One Man

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

  “Because I didn’t want to make it worse for you. I wanted you to grieve in peace, even if I couldn’t.” His cellphone rings and he grabs it from his pocket. “That’s Randall. I’m meeting him for coffee to review some work. I’ll be back Monday morning, and everyone will know it.” He picks up his coffee and stands up. “Go back to bed. It’s early.”

  “How early?”

  “Eight.”

  My eyes go wide. “My God, how early did you run?”

  “Six. And speaking of time, I’ll pick you up for the party at seven?” His tone softens. “It’s on a yacht, Emma.”

  My mind flashes back to a month earlier, to the shiny black casket sitting on the deck of the yacht, the cold breeze off the ocean, and my trembling body. “Chance,” I breathe out desperately. “Surely people would understand us skipping this.”

  “They would,” he says, “but they’d also see us as weak and vulnerable. We need to go. For us and for dad.”

  I swallow hard, fighting back the bitterness I feel toward my father right now. Fighting the guilt that follows. “I’m running away to Germany after the party.”

  “Not for two weeks.” He winks. “I can give you lots of hell between now and then, Bird Dog.”

  I laugh despite everything cutting and biting inside me and Chance is already at the door. “Hey,” I say, “is Randall going to be there?”

  “Yes,” he says, “but I’m going to meet him, remember? I’ll pull him back.”

  “Thank you, Chance.”

  “Anything for you, little sis.”

  He opens the door and leaves. He’s gone and I’m alone. I don’t know why that feels significant right now, but then, secrets have a way of making you feel isolated. I also don’t know why this makes me think about Jax North, or why I grab my computer and power it up to google his name. I pull up a photo of his father, two brothers, but there is no shot of his mother. His father died skiing accident, as he told me. His youngest brother owns and operates a series of cigar bars. Jax runs the North Whiskey brand and does so since his brother died at only thirty-six years old, but I can’t find anything that tells me how he died. There is nothing about his mother at all.

  That’s odd and I wonder what story there is to tell. I wonder if Jax and his family have secrets. I wonder if they’re in my father’s journal. It’s a silly thought. Of course, they aren’t.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Emma…

  Chance pulls his BMW up to the pier and two paid attendants open our doors. “I’m with you all the way, sis,” Chance promises, giving my arm a squeeze. You just might not know how damn glad I am that you’re with me, too.”

  This confession sideswipes me despite our closeness. Chance is strong, too strong at times, dogmatic about everything he’s passionate about and passionate about everything to do with Knight brand, but death can unwind even the strongest of people.

  We share a look that says we both know we’re on our own—mom checked out, dad is gone—but we have each other, before we break away and exit the car. I step to the sidewalk and into a cold blast of wind that lifts my hair from my neck, shooting a chill down my spine. I pull my velvet jacket up around the black lace knee-length dress I’m wearing, deciding my thigh-high tights and knee-high boots might not be formal, but they were smart choices. San Francisco is chilly no matter what the time of the year, every inch gusting with ocean waters; but even more so this close to the water that only a month before hosted a goodbye to my father.

  Chance joins me, looking handsome as usual in a tuxedo and I swear it’s as if Randall has radar on us. We haven’t even started walking toward the boat when he’s joining us, his eyes on me. “You look lovely, Emma, but then you always do.”

  “Spoken like a man trying to make up for being a complete jerk last night,” I say, “but thank you nonetheless.”

  Chance laughs. “That puts things into perspective now, doesn’t it? Do you have something more direct to say to her, Randall?”

  Randall’s expression tightens. “I’m sorry, Emma.”

  “Apology accepted,” I say, “despite it sounding like you’re sucking on a lemon while delivering it. And don’t act like that again.”

  “Understood,” he says, with so much ease that I know Chance has been good to his word, as I always know I can expect with him. “And for the record,” he adds. “I’m not holding you hostage the way your father intended his will to hold you hostage. But I can’t change how it’s written.”

  “Just how you act,” I comment.

  “Agreed,” he concedes. “I’ve been a dick. Correction to my attitude in place.”

  I have no idea what my brother said to Randall, but for the first time in a long time, I remember why he’s my brother’s right-hand man. It’s not easy to eat crow and he just did. I give Randall a tiny nod, acceptance there, but I don’t go overboard, for fear that will give him a ticket to overreact again.

  Chance seems to approve of my response, offering me his arm and the three of us make our way toward the party, which is in full swing as we step onto the main deck. The boat accommodates what I’d guess to be a thousand guests. Tonight there appears to be about half of that present. We fade into the crowd, pulled into a conversation with one person after another greets us. It’s bearable torture with Chance by my side, amusing, too, as the string of women that try to garner his attention become downright comical. One pretty blonde, the head of the local Muscular Dystrophy Association, who is rather sweet seems to truly interest him and I believe she’s without an agenda beyond her charity.

  I’m listening to her tell a story when awareness grabs me, my gaze lifting and scanning for a source. My eyes cut through a gap between bodies to collide with that of the man standing at the railing some distance away. I jolt with awareness, my heart instantly skipping a beat. Jax. Jax is here and not only is the boat suddenly warmer, I decide right then that the only person on planet earth that looks better in a tux than my brother is this man. I have to force myself to remember that he and Randall had an interaction that made me question his agenda. I have to force myself to remember that there is a price for being vulnerable which I’ve learned the hard way, too hard to forget now.

  “You know Jax North?” Chance asks, leaning in close.

  I tear my gaze from Jax’s and focus on my brother. “We met last night.”

  “And you obviously made an impression,” he states. “Interesting.”

  My brows furrow. “What does that mean?”

  “He won’t even talk to me or Randall,” Chance informs me.

  “He spoke to Randall last night,” I correct. “They had words. Not good ones either.”

  “Holy fuck,” he grumbles. “Why the hell did they have words?”

  “Jax overhead him being a jerk to me. Jax came to my defense and Randall, in turn, was a jerk to Jax. Randall threatened to pull his business.”

  “Damn it to hell. Randall, you little prick,” he mumbles under his breath before he motions to the blonde we’ve been talking to. “Let me find you in a few minutes, okay?”

  She nods and walks away while Chance turns to face me. “Randall knows I’m trying to connect with Jax.”

  “What’s the deal here, Chance? Isn’t Jax a vendor? Why are you trying to connect with him? And why not just walk over to him and talk to him now?”

  “Dad wanted to buy their property to convert it into a bed and breakfast. It was a passion project of his. I have no idea why, but it was.”

  “I’m the one who does property development. Why don’t I know about this?” My gut twists. “Never mind. I know why. He didn’t trust me.”

  “He didn’t trust me either. This was some personal thing to him. I want to know why but we never will. Hell, I’d like to make this happen, in dad’s honor, you know?”

  “Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”

  “I haven’t given it a lot of thought until now. I tried to call Jax and
he blew me off. Maybe you can talk to him. Maybe we could make this happen in dad’s memory.”

  I’m not big on anything to honor dad’s memory, but that’s not where my head is right now. Suddenly, Jax isn’t the one who wants something from me. We’re the ones who want something from Jax and I now wonder if I’d considered the Norths as source material for my dad’s journal for a reason. Is there something I know that I don’t realize I know or something I read that triggered that thought? “Emma?”

  I blink Chance back into view. “Sorry. If the opportunity arises, I’ll talk to Jax, but Randall really pissed him off last night.” And I blew him off with the assumption that he was the one with the agenda. “Talk to your pretty blonde. You don’t date enough. I like her.”

  “She’s too nice for me,” he says, winking. “I’ll find you soon.” He disappears into the crowd and I hunt for a visual of Jax I can’t find, and really, do I want to approach him with my own agenda? I don’t. I hate when people do that to me.

  I decide to head downstairs and check out the food tables.

  A plan that works well right up until I walk straight into Marion’s path. She’s in a silver, low-cut gown I’m certain my father would appreciate and his words play in my head: The women in my life are many, too many, but only one really matters. I wonder if she’s the one who mattered?

  “There you are,” she greets. “I need to run to chat with a client, but I have a surprise for you.” She squeezes my arm. “I’ll find you in a few minutes.” She steps away from me and unease rolls through me, a foreboding sensation that might be me working myself up over the journal. Or maybe it’s the journal making me aware of just how good this woman does bad.

  My heart is racing and I yank my coat tighter around me, hurrying down the steps. A waiter passes with glasses of champagne I’d passed on earlier. I accept one, down it, and offer him my glass, which I replace with a full glass. I then walk straight through the crowd and exit to the outdoor balcony, which the cold night has left empty, and the boat isn’t even moving. Good. I need the alone time when ironically, I’d hated being alone just this morning.

  “Careful,” a familiar male voice says. “It might be a little too easy to take advantage of you out here.”

  Jax steps to the railing beside me and when I look at him, when our eyes meet, I’m melting right here in the chilly night air. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”

  “How disappointing,” he says, and we turn in unison, facing each other, each with an elbow on the railing. He’s close, so much closer than I’d realized, the scent of his musky, earthy cologne lifting in the ocean breeze, teasing my senses. Those intelligent blue eyes piercing. “Because if you didn’t expect me,” he adds, “then you must be inviting someone else to take advantage of you.”

  “I’m not as easy to take advantage of as you might think.”

  His lips quirk. “Is that an invitation for me to try?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Emma…

  “Do you want to take advantage of me?” I ask.

  His lips hint at a smile, his eyes warm. “Do you really want me to answer that question?”

  “Yes,” I dare. “I do.”

  “Then yes, I believe I do.” His eyes twinkle with mischief. “But only if you’re a willing victim.”

  “Hmmm,” I say. “I’m not sure I like that word victim.”

  “Hmmm,” he replies. “Well then, I guess I’ll consider that a challenge.”

  I smile. “Will you now?”

  “Yes. I will. Are you going to run again?”

  “I didn’t run.”

  He arches a brow.

  “I left. I live in town. I wanted to be in my own bed.”

  “And not mine?”

  “That’s very direct,” I say.

  “You prefer I play games?”

  “No,” I assure him. “I have enough people in my life that do that without adding another.”

  “Since I don’t like games, we should get along well.” He reaches over and covers my hand where it holds my glass, our eyes colliding, holding, as he brings it to his lips. He pauses there, his eyes holding mine as he drinks the bubbling liquid, a message of intended intimacy in the action.

  Heat pulls low in my belly and I can barely breathe. I feel him in all parts of me, in ways I do not expect.

  “No North Whiskey?” he asks, his hands slowly sliding away from mine, leaving me aching for the next time he will touch me, certain that he will, anxious for that moment.

  “We settle for what we can get,” I say.

  “Never settle for anything but what you really want. What do you want, Emma?”

  You, I think, but he already knows that. “For now, I’ll settle for you telling me what happened between you and Randall last night.”

  He arches a brow. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Randall and I don’t talk much.”

  “He wants to fuck you.”

  If he wants to shock me, he’s failed. “He wants what he thinks I can give him.”

  “You discount your beauty,” he states simply as if this is fact, not seduction. “Why?”

  Somehow it’s both coming from him.

  He thinks I’m beautiful and I can’t deny my pleasure at this confession, only with him it’s not a confession, I remind myself. He’s confident in who he is and sure about his thoughts and desires. Somehow that makes his declaration of my beauty mean more than it would from someone else. “Because I’ve known Randall for years. My father treated him like a son and yet he didn’t inherit.”

  He studies me a long moment. “And now, more than ever, he sees you as a path to make his role in the family permanent.”

  I don’t confirm or deny that statement. I don’t know Jax well enough to trust him with that kind of exposure on my part. I’ve said too much as it is but Randall just won’t give up and yet he walked away last night. He didn’t even know I left the hotel. It’s an odd occurrence, one I’d like explained for reasons that have nothing to do with Randall, not directly that is, and everything to do with a month of discoveries about my family.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I remind him. “What happened between you and Randall?”

  He studies me a moment and I think he might resist my redirection, but he doesn’t. “He asked me to step into the lobby, and then he got a text message and left. I waited to have a word or ten with him but he never returned.”

  A text message? That pulls me back to the oddity of Randall’s disappearance. What was that all about?

  Jax continues, pulling me back to a better moment, the one here, with him. “I’d prefer to tell you that he was driven away by my wit and brawn—after all, I do like to impress a beautiful lady, but I can’t.”

  “I don’t think you try to impress anyone,” I say, that observation one I realize now attracts me to him. I return to my thoughts a moment before, that confidence he exudes. He wears his own skin with pride, an enviable trait, when I wear my skin like an obligation, a reality I’m now beginning to face, to own.

  He arches a brow. “Is that right?”

  “Isn’t it?” I challenge.

  “My father taught me that impressing others comes with a price. And that price is their power over us.”

  He hits so many nerves with those words that I can feel them all prickling to life. “And yet you want to impress me?”

  He leans closer. “In defiance of all that I am and all that I want to be, yes. I find I do. You interest me, Emma, and I don’t find I’m interested in many people.”

  Heat burns a path up my neck and I can feel blood rush to my face and every part of my body. It would be so very easy to just allow this man to pull me under, and perhaps I will, but not yet. Not yet. “And you just left right along with Randall last night?”

  “You left while I waited on Randall and,” he catches my hand and leans in closer again. “We’re here now. Perhaps, it’s fate.”

  “You believe in fate?” I query, sur
prised that a worldly man such as Jax would believe in what amounts to superstition.

  “I believe in karma and I’d like to think I’m deserving.”

  It’s an odd answer that feels as if it’s two sides of the same coin. “I don’t,” I say and I don’t offer more but oh how I could. Oh how the past month has changed my perspective on all things life-related.

  His brow arches. “You don’t believe in karma?”

  “No,” I confirm. “I don’t believe in karma.”

  “Do you know what they say about people who don’t believe in karma?”

  There’s a crackle of unease inside me with good cause. I don’t need much of an imagination to conclude an answer that I don’t want to speak or hear.

  “Jax.” At the sound of a woman’s voice, I expect Jax to turn, but he doesn’t.

  “Yes, Rebecca?”

  “There’s a problem with one of the shipments. Can I see you, please?”

  “I donated the bar tonight,” he says to me. “I’ll bring you back a taste of something North.”

  I laugh at the double entendre that clearly references my drink and him, turning back to the railing with the first real smile on my lips in a month. No. No, if I’m honest with myself, it’s been far longer. I knew there was something off with my father. I knew for a long time and I never spoke up. My mind travels back in time, trying to find the moment I’d connected with that idea, weeding through moments until there’s a shift in the energy behind me.

  I smile at the idea of Jax re-joining me, but a clawing sensation rushes over me just before he steps to my side, and says, “Hello, Emma.”

  This is not Jax. I know this even before I whirl around to face him. He’s Marion’s surprise. He’s my nightmare.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Emma…

  He’s the reason I don’t believe in karma because he never gets his. I do. York Waters is a billionaire, the heir apparent to the Waters’ yacht and boat empire, for most of the time I knew him, until he inherited. He’s also my ex-fiancé. A man who is tall, dark and good looking personified. A man of power and money. A man who knows more about me than I want to know about myself. He is every mistake I have ever made. He is the secrets I keep. He is arrogant, and as I have learned, dangerous.