“I’ve done some stupid shit while drinking,” he says. “I’m sure that’s hard to believe.” He winks. “But I have. And for the record, I would have followed you if you didn’t accept the escort, so you still would have been safe.”
I swallow hard. “Right. Of course, you would.”
“That doesn’t please you?” he says, as we turn and start up the stairs leading to Jax’s office.
“Oh, I’m all kinds of pleased to have you look out for me,” I say. “I’m just not pleased that I need you to look out for me.” My lips thin. “Jax asked me to move in with him here. How do either of us live here together if I need a bodyguard all the time? That’s not living.”
“We’ll make sure that the only thing you have to worry about is the ghost of the castle.” We reach the upper level where Jax’s office is located.
I step to Jax’s door and face Savage. “Brody isn’t going to stop hating me, and hate isn’t a crime.”
“Holding you over a ledge damn sure is,” he says. “We’ll handle Brody.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a set of keys, freeing one of them to offer it to me. “The office is locked.”
“I just realized I’m kind of invading Jax’s privacy.”
“Better than walking in on him scratching his ass or some shit like that. He wants this over. The faster the better. So, hurry up. Go in. Find what we came to find.”
I nod and unlock the door, pushing it open to enter the office. Once I’m inside, I quickly walk to the bookshelf, grab the hourglass and sit down on the couch. Turning it over, I find the small compartment, much like the back of a photo frame. I flip the tiny lever, holding it down to the left, and sure enough, there is a small notecard inside. It reads: They’ll never know, but we do.
And the handwriting isn’t my mother’s. I shiver at the sight of my father’s script. The same script in the journal and on so many company documents. I could assume it’s an inside joke between my father and Jax’s father, but my father wouldn’t give a man a gift like this. No. This wasn’t a gift to Jax’s father. It was a gift to his mother, from my father.
Our families are wrapped up in a connected scandal, and I think about where that has led us:
Jax’s mother is missing.
My mother is hiding in Europe.
Hunter is dead.
Echo is now missing, too.
“Well?” Savage prods.
I open my eyes. “We don’t need to find the DNA test. This is my father’s version of a love note to Jax’s mother. Hunter was my father’s son. My half-brother. Jax and I shared a half-brother. That feels very weird.”
“There’s no blood between you,” Savage says, sitting down next to me to shoot a picture of the note. “You want to do the same?”
“Yes. Please. I should have taken a picture of the DNA test, too.” He holds the hourglass, and I pull out my phone that I shoved in my pocket and take a quick photo. “Any luck on the DNA test?” I ask, sealing the note back underneath the metal plate.
“Not yet.”
“I hate that I threw it away,” I say, standing and walking to the bookshelf, returning the hourglass to its original location. For a moment, I wonder who placed it here the first time. Jax’s mother? Or was it his father, who had no idea about the note hidden in the bottom of the beautiful design?
I shake off the thought and turn to find Savage standing on the opposite side of the coffee table. “Now what?”
“I really need to see Jax.”
He motions to the door, and a minute later, we’ve locked up and are headed down the stairs. We’re halfway down when voices lift from a hallway to the right. “You need to just wait, Brody.”
It’s Jill, and Savage lifts a finger to his lips and then motions for me to move further down the steps out of sight. I do so, and he follows, but we stay within hearing range.
“I’m not going to wait.”
“You get in trouble when you push too hard.”
“Jax should know better,” he says.
“I don’t like her being here either, but maybe Jax has a master plan. Maybe he’s using her.”
“Have you seen how he looks at her? He’s not using her.”
“Then maybe we both better take a step back and rethink things.”
“You know what?” he asks. “I’m done here.”
Savage presses a finger to his lips and motions me down the stairs. My heart is now officially in my throat, but somehow, I manage to hurry down the stairs without falling. We make it down another level when Savage pulls me into a hallway, where we plant ourselves against the wall. A full minute passes before Brody rushes past us. Following him is Jill. “Stop and talk to me,” she hisses after him, but he doesn’t stop.
Savage holds up a finger for me to wait. We wait for what feels like a full five minutes before he finally waves us onward. Our walk is silent, and it’s not until we round the corner and enter a hallway that I say, “That was all about me.”
“It was all about Hunter,” he amends and points to an archway. “This way to Jax.”
I want to ask him to clarify, but he’s already motioning me toward a giant archway. With him by my side, I step into a room with towering ceilings, as well as a cozy seating area with a white stone fireplace. There are four pillars wrapped in art, hand painted to perfection, that divide the room. Beyond that seems to be open space and then a door.
“He’s in there,” Savage announces, pointing to said heavy wooden door set a good several feet of open space beyond where we stand. He indicates a set of chairs in a cubby hole, just beyond the door. “You can sit and wait. I’ll be by the fireplace making a call.” He does the fingers to his eyes thing again—his to mine—and adds, “I’m right here. I can see you. Don’t try to run.”
“I was definitely going to run,” I say flatly.
“I know. I saw it in your eyes.”
I’ve come to know that Savage has a dry, quirky sense of humor that you just have to roll with. But that’s not all he is. The scar down his cheek says he’s seen trouble, and it’s buried somewhere under the man he lets us see. And I know this because, after my rape, I pretended to be okay when I wasn’t okay. Not until Jax came along. Somehow, he has managed to empower me. He woke me up. Or he helped me climb a wall I’d already been climbing. My father’s death and journal woke me up.
I claim the seat next to the door while Savage leans on the distant fireplace and talks animatedly on his phone. I decide he was right. I would like to run, on the beach for about three miles to clear my head. I replay the message I’d found from my father to Jax’s mother, and emotions ball in my chest. I stand up, walking to the side of the door, and start to pace. Did my mother know?
I try to call her and get her voicemail yet again.
I pace some more but stop dead when the doors to the library open. Not wanting to interrupt any last minute business, I step back a bit, where I can see the door, but I’m out of sight. A man with wavy dark hair that I recognize as Grayson Bennett, one of our largest brand competitors, exits right away and keeps walking, waving at Savage without ever seeing me. Jax and another man with brown hair, step half in and half out of the doorway. Jax’s back is to me and I can identify the other man as Eric Mitchell, Grayson’s right-hand man. “Apologies for Grayson’s abrupt departure,” Eric says. “Crisis management happens.”
“Don’t I know it,” Jax says. “No worries here.”
“On a positive note,” Eric says, “this gives me a chance a quick minute with you one-on-one before I leave, too. I’m willing to push certain limits to get to the right results, and I can make Grayson see the logic of doing so.”
“What are you saying?” Jax asks.
“I look out for Grayson’s interest and I can’t allow a merger with Knight without knowing Chance’s true colors. Your plan is my plan. Consider this our thumbs up.”
Merger?
My brother is merging with Bennett Enterprises? No. I’m not understanding. Clearly, I’m n
ot understanding what is happening. He wouldn’t do that. Dad wouldn’t allow that and dad might be dead, but Chance’s attempt to buy the castle proves he’s still following his directives.
“The sooner the better,” Jax says. “We all need to know what Chance Knight is made of.”
“No one more than Emma Knight,” Eric says. “But despite your reasoning for doing so, which she’d eventually understand, are you prepared for her reaction to this plan of yours? Stripping Chance of his company is a big step.”
“If he’s the man I fear he is, then it will be in better hands when it’s done.”
I blanch. Stripping him of the company? Is he serious? Did I really just hear what I think I heard? Anger surges inside me, and I step forward. “Your hands, Jax?” I demand. “Please tell me I’m misunderstanding because I really need to hear that I’m misunderstanding you right now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jax
My father used to say that trust is earned, and once earned, it’s fragile, so treat it with care. Despite good intentions, I did not treat Emma’s trust with care today and I am desperate to make that right. “Emma—”
“Answer me, Jax,” she orders, pointing at me. “Are you trying to take over my family business?”
“I should go and let you two talk this out,” Eric says.
“Oh no,” Emma says, pointing at him now. “You stay. I want to know what your role in this is.”
“Talk to me, Emma,” I plead. “This is not what you’re assuming it is. Trust me.”
“Did you really just say that to me?” She demands. “Don’t answer. You did just say that to me. Both of you start talking. Two mouths are better than one,” she waves a finger between us. “Now. Both of you, talk.”
Savage steps into the mix of things. “Who’s fighting who right now?”
“Go away, Savage,” Emma snaps and looks at me. “Tell him—”
“Savage,” I warn.
“All right, all right,” he says. “I’ll be holding up a wall nearby.” Thank fuck, he’s smart enough to leave.
Emma turns her attention to Eric. “What is your role in this?”
I try to save Eric. “His name is Eric—”
“Mitchell,” Emma supplies. “I know my competition. He’s some sort of genius savant and right-hand to Grayson Bennett. What is your role in all of this?”
“Whatever you and Jax decide it should be,” Eric says. “Talk to Jax, as I’d want my wife to do with me.”
“I’m not his wife,” she bites out as if it’s an appalling idea, and that hits hard. “And,” she adds, “if I was, and he left me out of this conversation, we’d be divorcing.”
“You’re not his wife, yet,” Eric says. “Listen to what he has to say.” He eyes me. “We leave for the airport in two hours. If you can ride along to finish this conversation, great. If not, call me.” He nods at Emma. “I hope to get to know you soon.” On that, Eric walks away.
“When you take over our company?” Emma demands at his departing back.
Eric doesn’t reply, but I do. I close the space between us and catch her arm. “Emma.”
She whirls around to face me, shoving a hand in my chest, her green eyes alight with fire. “Let go.”
“Never. Haven’t you figured that out? I’m not letting you go. Not without a fight. Come with me someplace private.”
“Talk here. Talk now.”
I don’t give her time to fight me. I turn her and press her against the wall, my legs caging her legs. “Do you trust me?”
She presses her palms to my chest, ready to push, but my one comfort is that she doesn’t. Yet. “I thought I did,” she declares.
“Do you trust me?”
“I thought I did.”
“Damn it. I did not betray you, Emma. I told you there were things we needed to talk about.”
“Oh really? So, you were going to tell me that you were stealing our company in some sort of hostile takeover with one of our biggest competitors?”
“That is not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
I push off the wall. “Not here. I don’t like the way this castle breeds the unexpected, like that note left for you.” I offer her my hand. “Come with me to my tower where I know we have privacy. Let me explain.”
“Do you really think there is any version of a story you can tell me that I’ll be able to live with?”
“Yes. The truth, Emma.”
In rejection of my hands, she folds her arms in front of her. “Right. The truth.”
“The truth that I intended to tell you tonight,” I say, settling my hands on my hips, “before I did anything final, and after I knew the full plan. Come to our tower. We can talk freely there.”
“Your tower,” she corrects.
“I still want it to be ours. Give me a chance to make you want it, too.”
“I don’t want to end up naked and forget what just happened.”
I hold up my hands. “I won’t touch you until you touch me.”
“If I touch you.”
“There is no if, Emma. We’re good together. That hasn’t changed.”
She exhales a shaky breath. “I’ll go with you, but I’m not promising that I’ll stay.”
Relief washes over me. She’s going to hear me out, and the truth is, Emma’s ability to stay rational under duress is one of the many things I love about her. Sure, she tore up the DNA test and washed it down the ocean drain, but that was a one-off for her. She’s smart. She thinks. She listens. Too bad those traits, most likely, come from all those years of being punished by her father. Which is why I’m trying to make sure her brother doesn’t pull a repeat. “I can live with that,” I say, motioning her forward.
Emma double steps and I wave off Savage, who is hovering nearby. He grimaces, and I tune him out, leading her to an archway, down a private hallway that avoids the guests but still gets us to my tower.
We round a corner, and to my irritation, Brody steps in our path. I forget my vow not to touch Emma until she touches me and I pull her close, under my arm. She doesn’t move away. In fact, she melts into me, and God, it feels good. I don’t want to lose her. I did nothing to hurt her, but rather protect her. I have to make her see that.
“Fancy seeing me here, right?” Brody asks, eyeing Emma. “Hello, Emma.”
“What do you need, Brody?” I demand tightly.
“You. Got a minute, big brother?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I do not have a minute. Not now.” I crowd him, until he steps aside, and I take Emma with me, walking us a few more feet to the stairs.
Once we’re there, I force myself to let her go. “I know I promised, but Brody—”
“It’s okay,” she says quickly, but she doesn’t look at me, doesn’t speak. I don’t speak either. The tension between us pulls and stretches, a tightrope about to break, and when it does, we crash and burn, if I don’t catch our fall. But I will. I am not letting us crash and burn.
Finally, we reach the tower entrance and are finally about to be alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jax
The minute I shove open the door, Emma charges into the upstairs’ foyer ahead of me, obviously ready to blow. I shut the door and lock it, turning to find her on the attack. “What was that?” she demands.
I close half the steps between us, expecting her to back away. Her chin lifts defiantly. She doesn’t retreat. She stands her ground. That tells me she’s ready to hear what I have to say. “Ask me who I thought would do a better job with Knight than Chance.”
“You said—”
“It would be in better hands. Your hands, Emma.”
“I don’t want what is my brother’s, Jax. Why would you think I would do that?”
“Only if he fails the test.”
“What test? What test, Jax?”
I don’t answer that question, not yet. Not until she sees just how completely Chance is keeping her in the dark. “He’s
merging with Bennett, or trying to, and giving up the Knight name as well. I predict he gets out completely.”
“I heard you talking to Eric about that. That can’t be right.”
“It is, baby. I’m part of a financial consortium Grayson and Eric run. Your brother applied to join, in order to diversify his personal portfolio, but as an extension of that, he suggested a partnership with Bennett that has now become a merger.”
“I don’t get it. Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. But he wants an escape from the attention and control.”
“You mean he’s planning to hide under Bennett’s brand?”
“Yes.”
“You think my father left him more than he bargained for?” she asks.
“That’s exactly what I think, and I’ll be honest, Emma, when I first went to Eric, we were not a couple. I went with the intent to destroy your brother. I wanted to convince Bennett to back out and then mastermind a hostile takeover. I wanted revenge. I wanted it so badly that I would have connected him to York had I known about York back then and ruined him. But then you happened.”
“Don’t play with me,” she warns. “I heard you say you were setting him up.”
“He plans to come after me. You know I have to be ready. We talked about this.”
“That doesn’t make it okay to take our company. That’s not protecting yourself.”
“Listen to me.” I step toward her and reach for her, only to catch myself before I break my promise and drop my hand. “I talked to Grayson and Eric about a way to protect you and me. If Chance turns out to be dirty, or if he comes after me, that plan ensures that your company is secure but he’s out. You’re in. The merger could work for you. You don’t have to run the entire company, but you would be a key player. And Grayson agreed the brand could stay intact. A Bennett-Knight property would be how they would be listed. If it came to that.”
Two Together Page 10