Free Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2) by Carole Mortimer

was born out of the ashes of our past careers.”
    “Where you sit behind a desk all day…”
    “Out of choice.” He nodded. “I had no taste for any more ops after…well, after.”
    After he almost died?
    Or after the “girl waiting for him” had disappeared so completely?
    She sighed deeply. “Clive was there, being supportive, and I accepted his marriage proposal because I was twenty years old and pregnant, frightened and alone, not because I was in love with him.”
    Gabriel nodded. “I’ve pretty well worked that much out for myself. How come you never mentioned knowing him when the two of us were together?”
    She grimaced. “We didn’t talk much at all, if you recall.”
    “No,” he mused before sobering. “And it’s all past history anyway,” he said harshly.
    He didn’t have to say anything else for Angel to know it was too late for them. Eight years too late. Oh, the sexual chemistry was still there, obviously, but a lot had happened to both of them in those eight years. They were two different people now. Even less suited to each other than they had been all those years ago. Gabriel had always been intense, overwhelming, but she was nothing like the uncomplicated student she had been when he first met her.
    There was something else Gabriel didn’t need to say. He would never forgive her for denying him Daniel for that same number of years.
    “I can’t let you leave here, Angel.” Gabriel’s voice was gruff. “Sinclair is a possessive son of a bitch. I suspect he’s still having you followed, so he’ll know where you are by now. I doubt it’s going to make him happy to know you’re staying at the apartment of another man. I thought I was keeping you safe by bringing you here, but going on what I now know about Sinclair, it appears I may have put you in even more danger.”
    She held on to the vanity unit as she stood shakily. “You aren’t responsible for Clive’s sadism or his lack of a heart. I’ll continue staying here,” she conceded. “But we have to get Daniel away from him. Sooner rather than later. I’ll do anything, Gabriel, anything you ask, if you’ll do that for me.”
    “I sincerely hope you aren’t suggesting I might want to take some sort of payment out of your flesh?” His tone was dangerously soft. “Is that what you thought I was doing earlier?” he added suspiciously.
    “No, of course not,” she snapped, cheeks warming.
    “Then what the fuck did you mean by you’ll do anything if I get Daniel away from Sinclair?”
    “I was offering to…to give you Daniel, if you will only bring him back safely.”
    Gabriel’s brows lowered as he stared at her searchingly, seeing only sincerity, and love—for Daniel—glittering in her eyes. “Jesus, what the hell sort of man do you think I am? Don’t answer that! I’m not going to take your son away from you, Angel,” he rasped, and instantly heard her shaky sigh of relief. “I will want you to tell him who I am, though. To get to know him. Have him get to know me.” He was now fully aware Daniel was the reason Angel had married a man she didn’t love. The reason she was now in this predicament.
    Gabriel would never take Daniel away from her. But he had every intention of sharing Daniel, being a father to him. He accepted it was too late for him and Angel, but they had a connection through their son, and Gabriel intended taking every advantage of that connection. But not by taking advantage of Angel’s vulnerability. That would make him no better than Sinclair.
    “Go back to bed,” he told her flatly. “Maybe all of this will look less…bleak in the morning.” Although he doubted it.
    Sinclair would still have Daniel. Would still be a sadist and the man whose supply of arms had assisted in the genocide of thousands of people.
    And Gabriel would still want Angel.
    He hadn’t ever stopped wanting her.
    Seeing her again, being with her again, told him that he never would.

    “We didn’t meet