That question punches me in the chest. “Not much. My father was—well, he tasked me to travel, which I can hardly complain about, and bottom line, we were never close.”
“And Chance?”
“They worked together daily,” I say, the stark difference between me and my father and my brother and my father always a cutting one. “Chance was his protégé.”
“Then do you really think that he doesn’t know who your father really was? Do you think he wasn’t learning to do things the way your father did things?”
“I think he may know more than I knew,” I concede. “But I spend time with Chance. I know him. I don’t know what happened between your brother and my father, but I talked to Chance about this. He wasn’t involved. Those things that you said were important to you—family and work—that’s what matters to Chance, too.”
“Who does Randall work for, Emma?”
“Chance.”
“And he takes all of his direction from Chance?”
“Yes,” I say, not sure where this is going. “Why?”
“Randall was involved in this situation with my brother.”
Now I know where he’s going with this. Chance is the reason Randall was involved. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“You have to give me more than that,” I say. “How?”
“I saw him at the castle a week before my brother died, and if that’s not enough, I saw my brother’s work notes. They had references to Randall, but oddly, nothing that told me what the hell was going on.”
“Nothing else? Nothing about why my father wanted to buy the castle?”
“Nothing, but the castle is a part of the whiskey operation. He wasn’t trying to buy the castle. He was trying to buy us. There isn’t one without the other.”
None of this matches what Chance told me. “This is crazy. We need to just talk to Chance. We need to be direct. We’ll just go right at him and find out the truth. It can’t be as bad as it seems or Chance wouldn’t be giving us that chance. He wouldn’t be joining us for coffee.”
Jax arches a brow. “You sure you want to do that with me here?”
“Yes. I want you to know the truth. Then we both know that what’s between us is real.”
He turns his chair and pulls me around to him, his hand settling on my leg. “This is real. Remember that.”
“Why do I need to remember that, Jax? What’s going to happen to make me forget?”
My cellphone rings where I’ve left it on the table and I glance down to find Chance calling. I answer the line. “Where are you?”
“I had an emergency at the office. I’m not coming.”
My gut knots with this news and I glance at Jax. “What emergency?” I ask my brother.
Jax arches a brow and with reason. I just declared Chance joining us, supported his good faith. Now, he’s not joining us.
“The kind that comes up all the time, Bird Dog,” Chance replies. “Be careful with Jax North. I’m not sure what to make of him.”
“Don’t hang up,” I order, but it’s too late. The line goes dead.
I huff out a breath, stick my phone in my purse, and say nothing. What is there to say? I stuff banana bread in my mouth and Jax faces forward and does the same. We eat, we drink, we’re silent, and I can almost feel both of our minds working. And mine does work, driving me right into a rabbit hole. I turn to face Jax. “You were taking this meeting now for me. You didn’t want to meet with Chance.”
“And?”
“You hate my father but you came to his award ceremony. You didn’t want to meet with Chance, but you came to that award ceremony. Why?”
Jax stares at me for several beats, his expression unreadable, the heavy weight of my unanswered question between us before he pulls his phone from his pocket, punches in something and then looks at me. “I got us an Uber.” He stands and takes me with him. “Let’s go to the hotel and talk.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Emma…
“Talk to me here,” I say, catching Jax’s arm as he tries to lead me away from the coffee shop table. “Why were you at the ceremony? And my God, why didn’t I think of this before now?”
“Let’s go to the hotel room.”
“Jax,” I warn. “I need answers. I will not be used. I’ve had enough of that. And I told you—”
“Not here, Emma,” he says softly. “This isn’t a private place to talk.”
“Fine,” I say tightly. “Outside then.”
He turns or I turn, I don’t know which, but we’re walking toward the door and he doesn’t just have my hand. His arm is around my shoulders like he thinks I’ll bolt. Will I bolt? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I want answers. I don’t want to get burned. I knew from the moment I met this man and he turned me inside out that if I touched him, really touched him, I’d be burned alive and that is proving true.
We exit to the outside and Jax motions to a car. “That’s our Uber,” and he’s charging with such force, that I can’t stop him or me. I keep moving with him, but as soon as he’s at the back door, all that momentum now grounded in one place, I dig in my heels. He opens the car door and leans inside, confirming we’re the passengers the driver is waiting on and promising him a big tip to wait a few minutes.
When he straightens to help me into the car, I stand my ground. “Jax, I need to know why you were at the ceremony.”
His hands come down on my shoulders and he turns me, placing the car at my back and him at my front. “I really want to do this alone, in the hotel room. Just come with me.”
I’m conflicted and confused with this man. I hate that he’s trapped me and yet I’m pleased that he doesn’t want me to leave. Pleased even though I know that reason might not be about me, and us, at all. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“I’ll give you honest answers. Everything you want to know. Just come with me.”
“How do I know what’s honest? How?”
“Damn it, woman,” he murmurs and then he’s tangling fingers into my hair and dragging my mouth to his, kissing me, a deep, drug me, tear me to pieces and put me back together again kiss that owns me. God, he owns me this easily and it’s terrifying. “Does that taste honest? Does that taste real, Emma? Come with me. Hear me out in private and walk away afterward if you have to.”
My name on his lips is pure torment. Torment that I understand. It comes from a place of pain. From loss. Anything he has done is driven by that loss but that doesn’t mean it was honorable and suddenly, I can’t deny him one private conversation. I rotate and climb into the car but not before I hear the puffed-out breath, expelled in relief that leaves his mouth. I just hope that’s because he wants me, not because he needs me for some act against my family.
He joins me and slams the door shut. “Go,” he orders the driver, and then turns to me, pulling me close and kissing me all over again. I’m melting, the ice of my battle gear exposed to the heat of this man, with no chance of surviving. And when his lips part from mine, when he strokes my hair from my face, his fingers brushing my cheek, a spiral of need and desire rushing through me.
He doesn’t say anything but the pull between us is everything he doesn’t say. This can’t be a lie. How can anything this intense be a lie?
We settle into our seats and he laces his fingers with mine, his eyes locking with my eyes, and I feel this man in every part of me. I feel this man in ways I have never felt any other man, and I’ve only just met him. It’s actually quite terrifying at this point in my life, when I’m raw and vulnerable, even when I don’t want to be these things. He could hurt me. He could hurt my family if I let myself be stupid. I cut my stare and I can feel Jax willing me to look at him again, but I don’t.
In another two minutes at most, we pull into the Fairmont Hotel, one of the most luxurious hotels in the city, with views to kill for, and one of our competing hotels—a detail that draws attention to the divide between us. The car halts and Jax hands the man behind th
e wheel a large bill. This brings me back to Jax, and in a good way. It’s a reminder that he has money to blow, plenty of money and yet he is nothing like York. Nothing like York. Jax opens the door and steps out of the car, while the driver murmurs about a million thank yous. Jax catches my hand, easing me to my feet, and when I stand directly in front of him, the charge between us is electric.
Fear that I’m allowing my vulnerability to show has my gaze averted. It’s going to be hard enough to be alone in a room with him, and not show vulnerability. I don’t need to show it now. He strokes my hair and leans in close, his lips at my ear. “You don’t have to look at me for me to know you’re hurt and angry. I don’t want either of those things from you.” And with that, he kisses my temple, a tender act that I have never experienced. York was it for me, the one man I let close to me and he was never tender, not even before the money, before the change between us.
I’m melting again and therefore thankful when he steps us away from the door, shuts it, and then wraps his arm around me, walking us into the building.
The lobby is all shiny tiles, high ceilings and gorgeous seating in the center of a square room. The long check-in desk in a dark wood is to the left and we go right through a walkway of furnishings that lead to the elevators, towering ceilings steepling above us. I both dread and anticipate the moment we are inside the elevator, when I am captive and can’t hide what I feel, nor can I mask those emotions with words, for fear of being recorded or overheard.
It’s not a problem that proves a worthy one as we end up at a bank filled with people, the car loaded when it opens and loaded again as we enter with a hoard of people. What this does, though, is cram us against the wall, and Jax pulls me in front of him, his hand on my belly, my backside nestled to his hips. I can’t breathe and heat rushes through me, settling low in my stomach. He’s hard. I can feel the press of his cock against me. He wants me. I want him. But desire proves nothing. In fact, desire can be a product of the forbidden, and to him, wanting the daughter of a man he hated, has to be that and more.
The doors open and Jax catches the fingers of one of my hands with the fingers of his hand. We exit and he immediately pulls me under his arm while we start the walk toward his room. The hallway is narrow, the path long, and my heart is thundering in my chest. I should make him talk here, now, outside of his door, and yet, when we stop, I don’t speak. The truth is, I need that private one-on-one with him. I need to know the truth of how we came together and I need to be free to react how I need to react.
He swipes his key and pushes the door open. I enter and I want distance between him and me. I dart through a living room that is narrow but elite, expensive, a corner room wrapped in half windows with a stunning view of the city. I walk to that window, turning to face him, a telescope by my side meant to view the ocean and the city stretching for miles before us when I just want a view of the man before me, the one I want to know. The one I want to tell me what I need to hear right now when I’m not even sure what that might be.
He shuts the door, locks it, and shrugs out of the tuxedo jacket, tossing it onto the couch as he approaches. I can’t exactly back away when I’m against the wall beneath the windows, so I do what I can do.
“Stop and talk.”
But he doesn’t stop and talk. He keeps coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Emma…
“Stop, Jax,” I order, holding up my hand as if a hand will do anything at all.
But he does stop.
Right in front of me, the scent of him, all man and sex and spice, attacking my senses, even as his powerful legs cage my legs, his fingers diving into my hair. “Jax,” I say again, but he’s already kissing me, a crazy intense kiss like no kiss I have ever experienced. I feel it, I feel him, everywhere. A kiss that steals my breath and somehow breathes life back into me at the same time. A kiss that owns me and yet somehow in all its passion and heat, it’s not about sex. This kiss is about more, so much more, and I am losing myself to it and him.
Desperate for sanity, I shove on his chest. “Jax,” I whisper, but his mouth closes down on mine again, and I moan with the delicious assault of this man’s kiss. “Jax,” I try again, panting with the effort, and this time, he tears his mouth from mine and stares down at me, seconds ticking on eternally.
“Talk to me,” I order when he says nothing.
“You know the answer. I went to that ceremony for you.”
That’s all I need to hear. I try to scoot around him. He tightens the grip on my legs. “You know why. Do I really have to say more than I’ve already said?”
“Yes. Spell it out. If this is real, just keep it real. Say it and get it over with.”
“I was looking for the only Knight I thought might help me find out what the hell was going on with my brother in the days before he died. He loved our whiskey. He loved our castle. And yet he was in talks to sell it out from under us? Why? I need to know why.”
I want to ask how his brother died, but I’m angry right now. So very angry and that anger won’t let me focus on anything but his motives. “And you thought you’d fuck me to find out?”
“It wasn’t like that, Emma. Fuck.” He looks away and back at me. “I tried to talk to your father. He shut me down. He wouldn’t even talk to me. He also didn’t try to buy the castle after my brother died.”
I blanch and my anger spirals down a notch. “I don’t understand. Why did he want it before he died, but not after?”
“That’s a question I want answered.”
I circle back to the question I didn’t ask. “How did your brother die?”
“He killed himself.”
My gut knots just hearing those words. Suicide is not murder and yet, something feels wrong. He seems to read my mind, adding, “And nothing in his history said he’d kill himself,” he adds. “Something happened. I have to know what.”
“Something happened,” I repeat.
“Yes. Something fucking happened.”
“You think my father was blackmailing him?”
His lips thin. “If he was, why stop there? Why not bring whatever it was to me?”
He’s right. Why stop? Anything that would embarrass his brother would likely embarrass his family. I know this all too well and so does York. “And my brother? Did you ask him?”
“We talked once. He wanted to buy the castle. He knew nothing about prior negotiations to share, but claimed that his father’s will, your father’s will, required that he make an offer.”
My brow furrows. “So my father didn’t offer, but his will required my brother to offer?”
“Says your brother. I pushed him for details. He hung up on me.”
And yet, he told me Jax wouldn’t talk to him, but that is between me and my brother. This, now, this conversation, is about me and Jax. “He shut you down and you came after me,” I accuse.
“Yes, Emma. I came after you and then you sat down with me like it was kismet. But fucking Randall showed up, acting like he owned you, with his hands all over you. Suddenly, you looked like one of them.”
“I was never with Randall. I told you that.”
“I didn’t know that then. It looked like a set-up. Like you sitting down next to me was no accident at all. And so yes, I decided I’d use you. I made sure it was known that I’d be at the fireman’s charity function. I knew you’d show up, either by their direction or your own.”
I open my mouth to tell him that my brother had me go but think better of it. I settle on, “I didn’t go there for the castle. I’m not after the castle. I keep saying that, but I feel like I need to hit repeat. And I didn’t go to the fireman’s event for you.”
“But I went for you. And I found you. And now, I know you. Now, I know you’re not one of them.”
“How can you know? How can either of us trust the other? I’m a strong person, Jax. I had to be in this family, but sometimes being strong means knowing when to say no. I told you. I don’t have the emotional capacity to
get hurt right now. I will help. I’ll help you any way I can, but I can’t do this, us, now.” I try to move away from him.
He catches my hip and his touch sears me, and I have never been so conflicted about a man. I want him to hold me. I want him to let me go. “You have to know that considering who you are, trusting you like I just did by telling you everything I told you, is a risk. I took that risk, Emma, and now you’re running again? Is that what you want to do right now? You want to leave?” He releases me and steps back, the space between us small but suddenly it feels like miles.
“I’m not running, Jax.”
“You’ve been running since the moment I met you, Emma. I’m not. I’m standing here, asking you to do this, whatever the fuck this is, with me, despite the fact that you’re a damn Knight. My brother is dead because of the Knights. I know it. I feel it in every part of me and yet I’m right here, with you. If that means nothing to you, then go. If that offends you, then go. I’m going to take my damn shower.” He turns to walk away.
My heart squeezes with the intensity of his emotions, with the depth of his emotions. And in that moment, him letting me go is him giving me a choice and I make it. I launch myself at him. “Jax. I’m not running. I want—”
His hand slides under my hair, settling on my neck, dragging my lips a breath from his. “You want what, Emma?”
“You,” I whisper. “I want you.” His mouth closes down on mine and with the first long stroke of his tongue I’m lost, so very lost.
I lean into his hard body, into the kiss, and just that easily we’re all over each other. I know nothing but his hands, his body, his mouth. And yet, I want to know more, so much more. I grab his shirt and tug. He snags the hem of my hoodie and pulls it over my head. It’s barely hit the ground when his mouth is back on my mouth and he’s tugging down my sweats.
I catch his hand. “You take your pants off or we don’t do this. I’m not going to be naked alone this time.”
He kisses me again and reaches for his shirt, pulling it over his head even as I shove my pants down, taking care of my shoes while I’m at it. Jax reaches for his pants, and I pull my shirt over my head. We watch each other undress, heat radiating between us and then he’s naked—holy wow, he’s naked. I don’t know how I’ve forgotten in a few short hours how gorgeous he is, but I’m reminded now and reminded well. He stands before me, long, lean and muscular, his cock thickly veined and jutting forward. The man is perfection, sporting the kind of ripped body that comes from good genes and hard work. He’s sin, satisfaction, and temptation. A man who could be my enemy who is now stepping toward me and this is my last chance to walk away. I feel that deep inside me. If I move forward, if I stay, I’m with Jax, and I will live with every consequence that will follow, and there will be consequences.
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