, so she teased it open and walked inside. Since she knew he would meet Gabe in his study, she made her way quietly through the house. She didn’t hear the muffled sound of voices until she was in the front hallway.

  She heard Gabe’s voice first, then the sound of a cup being replaced in its saucer. She couldn’t hear her father at all. She hated that she was excluded from their discussion and wished that she’d insisted visiting with Gabe. Surely they were all long past keeping secrets. Besides which, by now Gabe would surely have gotten any information he needed from her father.

  Maddie stroked her hands down her skirt and walked to the study. She hesitated, steeled herself, then tapped on the door and walked in.

  Her father’s face lit up when he saw her, but Gabe just scowled. Not that he seemed in the least surprised at her arrival. She walked over to the leather chair where her father sat and took the hand he held out to her. “How are you, my darling?”

  She kissed him on the cheek, squeezed his hand. “Good. How are you?”

  “Doing very well.” His fingers tightened around hers. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. What I’ve put you through.”

  “It’s all going to be okay,” she said automatically, although they both knew her words of comfort really didn’t mean anything. It was still all very far from being okay. At least as far as the future of Mallory Hotels was concerned.

  “I can’t believe what you were willing to do for the company. That you were willing to marry a man like Oscar when you didn’t love him.”

  Maddie straightened, feeling as if someone had punched her in the chest. She turned to Gabe, glared. “You had no right to tell him that.”

  “It wasn’t Gabe who told me,” her father said quickly. “Oscar spoke to me when you didn’t arrive for the wedding. He said that since you’d reneged on the deal you’d made with him, I had to sign over the remaining shares in Mallory Hotels or he would take you to court. Luckily Gabe had already told me about his investigations into Oscar’s dealings, and that he’d arranged to keep you safe with him while they were ongoing.”

  It was Maddie’s turn to glower at Gabe. “Sounds like Gabe was being mighty talkative that day. It’s a pity he didn’t extend the same courtesy to me.”

  “I told you your father knew you were safe.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me why you were marrying Oscar?” her father said, interrupting the burgeoning argument. “Why did you lead me to believe you loved him?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, does it? The wedding never happened.”

  “I’ve given Gabe everything I have that might help when he confronts Oscar,” her father went on, nodding to the small folder in front of Gabe. “I had no idea what the man was involved in, Maddie. I hope you believe that.”

  “I do believe it.” Maddie turned to Gabe, ignoring his steely glare. “Does what you have there mean that my dad will be in the clear if the authorities decide to investigate?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “The authorities will seize Oscar’s assets, so what will that mean for Mallory Hotels?”

  Maddie didn’t miss the look that passed between Gabe and her father.

  “The trick is to make Oscar hand over the shares before the authorities get the tip-off.”

  “How will that happen?” She caught that shared look again. “Are you planning to blackmail Oscar?”

  Gabe didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”

  “He gives the shares back to Mallory, and you don’t alert the authorities?”

  While she couldn’t help but be relieved, she hated that a snake like Oscar would get away free and easy. He deserved to pay for his crimes. How many other people had he snared and cheated?

  “It can’t happen like that,” her father said with a shake of his head. “Oscar can’t sell the shares back to Mallory. He’ll sell them to Gabe.”

  “What?” Everything inside her turned to ice. “That’s not going to bloody well happen.”

  “The transaction needs to be above board,” her father went on. “Legal and clean. Otherwise it could come back on Gabe like a ton of bricks.”

  “Oscar can sell the shares back to us,” Maddie said. “Above board, legal and clean.”

&nbs
p; “We don’t have the capital to buy the shares back. The authorities would be able to check that, and they’d ask questions we wouldn’t be able to answer without looking like we had a hand in some of Oscar’s dubious deals.”

  Maddie’s chest squeezed so tight she could barely breathe. “So you’ll have the controlling shares,” she said to Gabe, her chin hiked high and her heart sinking to her shoes. “Right. Okay. I get it now.”

  She wondered how long she could trust herself not to erupt. Trust herself not to fly at Gabe and call him a lying, cheating son of a bitch.

  Since her father seemed perfectly okay with the arrangement, and she supposed she couldn’t blame him seeing as he’d likely see Gabe a better prospect than Oscar, she forced herself to hold tight to her wrath until she was alone with Gabe.

  She sat quietly seething while the two men talked of peripherals and mentally processed the mechanics of the blackmail. Begrudgingly, she had to admit that it made sense and it was the only way that Mallory’s would escape without getting mixed up with embezzlement and whatever the hell else Oscar had screwed around in.

  What she couldn’t accept was that Gabe had likely planned this all along.

  She felt violated and used. Like one of those performing dolls with strings attached that could be pulled and manipulated to whatever suited the handler’s purpose.

  God. She couldn’t believe that she’d let it happen twice now. She’d let him screw her around twice. Once two years ago when he’d gotten a mere portion of the pie, and now when he’d stormed in to take advantage of their predicament by snatching up the real prize. Control of Mallory Hotels.

  She was a damned idiot. Falling for a man who considered it perfectly reasonable to fuck the woman he had tricked and cheated. Again.

  * * *

  Back in the hotel room, Maddie stuffed the clothes she’d changed out of into her suitcase.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Come on, Gabe. Surely you can work that out. I’m packing. I’m leaving. We’re done.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw him shove his hands into his pockets. “I get that you’re pissed.”

  “Oh, I’m more than pissed. I’m furious. Livid. Bloody incensed.” She pulled off the heels she’d been wearing and changed back into the flat shoes she’d travelled in, all but throwing the heels into the case. “Don’t you dare try and explain. Don’t you dare try to make it seem that I’ve misunderstood, or that I’ve misinterpreted. Not once...not once did you say anything about acquiring the shares back so that you could take control. Oh, I should have known.” She slammed the lid down on the suitcase. “I should have trusted my initial instincts when I thought that you wouldn’t be helping me out of the kindness of your barren heart. You managed to cheat me once, why not do it again? Why stick to stealing my shares when you could get the whole bloody company?”

  “I didn’t steal your fucking shares.”

  “My apologies. I should have said tricked.”

  “I didn’t trick you, either.” He shoved his hand on the suitcase as she tried to pull it off the bed. “Your father wasn’t in hock to me for that gambling debt.”

  Maddie stared at him. Was he making a futile attempt to wangle out of the situation? To manoeuvre it so that he came out smelling like a rose?

  She ditched that possibility. That kind of tactic wasn’t his style. He didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him, least of all her.

  “Then who was he in hock to?”

  He raised his eyebrows, letting her make the connection. “Oscar?” She swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat, feeling a little of the anger for Gabe fade as she processed this new information. “If that’s true, why didn’t you just tell me? Like two years ago? Why didn’t you say it was him?”

  He hesitated, his face tight. “Your father asked me not to. He didn’t want you knowing. He thought you’d accept me having the shares, considering how you and I were together at the time.”

  “What sort of logic is that? I’d have been pissed whoever he’d given those shares to.”

  “He had every intention of getting those shares back from Oscar. He just asked me to cover for him in the interim.”

  “Oh, and that worked out really well, didn’t it. I’ll bet you had a damn good laugh about it. Fooling Maddie into believing the both of you. God, I don’t know who I’m most mad at right now.”

  She walked to the room phone and picked up the receiver. Seconds later, she’d arranged for her suitcase to be collected and taken to reception, where she would wait for a taxi.

  “That old saying really is true, isn’t it? ‘Everything comes to he who waits.’ Two years ago, you wanted to join forces with my father and take Mallory Hotels to the French Riviera. Well, it might have taken longer than you hoped, but you made it in the end. In fact, it’s even better. You’re about to become the controlling shareholder in Mallory Hotels, which means you can do what you damn well like now.”

  Gabe took one hand out of his pocket and stroked his jaw. “It has to be this way, Maddie. It’s about keeping you safe, protecting you from the fallout. The company, too.”

  He pushed his hand back in his pocket. “I want you to take a much more active role in the company.”

  “Ha. I bet you do. What’s that? An added bonus to getting the company means you can have me at your beck and call? What did you have in mind for me? Making your coffee? Ordering your lunch? Fucking me whenever the mood takes you?”

  His nostrils flared. “I want you to be consulting designer on the revamp of the interiors. Not just for Mallory Hotels but for mine, too. I’m likely going ahead with the Cannes hotels, just waiting on confirmation of the final figures. I want you to take on the interior refurb.”

  Heartsick, she wondered if that’s why he’d been so supportive and flattering of her skills. Had he been trying to soften the blow, so that when she found out the truth of his plans, she’d be ready to jump at his offer?

  “You’ve got a bloody nerve. I don’t need a sweetener from you, or from anybody else, come to that. What this whole mess has taught me is that I don’t want to be involved in the dog-eat-dog world of business. I want no part of it. I’ll make my own way, thanks.”

  “I’m offering you the chance to do what you want, Maddie. To put your skills to excellent use.”

  “In case I wasn’t clear the first time, let me repeat that I don’t want anything you can offer. I don’t want to be involved with you, not professionally and not personally. Anyway, you don’t even have the shares yet. There’s just the small matter of getting Oscar to hand them over. And as long as he does that, he gets to walk away completely free of any wrongdoing. It doesn’t matter about anyone else unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of his fraudulent activities. As long as it doesn’t affect you, then that’s just fine, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t even try and offer a token protest. Just stood there with that glower, his eyes hard. “You don’t know me at all.”

  “Oh wow, you are so right about that.”

  She hurried to the door when the sharp tap sounded, and indicated to the porter the suitcase on the bed. She was about to follow the man out, but she turned and looked over her shoulder at Gabe. “Thanks. It’s been enlightening. They say learning by your mistakes is far better than learning from your successes, which means I’ve just graduated with first-class honours from the school of how not to do it.” She turned to the door. “Good luck with everything, Gabe. Although I doubt you’ll need it, since you’ve got what you set out to achieve.”

  She let the door click behind her, the emptiness in her chest threatening to consume her as she made her way down in the elevator and out into the drizzle that had suddenly descended on London.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I’LL SUPPORT YOU in anything you decide to do, my darling.”

  Maddie sat at her father�
��s kitchen table, having just outlined her future plans to him. In the six weeks since she’d walked out on Gabe, she had busied herself making decisions based on what she wanted and refusing to be swayed by what anyone else wanted from her or for her.

  She had to admit that thoughts of Gabe slipped into those gaps not filled with her plans, until she gave herself a stern reprimand and shoved him out of her mind.

  Which was easier said than done, since Gabe wasn’t a man easily shoved aside. He’d become so much a part of her that the ache inside wasn’t even close to easing. Would there ever come a time when he wasn’t her first thought in the morning and her last at night?

  Despite the fracture to her heart, she’d taken the first real steps to moving on with her life. A letter had arrived that morning offering her a place on a world-renowned course to study interior design. Competition was fierce, but based on her portfolio and references, she’d been successful. Never had she felt quite so in her element as when she’d put her signature to the application form. It felt right. As if she’d finally found her niche.

  Her dad set up a new round of the board game they’d been playing. “Maybe you could reconsider Gabe’s offer. I’m sure he’d let you work around your course commitments.”

  Not in a million years would she or could she work for Gabe. She’d had enough of his games. She wanted nothing more to do with him. The yearning inside her, the craving to feel him hold her again, would diminish with time. Six weeks wasn’t that long in the scheme of things. Surely the pieces of her heart would slip back together soon enough, especially once she got stuck into the course.

  “I can’t be part of Mallory Hotels anymore, Dad. It’s just not me. I have no heart for it—I never really did. I’m sorry if that’s a disappointment to you, but it’s how I feel.”

  He reached across the table and touched her hand. “You could never be a disappointment to me. Never. I’m just sorry that I made you feel that way.”

  “You had high hopes for me, and now, finally, I’ve got them for myself.” Which still continued to amaze her. “And my business studies won’t be wasted, seeing as part of the course is geared to setting up a consultancy business.”