Storm Ravaged (Storm Damages 2) (Storm Legacy) (14 page)

“
Which means you’re off the Storm Industries team. I’m sorry, Liz.”

Yeah, it’s just as bad as I thought. At least I still have a job. “I understand, Mr. Carrey.”

“I’ll ask the other partners in the group to provide you with meaningful work.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it.” They hadn’t in the last several months, and I don’t expect that to change. Not now, after I’d slept with the COO of a company on the other side of a business deal. Even though SouthWind had sold the wind farm assets for more money than originally sought, someone or a group of someones will be assigned to analyze the transaction to make sure I had done no wrong. I had put the firm in a really bad spot. And, as I’d always feared, I was about to pay the price. Can’t say I didn’t expect it. I just didn’t expect it to hurt so much.

I can just see my future. Because they don’t want Gabriel to pull his business. I’ll be treated with kid gloves, given a light workload. And be bored silly.

I think things can’t get any worse. But that’s before I return to my office to find Brian waiting for me.

“So you and Storm, huh?” The smirk on his face tells me exactly what he thinks.

My hackles rise. How is my relationship with Gabriel any of his business? I can’t afford to alienate him, though. Not if I hope to get work from him. “Excuse me.” Rather than snap out a pithy comment, I put the breadth of my substantial desk between us and glare at him. “Do you have an assignment for me, Brian?”

He chokes out a derisive laugh. “No, I don’t. And in the future, you won’t get much from me. Nor from the other partners in the office.”

Other partners?
“Wait. You made partner?”

A nasty grin pops up on his face. “Yes. I got the news this morning. Funny it came through as soon as the news broke about you and Gabriel Storm. Guess they were holding it up because they thought I was the father.”

As if.
I’ve never found Brian attractive. “You’re not. Gabriel is.” There is a note of pride in my voice. Gabriel’s ten times the man Brian is.

His face falls at my confirmation of Gabriel’s paternity. The intimidation leaches out of him, but then an ugly look comes over his face. “I would have married you. You would have wanted for nothing. And I wanted you, not that bastard you carry.”

I suck in air. Such an ugly word and one that would be aimed at my child every day of his life. In England, he would be known as the Earl’s bastard. When Gabriel married, as he was bound to do to provide an heir to his title, my baby would be shunned, never to be held in the same regard as his legitimate siblings. Am I willing to submit my child to such insults?

His words are taking a toll on me. I need time to think about what he said, solitude to deal with the turmoil roiling within me. “I’m done with this conversation. Shut the door on your way out.”

“It won’t last, you know. Sooner or later, he’ll kick you to the curb. And then where will you be? Everyone here knows you slept with him while we were negotiating against his company. You think any other firm in town will hire you with your reputation?” He barks out a harsh laugh. “Not bloody likely.” He mimics the way Gabriel speaks.

“Since when do you have a British accent?”

“My father’s a Brit. I spent the first ten years of my life in London. You didn’t know that, did you? I can speak like the bloody lot, pass off as one of them too. Does he call you love when he’s fucking you?”

I’ve had enough of this. “Get out. And don’t ever come into my office again or I’ll file a harassment suit against you.”

He leans into the desk and for the first time I fear what he’ll do. “Who will they believe? The slut who spread her legs and allowed an opposing party to fuck her or the partner who’s never put a toe out of place? You’re damaged goods, love. Might as well fold your tent and go home for your work here is finished. No one will give you a meaningful assignment. I’ll make sure of that.”

“If you don’t get out right now, I’ll scream the place down.”

I don’t know if it’s my raised voice or the threat in my words, but he does an about face and stomps out. I lock the door but don’t stop shaking for a good twenty minutes. I’d been happy with my private office in a deserted hall, with no neighbors near by. But now I fear the remote location will work against me if Brian turns physical.

I could tell HR. But with no proof of his threatening behavior, doubt they would believe me given the recent turn of events. I will need to be careful. Make sure my office is empty before I enter it. Lock it when I’m inside and when I step away. Wish I could tell Gabriel. But I can’t. God only knows what he would do if he found out.

When calm eventually returns, a thought pops into my head. Someone stole Gabriel’s confidential documents which included his notes on the margins. Notes he’d written in front of me at the London hotel. Those same comments appeared on the documents Carrey presented to him as proof that the SouthWind deal was worth a great deal more. So it stands to reason the documents had been obtained at the hotel.

Could Brian have arranged for someone to copy Gabriel’s documents? He said he had London contacts. And the morning I returned from Gabriel’s penthouse, I saw him giving money to a concierge, and the concierge giving him something in return. At the time, I thought it was theater tickets, but it could have just as easily been a flash drive.

How could I not have seen this before? Too much on my mind, I guess, what with the baby, Gabriel, his mother’s disappearance, the move.

I need to get my hands on the documents Gabriel handed to Carrey. They should be in our files. But how am I going to do that when the firm cut me me off from anything related to Storm Industries? I drop my head into my hands. Think, Elizabeth, think. After a few minutes I take a deep breath, hitch up my chin. I’ll be damned if I let that snake Brian get away with it. One way or another, I’ll find out.

Chapter 18

______________

Elizabeth

THURSDAY MORNING, MY CELL PHONE RINGS. An unknown number pops up. I think about letting it roll over to voice mail, but it might be something important so I pick it up.

“You’re a very clever girl, Ms. Watson. I underestimated you.” Gabriel’s mother.
What the hell?

A million questions pop up, but I go with the most important one.
“Where are you?”

“You don’t know?” She laughs that nasty laugh of hers. “Well, well, well. Let’s just say, somewhere remote.”

I clutch my cell tight in my hand. “Gabriel’s looking for you. He’ll find you.”

“Ahh, but will he find me in time?”

My stomach lurches. “In time for what?”

“Before I rid the world of you and that brat you’re carrying.”

Oh, God
. Bile rises in my throat. I’d made myself believe Gabriel had exaggerated the threat from his mother to get me to do what he wanted. But now? I choke back the bitter taste in my mouth. “You’re evil.”

“You can stop it, you know.” Her insidious voice sounds almost normal. If it weren’t for the fact, she’s insane.

I want to hang up, but I need to get as much information as I can to pass on to Gabriel. “How would I do that?”

“My preference would have been you get rid of the baby. But it’s too late for that. Not too late for you to disappear, though. I offered you twenty million dollars before. I see that wasn’t enough. Clearly, you were holding out for more. How does forty million sound? I’ll get you a new identity. All you need do is walk away.”

Forty million dollars would pay for a life of luxury. All I would need do is leave behind everyone and everything I care about—my job, law school, Casey. Gabriel. It would devastate him were I to disappear, taking his child along with me.

“Gabriel wants his son. He’ll find me.”

“No, he won’t. He hasn’t found me, has he?” She cackles. Good lord, she really does sound insane.

I don’t understand her vitriolic hate or her reasoning. Not now when marriage to the duke’s daughter is no longer an option. “Why are you doing this? Surely you understand he’ll never marry Lady Melissande.”

“He took my son from me.” Lady Winterleagh spits out. “He was the one supposed to die that day, not Edward. If my son’s dead, why should his live?”

This goes way beyond her wish to have a grandson with royal blood in his veins. “Gabriel’s your son, too.”

“No, he’s not. He’s his father’s son. You never met my husband, but Gabriel looks exactly like him, acts like him, has the same devil’s own charm about him just like his father did. And he, he besmirched the vows we made by bedding a slut on our wedding day. And now Gabriel’s doing the same, sleeping with a whore.”

“I’m not a whore!”

“No? What do you call what you’re doing, Ms. Watson? Living in the lap of luxury in an apartment owned by my son, with servants, bodyguards. No doubt all in exchange for your sexual favors. Isn’t that the very definition of a whore?”

The churning in my stomach intensifies. I’m going to be sick. By sheer force of will, I fight it down. “How do you know this?”

“I have my ways, Ms. Watson. So what say you? Do we have a deal?”

That night in London I refused to accept Gabriel’s offer of an apartment in his co-op, money, jewelry, anything I wanted. And now, except for the jewelry, haven’t I accepted just that? I might not like what I’ve become, what Gabriel has made of me. But I’ll be damned if I give this evil witch any satisfaction. “Gabriel wants our child. It’d break his heart were I to disappear. And I won’t do that a second time. So no. I won’t agree to this.”

“Very well. You’ve brought this upon your head.”

“What are you going to do?” Terrified, I grip the phone with hands grown cold.

“What do you think?”

“I’m not engaged to him; I have no plans to marry him. Our son will not inherit the title.” I launch one last plea, hoping against hope my argument persuades her.

“Ms Watson, one thing about being my age, I know a truth when I see one. I know Ainsley. More than anything, he wants your child as his heir. You may not want to marry, but he does, and he’ll find a way for you to agree. He always does. And I can’t have a grandchild born of a whore. If you don’t accept my proposal, you and your child are doomed. So, one last time, will you take my offer?”

“Go to hell, Lady Winterleagh.”

“Goodbye, Ms. Watson. The blood of your unborn child will be on your head.”

The sickness surges within me, no longer willing to be held back. I dash for the ladies’ room and barely make it in time. Thankfully, no one enters while I spew my stomach contents into the porcelain bowl. Minutes, hours later, when there’s nothing left in my stomach, I stumble out, weak and shaking.

Oh god, what am I going to do?

Chapter 19

______________

Gabriel

“SHE DRUGGED ME.” Sarah Simmons, the agent guarding my mother.

My blood runs cold. “What are you talking about?” I step away from a business meeting into an empty office to take the call.

“Your mother. We were in the potting shed when she asked for tea. We shared the brew. But when I left to fetch her some honey, she must have put something in my cup. Whatever it was, it knocked me unconscious. When I came to, she was calmly pruning some plant like nothing had happened. But two hours had passed.”

I punch the nearest wall and don’t feel the pain. Rage, fear threaten to overwhelm me, but I choke them down. Emotions won’t help me get to the bottom of this. “What did she use? You sedated her to get her to the cottage. Were those drugs lying around?”

“No. That narcotic was administered on the boat. And the only medicine in the cottage is a headache remedy, nothing which would render me senseless.”

No help there. “She must have done it for a purpose.” There was always a reason to my mother’s madness.

“She did. She”—Sarah’s voice wavers—“she called Ms.Watson on my mobile. The call lasted fifteen minutes or so.”

Fear spears through me. I drop into an office chair before my legs give way. “Bloody hell.”

“Yes, Mr. Storm. Exactly. She made another call to an unknown number.”

Another call? To whom? For what purpose? The possibilities are too horrible to entertain.

“I apologize, Sir. I should have been more vigilant.”

“No, Ms. Simmons. Don’t apologize. If anyone’s at fault, it’s me. I should have asked Jake to send another operative.” Even though I’m howling inside, somehow I will my voice to remain calm. Panic won’t solve this puzzle. But cold, logical reason should, after I discover the facts. And there’s only one way to do that. “I’ll fly to Scotland tonight and bring an additional guard with me. In the meantime, don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Yes, Mr. Storm.”

My hand shakes as I hit Jake’s number. Who the blazes did my mother call? She hadn’t stopped at Liz. And why the devil hasn’t Liz phoned to tell me about it?

I explain the events to Jake and what I need from him. Thankfully, he doesn’t ask questions, but tells me he’ll take care of things. He probably heard the desperation in my voice and knew I was hanging on by a thin thread.

After I hang up with him, I call Liz. Since I must be ignorant about my mother’s call to her, I aim to lead with the surprise I’d planned—my day early return to D.C. Plans which must be scuttled due to my mother’s actions.