Angel Girl (S.H.E. Book 1) Read online

  “I did, which is why she didn’t get what she wanted either. I didn’t go to UCLA with her, and I didn’t stay with you.” I shrugged my shoulders, feeling the numbness creeping into my soul. It was better than hurting even more over a person’s lies changing the course of my life completely.

  “She didn’t go to UCLA either,” Sweet told me.

  “No?” I asked. “Good. She didn’t deserve to get the life she wanted when she was the one who stole my happiness.”

  “Jamie,” Sweet started, but I held up my hand to stop him as I stood.

  “Sweet, I’m tired. I’ve had a shit night, to top off a shit week, and my past mistakes, people’s lies, and all the hurt and anger I’ve been harboring for seven years have been kicking me in the ass since you got back. I just need to go digest all this… everything. I need to go digest everything that has been thrown at me.”

  “I know the feeling,” he all but whispered. “Can we talk another time? I don’t want this to be the last time we’re able to be civil to one another. We’ve had people intentionally and unintentionally sabotaging us for years. I don’t fucking want to lose another day where other people are infecting something we should have had.”

  “I promise, we’ll talk more soon. Right now, I have a lot going on with the club, but as soon as that dies down a bit, we’ll get together and hash it all out from start to finish, okay?”

  Sweet nodded as he stood, placing a hand on my hip as he did so, then leaning in to kiss the top of my head and inhaling my scent. “I hope like hell there isn’t a finish though.” With that, he took off, heading back into the clubhouse and no doubt through the front doors and back out to the bike I heard growling a moment later. I pulled the leather jacket he’d left tucked around me closer, smelling the mixture of sweat, leather, and his cologne. They were all things that smelled like home to me at one point in my life.

  Chapter 7

  When my phone rang for the third time that morning I knew I would have to answer it. He wasn’t giving up, and I didn’t have to imagine what was so damn important.

  “Hello?” My sleep-graveled voice called into the phone. I’d been up late into the night organizing more stringent security details for the women of the club, and going over the information we had on Curtis Mayfield, otherwise known as snake tattoo guy. It had been a week and no one had seen hide nor hair of him.

  “Kiddo, you have anything you need to tell me?”

  “Other than it’s early?” I inquired sleepily, and then noticed the clock on my bedside table. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that early.

  “It’s almost noon, kid. I’m assuming you had a late night?”

  “Yeah, I kind of did.” I’d passed out in my room, fully clothed. The last thing I remembered was discussing logistics with Paul, one of our Redemption, Inc. security guys, and then nothing. “Shit, I can’t believe it’s noon already.”

  A groan from the chair beside my bed caught my attention, and my eyes widened at the sight of the man slumped there in the most uncomfortable looking position possible. “Shit!” I hissed out.

  “Jamie?” My father questioned, concern leaking out in his voice.

  The groaning from the corner grew louder before the man rolled and thumped onto the floor. A loud, “fuck!” bellowed out, and I just stared in disbelief. No telling what my dad was thinking now, because he had to be hearing this.

  “Um, maybe I should call you back in just a bit,” I started saying when Paul spun around like someone was about to attack him.

  He took note of me, then glanced around the room as if orienting himself, and dipped his head down in frustration. “Damn, I’m sorry Jamie. I must have fallen asleep.” He scrubbed his hands over his face before glancing up again and grinning at me. “I guess I can tic, ‘sleep with the boss’ off my bucket list, huh?” He winked at me as he tossed the joke out. My eyes bugged out of my head, and he seemed to notice the phone in my hand for the first time. “Shit! Sorry!”

  “Jamie? What the hell is going on over there?” My dad sounded slightly angry now.

  “I’ll call you back in a few minutes.” I clicked the phone off, set it down, and walked with Paul to my bedroom door. “That was my dad,” I laughed as I opened the door. “Needless to say he was coming to all the wrong conclusions.”

  I opened the door as Paul was laughing at our predicament. “Yeah, my comment about sleeping with the boss probably didn’t help. Sorry,” he apologized, but the grin on his face never slipped. At least it didn’t until another male voice from the loft beyond hissed out a very angry, “what the fuck?”

  My attention snapped up at the sound only to see Sweet and Spike standing with Tash. She was wearing a very obvious grin. I knew what she had to be thinking. Paul and I were wandering out of my bedroom; both rumpled all to hell, and wearing last night’s clothes. Yes, this looked exactly like a walk of shame moment.

  “I guess the Vegas wedding is off then?” Spike managed to deadpan before Sweet smacked him in the back of the head. “Yeah, right, well then I’m just going to head back down to the bar. Never too early for a beer.” With that he was off, and Sweet was left standing there fuming while Tash continued looking smug and amused.

  Paul turned towards me then, widened his eyes in mock surprise. “Well, pumpkin, I guess the secret’s out?” I couldn’t hold back any longer. I doubled over with laughter and Paul joined me. “Never a dull moment with you, Angel.” He leaned in, kissed the top of my head, and then took off without another word in spite of the death glare being leveled on him by Sweet.

  “Are you fucking kidding me, Jamie? We’ve been stuck waiting out here for over an hour, because Tash said you were working late and needed some damn sleep, and come to find out we’ve been waiting for you to finish fucking some guy who works for you? Classy. Really.”

  I know my jaw unhinged at some point in his little tirade, but I couldn’t seem to make it work again before Tash’s intake of breath and then the sound of her smacking the shit out of Sweet registered with me. Okay, if I’m being honest, that last part actually made it impossible to pick my jaw up off the floor.

  “You know what? I’m sick to death of you treating my friend like she’s some scum under your shoe you can just kick around whenever you feel like it. When it was just your passive aggressive flirting with other women in front of her, I let it go. I only did that because, for some horrible reason, she seemed used to it happening. That’s a different issue for another day though. I won’t tolerate you basically insinuating she’s some sort of whore. Hell, she hasn’t even dated since…”

  “Enough!” I finally found my voice, hinged my jaw back in place, and managed to get angry all at once. Tash closed her mouth, realizing she had almost said a lot more than I ever wanted Sweet to know. “What I do in my private time is none of anybody’s business. Actually, I just hung up the phone with my dad. So, no, I was not fucking someone while talking on the phone to him, asshole. Also, Paul would never cross that line while employed for me, even if it wasn’t written into his employment contract. He’d certainly joke about it to alleviate the tension we walked out on, but that’s about it.”

  “You expect me to believe that shit? I saw the state of the both of you. It’s obvious he was here all night.”

  “I don’t honestly care what you believe, because again, none of your business.” Voices were carrying up from the bar below.

  “Ow,” Paul’s voice called out. “MiMi, that hurts.”

  “Well, you’re the dumbass who slept in a chair. Hold still while I work the kink out or you’re going to have a hard time turning your head all day.” Laughter rang out after that along with some mumbled conversation I couldn’t make out. Then JoJo’s off-kilter bubbly laugh reached my ears.

  “Priceless,” she managed to get out. “The wedding is off…” I heard amidst snickers. Spike, or Paul, had obviously filled everyone in on what just happened.

  I smirked then, because I knew from the way the idiot in front of me had blanc
hed that he heard every word too. I crossed my arms over my chest and cock my head to the side expectantly. “Well, on that note, I’m going to leave you two to it.” Tash turned then and went back downstairs. Someone must have asked her something, because then I heard her say. “Nah, I clocked that cheeky fucker. It’ll be fine though.”

  I still hadn’t moved. Neither had Sweet. He was just watching me as I began to tap my foot back and forth on the floor in an impatient manner. He huffed finally like he was done with whatever I was waiting for. “Can we go talk?” He gestured to the room behind.

  “I don’t know,” I hedged. “Another man in my bedroom this soon after it was vacated by the last? What kind of impression would I be giving people?” My stance didn’t change. He knew I was pissed. He knew why. Still, Sweet all but refused to apologize. Instead he rubbed his hand over the cheek that Tash had just abused and then he rolled his head back as if he were looking to the ceiling for answers.

  “I’m sorry, Jamie. It seems like we’re both plenty busy making assumptions about one another, and far too often.”

  “Only mine usually aren’t assumption,” I countered. “It’s blatantly obvious when you wink at me and walk out with a coke-whore tucked up tight against you.” Yes, I went there, throwing his actions back in his face. He just sighed.

  “Look, I came here on business. After the conversation yesterday, we did some checking into a few things. I thought you might want the information we dug up on a few of those Winter’s Renegade assholes.”

  “Fine.” I turned on my heel and went back to my room. There were papers and a map scattered over the little coffee table in front the seating area. It’s where Paul and I had spent hours pouring over possible locations to search the night before. “Sorry about the mess, we were working late on logistics.” I started to scoot all the papers into a tidy pile to move away when Sweet’s hand came down on top of mine.

  “Don’t bother. I have a feeling we’ll be comparing notes shortly.” When I turned to look into those emerald orbs of his I got lost for a moment with my lips slightly parted, staring like a schoolgirl with her first crush, and making a general fool out of myself. At least I would have thought that if my own emotions hadn’t been mirrored back at me from his face. I quickly shook off the thought though, because he’d done everything in his power both now and in the past to make sure I knew he’d never be serious about me.

  Saved by the phone. I looked down at my cell only to see my father’s name again. As soon as I picked up his voice was loud in my ear. “Jamie, you gonna explain to me what the hell is going on?”

  “No,” I said sternly. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told everyone else this morning, it’s none of your business. I’m a grown ass woman, and can do whatever the hell I want with whomever I want. Last time I checked I was 25 freakin’ years old, and paying my own bills.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “Just caught me by surprise. Last time I saw you there hadn’t been any boys, not a single date.” I really hated that my phone volume was turned up so loud.

  “Yeah, well a lot of shit can change in seven years, dad.” I huffed out. As I heard him suck in a surprised breath and I realized that was the first time I’d called him dad instead of Ghost when I was speaking directly to him.”

  “I know.” He quickly changed the subject though. “I was calling because Sweet informed me that Winter’s Renegades may be a problem again. I just wanted you to know that we have people checking into some things, trying to find out who has been throwing money their way.”

  “Sweet is here now. We were just about to go over the information we both have.”

  I could almost here the smile in his voice then. “Oh! Is that who I heard earlier? I didn’t recognize…”

  “No, it’s not. He’s gone. Sweet’s here now, and we need to get business handled, because I have other shit to do today.” I didn’t want to have to be curt with him, but I wasn’t about to have a conversation about the man who was standing in my bedroom watching my every move.

  “Oh, I see.” The disappointment in his tone was evident. I wasn’t sure why my dad was so hell bent on me ending up with Sweet. He claimed he saw the mutual attraction between us years ago, but apparently he’d been blind to all the ways Sweet blatantly attempted to push me away over the years.

  “I’ll call you later,” I finally added. “Or, I guess, Sweet can fill you in on whatever.”

  “I’d prefer it if you called me, Jamie.”

  “Fine. I have to go.”

  “Yeah, okay. I love you, Jamie.” I didn’t say anything else. I just hung up. Of course I loved my dad, but it honestly sent me into a sort of shock to hear him say those words again after all this time. Four years of radio silence on his end and seven years of hiding on mine equaled out to a whole lot of issues rolling around in my head whenever I did talk to him.

  Sweet looked at me disapprovingly. “You can’t even tell the old man you love him?”

  For once I was just too tired to keep my guard up. “It’s really not that simple. It’s fucked up to say, but it’s shocking to hear those words from him again after 11 years of never hearing them. It’s like having a stranger say them to me. I honestly get stuck and don’t know what to say, so nothing is probably better than me blubbering and crying like a baby about all the times I cried myself to sleep wishing my daddy loved me when I was younger and I needed him.” Sweet made a noise low in his throat, and before I knew it he was around the coffee table and pulling me into his arms.

  “I didn’t know. I was too young back then to realize what was going on wasn’t normal for you guys.” He breathed the words into my hair, a whispered apology for not seeing all the things that had been wrong in my life back then. “I heard some of the guys talking about how he needed to get his shit together, and how it wasn’t right how he was treating you, how your momma must be turning over in her grave, but hell…” he huffed out. “I thought they were just doing some backseat parenting.” He pulled me in so tight to him that my breasts were mushed into his rock hard chest. “You always seemed so damn put together like nothing bothered you. I didn’t think…” He sighed again. “I just didn’t think, period.”

  “It’s not like it was your job to think about me.” I pulled away by pushing against his muscular chest with my hands, and he let me go.

  “Well,” he offered up one of his famous grins, “it kind of was after we were betrothed and all.” I appreciated him trying to lighten the situation with humor, but the way he handled our betrothal was another insult to me. Needless to say, the reminder didn’t bring a smile to my face. He noticed. “Sorry,” he shook his head and looked down. “Seems I’m doomed to keep fucking up as much as your dad did.”

  “Nah,” I manage to get out as I nervously fumbled through the papers in my hand. “It’s fine. So, last night, Paul and I were mostly focused on trying to find this one guy who skipped bail. It’s personal with him.”

  Sweet didn’t stop the business train I had hopped on this time. Instead, he sat beside me on the little loveseat. “What’s going on with this particular guy to make it personal?” He picked up Curtis’s mug shot and glanced down at it. Besides the mug shot, we also had the jail intake photos of all his tattoos.

  He’s the one who kidnapped MiMi. Well, one of the two, and definitely one of the assholes who…” I couldn’t bring myself to talk about what happened to her while she was held captive with them. “She didn’t have it easy while she was held by them,” I told him instead.

  The anger rolling off of Sweet was palpable. “I didn’t realize MiMi was one of the girls you rescued.”

  “She is the only one we rescued who holds full member status here, though there are four more that stuck around afterwards too. She took on a lot of abuse at the hands of the WR in order to spare the other girls.” I swallowed thickly then, before clearing my throat. “Paul is her brother, and he’s the one who came to us for help when she went missing and local law enforcement wasn’t d
oing shit.”

  “The guy who was in here?”

  “Yeah, that’s why we were up so late that we both fell asleep.” I didn’t owe him the explanation, but I wanted him to hear it at the same time. “We both want to make sure the asshole is caught before he can get his hands on MiMi again. He had some sort of sick fixation on her from what she said the two times she’s ever talked about what happened.” I shivered at the memory of her telling her story. “I will do whatever it takes to make sure she never suffers like that again.”

  “Now that we have a name to focus on, I’ll make sure all of Aces High are on the lookout too. I’ll send it up to every chapter so that we have men on the lookout everywhere.”

  “We were also told there’s an informant among us. I’m not sure if it was one of our girls, a hanger-on, or someone in your club. From what Tash and Keys learned it’s not someone terribly in the know about our inner workings and business dealings so I’m not really sure. Maybe the purge yesterday took care of whoever it was, but maybe not.”

  “Speaking of that purge,” Sweet put the picture down he had been holding. “I hope that wasn’t all because of me.”

  “No, it was because of them. They were given direct orders that they chose not to follow. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Yeah, but I pushed a few of them into giving me their numbers.”

  “I’m sure there were a few you pushed who didn’t offer them up too,” I tossed out.

  “True, but there was also that girl I walked out of here with the other night to try to get a rise out of you.”

  I turned to look directly at him then. “The coke-whore?”

  He shrugged before looking away, not able to maintain eye contact. “Never saw her doing coke,” he offered in a quiet voice.

  “Yeah, well, she wasn’t even a member of the club, so no worries there. She was trying to get a job at Paramour as one of our dancers. I refused to hire her because of her habit.”

  Sweet only nodded. I wondered briefly if he felt bad for his choice of woman to use to torment me, considering she turned out to be more than a little disgusting. I couldn’t help myself when I added, “and her health screen came back subpar too.” I wrinkled my nose, and then slid a little further away from him. It was a minute movement, but one he caught.