One Woman

by Jones, Lisa Renee

“I just—”

  “Stay away from this. If I ever hear you bring up that castle again, I swear—Just don’t go there. I need to go. And you need to stay at your place.” She hangs up.

  I pant out a breath. Oh, God. Dad killed Hunter. He had to have killed him. I stand up and I throw my phone as hard as I can throw it, shoving fingers into my hair. This can’t be real. It can’t be real. I reach for my phone to call my brother, but it’s gone. I threw the damn thing when I don’t do stupid things like that. Ever.

  “Damn it,” I murmur, and rush down the stairs, intending to find it, but my gaze sweeps wide, and I halt, my heart thundering in my chest.

  The blue-eyed man is standing on the beach staring at me. Just standing there. Now I’m staring at him and his attention jabs at me. It’s sharp, hard, uncomfortable. He hates me. I feel the hate. It swims in the ocean air, threatening to drown me. And then he starts walking toward me. I turn and run up the stairs. “Jax! Jax!”

  I make it to the porch and rush toward the door. Jax opens the door and grabs me, pulling me close. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “The man. The man again.” I twist in his arms and stare at the spot where I’d seen him but he’s gone. He’s a ghost again. A ghost that hates me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Emma…

  “What’s wrong, baby?” Jax asks again, and I turn to face him, my hands landing on the solid wall of his chest, over his heart, but it’s my heart that’s about to explode right now.

  “That man. The blue-eyed man. Jax, he was on the beach staring at me.”

  “Echo?” he asks.

  “Yes. Yes, him.” My fingers curl around his shirt. “He was there and started walking toward me and then he was gone.”

  “Baby, he lives up the beach. He has to use the stairs just past us to get to the castle. He wasn’t coming at you. He was going to them.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “No, he stared at me like he hated me.”

  His hands come down on my waist. “He was like a second father to me and my brothers. He was close to Hunter. He saw changes in him that seemed to coincide with your father visiting here. I’m sure being his daughter, and being with me, is something he doesn’t understand. I need to talk to him.”

  “What visits by my father? Why do I feel like I’m missing something?”

  He takes my hand. “Let’s sit.”

  “So there is something I don’t know?”

  “More an experience I had with your father here, that I need to tell you about.”

  “Just tell me. I don’t want to sit. I can’t sit after Echo’s stare down.”

  “All right,” he says, guiding me to the railing where we both rest our elbows, the ocean stretching before us. “I’d been traveling for weeks and Hunter wouldn’t return my calls. Keep in mind that I was Hunter’s next-in-charge.”

  “And he just ignored you?”

  “Yes. I came home and came here. It was shortly after my dad died. Hunter was in his office in a meeting and I was pissed. I walked right in.”

  I turn to him. “It was my father?”

  “Yes.” He rotates to face me as well. “It was your father.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “It seemed inconsequential, but last night when you were sleeping I dreamed about that night.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s been with me all day. My brother was pissed. He literally stood up and told me to get out. Your father was more than willing to greet me, but my brother didn’t want that to happen.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Walked right up to your father and asked him who the hell he was.”

  “He’s not used to people treating him that way. How did he react?”

  “He laughed and told me that my brother was a master negotiator and that there were big things coming between our families. I should have been happy about that news.”

  “But you hated him instantly.”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “It’s just something I felt as you told the story.”

  “I didn’t want to say that to you.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Because he was so good to me?”

  “He was your father.”

  “He was my dictator. Go on. There’s more to the meeting, right?”

  “I left and he followed me out of the castle.”

  “And?”

  “And it was the strangest fucking encounter. He told me family was important. Family grows together. He told me that I’m family and we were going to grow together as a family.”

  “He barely called me family,” I say. “That must have been some sort of head game. Maybe playing off the recent loss of your father. Did you ask your brother for more details?”

  “He said he was growing our sell-in to your hotels. End of topic. I left him that night uneasy and that unease never left. And we were never the same. Echo came to me shortly after that meeting and told me that your father had been to the castle at least three times. He said that Hunter told him that your father was looking to open a hotel here and there was a partnership being negotiated.”

  “Do you think he was going to sell the castle?”

  “That’s when I dug into our finances, but I couldn’t find a reason why he’d do that. We were liquid, with cash on hand, and in a big way. None of it made sense then or now.”

  “It’s like there’s a treasure here that my father knew about but your brother couldn’t get to without him.”

  “Exactly,” Jax says. “I had that exact thought, but still, what the fuck would that treasure be?”

  “I don’t know but I talked to my mother. I asked her about the castle.”

  “And?”

  “She got pissed. I mean furious, Jax. She told me not to ever bring it up again. She knows what this is about. My brother has to know, too. Before we go to Germany I have to corner him. We need to know what this is. How do we know it’s over if we don’t know what it was even about?”

  Jax catches my hips and lowers his head near mine. “Whatever this is, we’ll deal with it together. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean we’ll deal with it well.”

  “We will. Because we’re the good that comes from all of this.” He kisses my forehead. “Let’s walk to the castle and get our things. I want to get out of this monkey suit.”

  “What about your calls?”

  “Savage had me hold off. He’s sending them all a little ammunition to protect them from York.”

  “What ammunition?”

  “Clips of just his words from the recording. He’s sending it to us to approve first. It will be your call if we use it. Good?”

  “Yes, good. I need to grab my phone which is somewhere in the sand.” He arches a brow and I explain, “I might have gotten a little angry over my mother and the castle stuff.”

  “Note to self,” he teases, “don’t piss you off.”

  “That’s right. I will throw your phone in the sand and watch you hunt for it.”

  He laughs, his sexy deep laugh, and I laugh, too, but there’s an undercurrent of dread. We both know something is coming, something bad. Something to do with his brother and my family. And it’s going to be bad.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Emma…

  Jax and I set aside everything but each other for the walk to the castle, and he tells me a bit about his childhood, and a dog named King Louis. “My idea,” he says. “I was always the one who had a thing for castles and history but then so did my father.”

  “Your brothers didn’t?”

  “For about five minutes, that ended in four,” he says, and we end up laughing at the random mischief he and the dog had dressing up like kings.

  Once we’re back in his tower, our conversation continues and packing is slow but enjoyable. We just slow everything down to nothing but us. It’s short-lived though as Sav
age shows up and joins us in the kitchen. “For your ears only,” he says, and plays us an audio of York declaring he’d given me the best drugs, among other well-selected quotes. It paints York as the criminal that he is, but leaves me out of the audio completely.

  “I can send this to everyone we think York is holding captive,” Savage suggests, “and then they’re free. They have him by the balls.” He eyes Jax. “I’ll deliver it compliments of Jax North unless you wish to remain anonymous.”

  “I’ll happily endorse that message,” Jax says, eyeing me. “You good with this?”

  “I’m ecstatic about this,” I reply.

  “Then I have the queen’s approval to send this off?” Savage asks.

  Considering our talk about royalty, Jax and I immediately look at each other and laugh, the undercurrent of him as king and me as queen creates a sexy pull between us that is downright drugging. “Yes,” I say, nodding at Savage. “You have the queen’s approval.”

  He glances between us. “Obviously this is some dirty, perfect joke I’m left the fuck out of which sucks. I’ll go now.” And he does. He turns and walks out of the kitchen which only leaves us laughing again.

  “Let’s go to my office before we leave, my dirty, perfect queen,” Jax says, wrapping his arm around me and kissing me. “I want to make these calls and grab some paperwork.”

  “Yes, my dirty perfect king.”

  He grins and says, “You know it, baby.”

  We exit through his tower door inside the castle and make our way to the business offices where we avoid Jill, by Jax’s preference. “If you want to avoid her all the time, how does that work, Jax? You’re running the company together. Don’t you need to find peace with her?”

  He wraps his arm around me and leads me up a set of stairs. “Yes.”

  I cut him a sideways look. “Yes? That’s all?”

  “You’re right but I can’t seem to get there.”

  “Why?”

  “The fucking red dress.”

  “What?” I ask. “What red dress?”

  “The one my brother hated because it reminded him of the last dress my mother wore. She wears the damn thing often. She calls it her mourning dress. It reminds her of loved ones lost or some shit like that. It doesn’t sit right.”

  “That’s odd,” I say. “Especially if he hated it.” We reach the top of the stairs. “Did she inherit a lot of money?”

  “No. My brother never got around to revising his will which says to me that he didn’t plan to die or he didn’t want her to inherit. I gave her some money.”

  We stop at a giant arched doorway. “And you still don’t get along?”

  “She tries,” he says, opening the door. “Or seems to try. Fuck, I don’t know.” He motions me forward and I step inside to find a stunning corner office with a library to the right and a floor to ceiling window to the left. His desk is in the center of the room.

  “This was my father’s office,” Jax says. “Hunter never moved in here.” He rounds the huge mahogany desk and faces me.

  “But you did?” I say, asking a question rather than stating the obvious. He looks good in this office, behind that desk. Powerful, in control, in the place he belongs. I wonder if Hunter belonged. It’s a crazy thought. Of course, he belonged.

  “Being here is like being in the house. It keeps me in touch with him. And he is what kept us in touch with each other.” He’s silent a moment, and I can see his mind chasing away emotions. “I’ll get my things together and we can get out of here.”

  “No rush,” I say, eying the books lining the walls. “I’ll explore the reading material.” I sigh. “Actually, I need to make some business calls myself.”

  Jill appears in the doorway. “There you are,” she says, that red dress clinging to all of her perfect curves. She flicks me a look. “Emma,” she greets tightly, dismissing me immediately to focus on Jax. “Any word on those clients turning down our invitations?”

  “It’s handled,” Jax says. “Relax.”

  “That business—“

  “Is handled,” Jax repeats.

  “Are you sure? Because I have a million things on my plate and none of them matter if our clients are dropping like flies.”

  “What can I do to help?” I offer, changing the subject because even I am feeling the irritation of her relentless repetition of a question asked and answered. “Running a hotel operation is like one big festival every night. I can help.”

  “It’s all busy work,” Jill says. “Checking details. I got it.”

  “What about at the actual event?” I offer. “Can I help?”

  “I think we have it handled just fine,” she says, flipping blonde hair out of her pretty face. “I’ll have the final draft guest list for you tomorrow, Jax. The final tasting is tomorrow evening. I know you like to approve the selection.”

  “We’ll be there,” Jax says and I swear the “we” in that reply tightens her expression.

  “Seven pm,” she replies. “Rusty will present the selections.”

  Jax inclines his head and Jill exits the office.

  “Rusty runs the production of the actual whiskeys,” Jax says. “He’s been with us as long as Echo. Which means as long as I’ve been on planet earth.”

  I cross the room and shut the door, leaning against it. “You can’t go on with that kind of tension between you two.”

  “Something is off with her,” he says. “You feel it, right?”

  “Yes, but she hates me because I’m a Knight and that’s not hard to understand. She clearly thinks my family had something to do with Hunter’s death. If I were her and you were Hunter, I’d have already scratched my eyes out.”

  His lips quirk. “Or thrown her cellphone in the sand?”

  I laugh. “More like at her head before my fist,” I tease but turn serious quickly. “If she loved Hunter, and she feels like he was murdered, she’s living just what you were when you came to me, Jax. A need for something to make this all make sense.”

  “The red dress he hated, baby. She’s wearing it. She keeps fucking wearing it. And I don’t trust her.”

  “Then you have a decision to make. Find a way to trust her or fire her.”

  He presses his hands on the desk and looks skyward, struggling a moment before he fixes me in a stare. “Trust is earned. That dress—”

  “Could mean something to her you don’t understand. I didn’t tell my brother I was raped. I told him York did a bad thing to me. There are things we need to deal with our own way, without explaining that process.”

  “You’re defending her?”

  “I’m not defending her. I’m simply stating a fact. The dress isn’t what’s bothering you. The dress doesn’t make you distrust her. It’s something more. What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, pushing off the desk and pressing his hands to his hips. “She’s a good employee. My brother loved her. But there is something, some unknown something, clawing at my gut with her.”

  “Maybe I should push to help with the festival. Maybe she’ll open up to me and tell me something that helps you figure this out.”

  “No. I want you to keep a distance from Jill.”

  “But you want me to live here?”

  His jaw clenches. “And clearly you’ve made your point. I need to get right with Jill one way or another and do so quickly. For now, I’m going to grab a few files and we can get the heck out of the castle.”

  He wants out of the castle he loves. The castle that is now where his brother died. “No pressure. I’ll just explore the bookshelves.” I walk into the library area and bring one of the bookshelves into view when I do a double-take at the familiar item on display. A sands of time hourglass with stars etched on the surface. I twist around to eye Jax. “Jax where did this sand hourglass come from?”

  He glances up from the paperwork he’s stuffing in a briefcase. “Came with the office. It was my father’s. Why?”<
br />
  I twist around to face him. “Those are exclusive to our hotels. It came from a Knight hotel. As in only our hotel brand sells those. They’ve been around since the first hotel launched in the sixties.”

  “Our brand has been with your hotels for as long as I remember,” he says. “It seems reasonable that my father might have one.” He goes back to what he was doing, unaffected by this discovery but I’m not. I’m bothered by it. I’m bothered in a big way and I don’t know why. Something is clawing at my mind, some realization, not quite formed. But it’s there, desperate to be found. And it feels important.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Jax…

  Emma and I spend the afternoon at the beach house in front of the fireplace in the living room, working, drinking coffee, and sharing conversation, laughs, and remarkably comfortable silence. I spend most of that time doing my work, but I find myself listening to Emma’s conversations, learning how she works with her team. The answer is with a gentle charm that still manages to be authoritative. A skill Jill is missing, and I decide that’s part of my problem with Jill. Her style doesn’t match mine or my father’s. Hunter was always the harder North brother, but he was still our father’s son. More and more, I see Jill as the square with a round hole, that doesn’t fit.

  We’re about two hours into our work when the calls start coming in from the clients Emma’s father had blackmailed with York’s help. All of them confirm that is exactly what happened.

  I’m three calls in when Emma says, “It’s certain then. My father was blackmailing your clients to stop doing business with you.”

  “It does indeed appear that way,” I say, watching her sip her coffee, her expression etched in disappointment and I believe fear of where this leads. The answer is nowhere good. Of that I’m certain.

  “All to get the castle,” she says. “Does that even make any sense to you? The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t at all. What are we missing?”

  She doesn’t expect me to have that answer but I do. What we’re missing is something big enough for someone to justify murder. And statistically, that means this is about money or sex. Or both.