The Narrow Path: A Romantic Suspense Thriller (Dangerous Men by Alex Abbott Book 1)

by Alex Abbott

  Inside it had a classic, old style charm, with carved wooden pillars and etchings around an old pub-style bar, and quaint booths.

  “Khalil, reservations for two,” he said, and the smiling little waitress took them to their seats, a lovely booth in the back that was sheltered from the rest of the place, but had a window looking out directly onto the trees in the park.

  Angela slipped into the seat, relaxed back into it and crossed her legs. The waitress handed them their menus and quickly poured them some water.

  “I’m Lucy and I’ll be your server today. Have you been here before?” she asked, not for the first time that day.

  “I hear your specials here are to die for, Lucy,” Jamal said firmly. “Tell us what it is you’ve got goin’ on today in that department,” he instructed, smiling over at Angela the entire time.

  Lucy gave a nod back to them both, her eyes gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling.

  “The chef’s special today is homemade chicken pot pies. Everything’s from scratch, and it’s served with fries, rice or salad. We also have a steak and lobster dinner for two, and all our high balls and pints are two for one until eight,” she said with a smile, taking out her notepad. “Did you want a few?”

  “We’ll have the steak and lobster for two, rare,” Jamal said without hesitation, tapping the menu against the table before gathering up Angela’s as well and handing both back to the waitress. “And bring us a bottle of merlot. Somethin’ with a good year on it,” he stated, paying the waitress only a momentary look before turning his attention fully to Angela.

  “Right-o!” Lucy said, not bothering to write it down and taking away their menus.

  Angela relaxed as the other woman left, glancing around at the interior before finally settling her eyes on Jamal.

  “I guess we’ll keep making small talk ‘til our wine gets here?”

  Jamal took his sunglasses off and tucked them into his vest pocket as he smiled over at Angela, that look upon his face one of rather sublime happiness.

  “You know, I fantasized about those curls every single fucking day in prison,” he said, folding his hands in front of him. “Remembered their bounce. Their smooth, rich feel. The many times I ran my fingers through them, grabbed a hold of them...” he shook his head, as if recounting the experience of his first time having sex. “Seeing you like that does somethin’ to me like you wouldn’t believe.” He laughs wryly, grinning. “Oh but I guess you do.”

  Her finger grazed against one of the curls and glanced aside. She should have known he’d have seen what those curls meant despite her simple makeup, her chaste dress. It was a sign of something they’d shared, something that she refused to give up after all those years.

  And the idea that he’d been dreaming of them for four years was flattering beyond belief. She knew how it went in prison, how she’d longed for those touches, those days dedicated to nothing but sex and touching and pleasure. Those had always gotten her through, though she’d have denied it to anyone.

  “I imagined you out here, fucking your brains out, and having the time of your life, y’know? And you’d think that’d make me jealous,” he remarked, shaking his head slowly. “It didn’t. Made me happy. The only thing about it that makes me upset at all is knowing you didn't get that freedom, that fun. Knowing things didn’t go as I’d planned,” he remarked, his handsome face, so beautifully framed by his thick, sleek black hair, contorted in displeasure at the thought.

  Her gaze went downwards, taking a deep breath in to try to balance herself. To try to find that center she needed so that she wouldn’t simply float away.

  Her stomach twisted and turned, but it burned lower.

  He knew just what to say to make her pussy throb and she was grateful when Lucy returned with their merlot.

  She poured it up with a smile, glancing towards Angela’s rouged cheeks for a moment before the waitress excused herself.

  Angela lifted the glass to her lips, grateful for the excuse not to speak as she just ruminated over his words, trying to find some response that wasn’t completely inappropriate and finding none.

  Jamal helped himself to his own wine too. It was flavorful but not the finest, after all, the restaurant was more homey than upscale, though clearly catered to a higher class of clientele anyhow. The type who paid a lot of money for good food rather than the pomp of a pretentious joint.

  “I’m going into business for myself,” he said to her, voice a bit raspy after drinking the wine. “Legit business. Gonna run a club of my own, clean. No drugs, nothin’ illegal. All above board,” he said to her firmly, folding his hands atop one another, letting the one ring he wore rest above the others. An old one she’d gotten him in ages long past, dark and not terribly expensive, but sentimental.

  She glanced down at it, trying to remember if he’d been wearing it last night as she inhaled.

  “Good for you,” she replied with so little enthusiasm. What was she supposed to say? Congratulations on so easily finding a way to slip back into reality?

  She couldn’t bring herself to fake that, not with how rotten her own life had been since leaving prison. One day out and he was already making big plans, taking over the world.

  “It’s gonna be a strip club, like the old one we worked at together, long ago,” he said to her. “I need someone to help me run it,” he said firmly, as if he had the whole world figured out, not just that club. “Someone I can rely on, that I know. Someone who’ll work with me to keep the business clean, so I don’t risk landing my ass back in jail,” he said firmly.

  Her eyes went back towards him, thoughtfully, taking in his words. It was easy to read between the lines.

  He wasn’t being too subtle, after all. And most of her wanted it, more than anything. A clean, easy job that wasn’t boring, that she would be good at.

  But it’d also mean that something would happen. She had no impulse control around Jamal, and that was the biggest consideration. If she wanted something to be rekindled.

  “I don’t know,” she said softly, rolling her glass between her fingers thoughtfully.

  “It’ll pay well, hell,” he remarked casually, shrugging his broad shoulders, “you could even be a partner in it with me. Co-owner. If you’re up for it,” he remarked cautiously, looking across at her. Offering her not just a part in his dream, but a whole slice for herself so easily. Just like that.

  Though accepting his help — letting him repay that debt — carried its own risks.

  “It’ll mean more work,” he said. “More risk. But we’ll be clean, clear and in charge of our own futures.”

  She watched him as he spoke, noting every bit of his posture and the way he moved. It brought back such intense memories. She knew the way those muscles moved beneath his shirt so intimately. It was hard for her to even fathom that he was back, in the flesh. He’d been gone from her life for so long and then had just waltzed back in.

  But not like nothing happened. Some of the ways they acted was as if those four years hadn’t happened, but there was a chasm between them as well, something that was hard for her to understand.

  “I’ve never been afraid of hard work,” she said softly. “And I know it wouldn’t be boring. But that’s not why I’m hesitating, Jamal, and you know it.”

  He bobbed his head slowly to her in understanding. He got it, he got it completely. Of course he did. That handsome bastard, so strong, so capable, so in control so soon after being in a place where he lacked all control.

  “I’ll be in charge of the business side of things, managing the books, and keepin’ everything safe. That last part just like it used to be. And you can manage the women, promotion, events. That’ll be your turf.”

  He understood her reluctance, but he was intent on breaking through it.

  And she couldn’t deny that she wanted him to. She wanted him to break down her defenses, to make it impossible for her to say no. She reached across the table, slowly touching his hand.

  “Who’s giv
ing you the club, Jamal? Javier? Is that how he’s repaying your debt for going away for him for four years, by giving you more work?”

  Jamal gave a derisive sort of laugh at the idea.

  “He’s paying a debt to me, that’s all. The club is going to be mine. One hundred percent mine to own, that is…” he said, reaching out to cover her small hand with his large mitt. “Unless you want to join in with me. Partners,” he made it sound so enticing. “There won’t be any coke in my club either,” he said pointedly.

  He knew. Somehow he knew what she’d been on her way to do that night?

  Her hand retreated, her gaze averted as she sucked in a breath.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, never one for subtlety or not speaking her mind, and her emerald eyes moved back to his, brows furrowed.

  “It means with me you won’t repeat old mistakes,” he said firmly, his tone more patronizingly fatherly than the smooth, even tones of before. “Means I’m old enough to know better than my younger self. And I won’t let either of us get mixed up in shit we both know better than to do.”

  He reached out across the table for her hand again.

  “We’ve had time to think back on where we went wrong, Angie. We let the money go to our heads, the wild life. We were young and foolish, and that’s fine, what’s done is done. But now we’re wiser. And I’m gonna keep us from failin’ ourselves,” he said firmly. So authoritatively. As if she didn’t have a choice in that, unlike all the rest.

  And she recognized that tone. It sent a chill through her that was electric and warm and so welcome. It opened parts of her that had been closed off for years.

  He’d been the world to her for so long, and it was that tone that made her always come back to him. Felt safe with him. It was one of the many reasons why she’d stayed faithful to him for so long. He understood her better than any other, and accepted her for who she was. Flaws and all.

  “I can’t go back to working in an office,” she said, her voice trembling a little. She’d put out countless resumes and hadn’t heard back from anyone. It was hard enough to explain a two year gap, let alone make up for it with no relevant experience.

  “You won’t even have to set foot in our office if you don’t want to,” he said with a wry smile. “The changing rooms could be your office.”

  The waitress arrived with their food then, an array of trays for a fancy and expensive meal, steak and veggies on a plate for each of them, then the giant specter of a lobster on its own, looking over them.

  “Can I get you two anything else?” she asked, and Jamal shook his head and dismissed her.

  The aroma from the food was delightful, it all smelled of real, home cooked sort of ingredients, rich and flavourful, not artificial. Jamal reached over and broke off the lobster’s tail with his bare hands, then placed it upon her plate.

  All of the stupid things, he remembered.

  She looked down at the tail, and it was so much more. It was a show of how much she’d been on his mind, how much their years together had clearly meant to him. For so long she’d felt like she was nothing, that she couldn’t even make it work without him.

  He’d been the one that had built her up and made her whole, and then shattered her into a million pieces. After he’d left her, it was as though all the life had been drained from her, her soul sucked out and her body in a wreck.

  But he still remembered she loved the tail, and sacrificed it to her.

  It was almost too much, though she began eating it slowly, if only to hide how much it moved her.

  “What were you going to say when you first saw me? How’d it go in your mind?”

  Jamal was cutting into his steak, those thick forearms of his bulging with veins from every little motion. He’d grown harder in prison, physically speaking, but he’d lost none of his softness for her it seemed.

  “I’d run through a dozen scenarios each day,” he said casually before chewing on a hunk of red meat. “It all boiled down to what you were doin’ when I found you. If you’d stumbled upon someone you were really entangled with. But… the gist of it was, I’d get out, get my payback. Then with that money in my pocket, I’d come find you.”

  Jamal looked straight across at her, his vision never wavering.

  “I figured it’d be tough, you’d have a strong guy or two you were attached to. A new life. But I’d settle in near wherever you were, start a new life with my spoils. Run across you casually on the street at some point. Figured it’d take a while, I mean… I knew I’d hurt you. I didn’t figure you’d be up for talking to me right away. But every day I’d stumble into you again, on purpose, and eventually I’d coax you into coffee or somethin’, some excuse to talk things out. But the first thing I’d say? The very first?” he stressed, before cutting into his steak again. “I never meant it, I’m sorry.”

  “You could have told me. After. Just... a letter or something, saying it wasn’t me. Anything,” she breathed out. Her voice didn’t quiver as she spoke, her eyes stuck on his as she lifted another bit of lobster meat to her lips. “I’ve spent four years going over what I did wrong to make you hate me so much that you’d cut me out, cold turkey.”

  “Until I was able to be there with you,” he said evenly, not flinching from her stare, “I didn’t think it would make anything better. So what if I sent you a letter? Convinced you I loved you? I’d still be in jail. We’d be apart. I couldn’t do anything to make it better, it’d just be words. And you know I’m not about words. I’m about doing.”

  Part of her knew it was true. That instead of spending four years loathing herself, she would have spent four years feeling pity for herself. Either way, they wouldn’t have been a blast.

  She leaned back as she took another sip of her wine, looking at him with such interest and curiosity. The man that knew all the ins and outs of her mind, her body, sat next to her and was professing… what?

  That he’d thought about her every day, that he’d do anything to make it up to her?

  Angela licked over her lips with a sigh.

  “And what is it you wanted our happily ever after to be, Jamal?”

  He smiled at that, the thoughts of his plans bringing such joy to him so easily.

  “I was gonna talk you into runnin’ off with me. Take my reward, go off and move to some place where the rent’s cheap, the sun’s hot and we can live a nice, quiet life.” He said, though he returned his gaze to her and looked serious once more. “But after what you’ve been through I saw that wasn’t gonna cut it. I needed more long term plans. Somethin’ practical.”

  Angela’s lips curled into a smile, sorrow hidden there behind her gaze.

  “So you wanted to tempt me back with a strip club, a clean strip club, so I can, what, get back in touch with my roots? Feel I have some purpose again?” she asked, her head slightly tilted as she looked at him.

  He gave a casual shrug.

  “You wanted a job. A more normal life. And you were still mixed up in that kinda life. I thought it was the way to go to repay you my debt. And to get you back in my life,” he said simply, as if it were all so obvious. “If I asked you to run off with me, would that have been more likely to work?” he asked, brow raised at her.

  “No,” she stated simply, leaning forward on the table. “But not because I wouldn’t want to. But because it’d be easier to turn down.”

  He knew that of course, he understood it fully. That’s why he switched his approach. He knew her too well to gamble on that proposition.

  “So what concerns me now is you,” he said firmly. “Righting my wrongs, making up for lost time. Making you happy. And secure. Because regardless of what happened, and how much I fucked up, I know we’re right for each other. Too right. We belong together, and more so than ever. I can look out for you now better than I could when I was a younger man, still full of myself, still addicted to the thrill of that life we led, outside the law.”

  Her wine was gone, her food pushed around on her p
late more than ate, and she could do nothing more than look at him. Hear that raw emotion in his voice, letting it resonate through her body. It was as though he was speaking to her soul, that hidden little part of her that she kept smothered for so many years.

  She wanted to argue. To remind him how easy it would be to get caught up in old habits, but she trusted his words more than her inner voice. He didn’t say anything he didn’t mean.

  Except, apparently, when he said he didn’t love her.

  “What about Romy, huh? What about Javier?”

  “That kid’s your concern,” he said simply with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “As for Javier, like I told you, once the club’s mine, he’s no longer my business.” He flicked a hand dismissively, “I did more than enough for him already. And if he thinks he can ask for more, he’s in for a rude awakening.”

  That harsh voice he took said he was serious. And while the prospect of one man standing against a mob seemed unrealistic and foolish for most, with Jamal she could start to believe it. He’d make enough trouble to put a whole gang on alert.

  Besides, four years of his life was nothing to shake a stick at.

  “What do you want for us, Jamal? To go back to how it used to be, except we get a cute picket fence and a dungeon in the basement instead of the living room?” she asked, her shoulders so heavy. It was hard to swallow, and she looked at him with such a mix of desire and disbelief.

  “We’d go to work every night, trying to make a living and yelling at each other over bills?” Angela shook her head. “What we had worked because it... fit. But now we’re not even talking about being different people, but living a completely different life. And you want me to put all my faith and trust in you when you couldn’t even tell me how deep you were into it before?”

  “I was different then,” he said in a confessional sort of tone, his own food left alone, hands folded in front of him after he pushed his plate away. “I knew what was best for you and that was that. I didn’t want you getting as deep into it as I was. Didn’t want you going to those people when I was gone, looking for… whatever. I thought I was doing what was best. I was wrong. I’m wise enough now to see that.”