“No wonder you’re thirty-four, marriage material, and still single.” She holds up a hand. “Not that I’m contemplating marrying you. We’re the worst match ever. Our families hate each other.” She curls her legs in front of her and I finish off a slice and catch her leg, turning her to face me, sliding my arm under her knees. “We are whatever we decide we are.”
“I’m never going to be a relationship girl again, so you know I’m safe.” She cuts her stare.
I catch her chin and turn her gaze back to mine. “I’m not him.”
“Stop saying that. Leave him outside of us.”
“Fair enough,” I concede. “I won’t say that again.”
“And even so, no you’re not him, but you do want something from me.”
“I started out wanting something from you. Now I want you, Emma.”
“But you do want more. Please don’t pretend otherwise.”
“Emma—”
“I don’t want my brother to be my father, Jax,” she says, in what might appear as a dramatic change of topic but it’s not. She’s telling me she feels like I’m going to take him from her, the way that journal took her father from her. “He can’t be,” she adds. “We’re close. He has to be on our side. I can’t lose him, too.”
She thinks I’m going to hurt him. She thinks she wants a man who will hurt her and her family, and there lies the real problem. That’s why I came. She knows it. I know it. I don’t even consider denial.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Jax…
We both know why I sought her out, and we both know that’s not easy for her to put aside, but I do now. I focus on her and where this problem of our two families leads her. I focus on how her experiences may lead us to some semblance of closure. “How close are you and Chance, Emma?”
“We have dinner once a week. We live in the same building. We have coffee a couple of mornings a week. He’s pulled away since dad died, but grief is something we all handle in our own way. But it makes no sense that my father went after your brother for the castle but he didn’t come to you when you took over. And yet, my brother told you the will said he had to make an offer?”
“He did.”
“Nothing about this makes sense,” she says. “I feel like I just need to go and confront Chance.”
“Here’s the thing, sweetheart. You can do that, but he’s going to tell you just what he told me and us already. Making an offer on the castle was in the will. He’ll stick to that story.”
“Maybe, but maybe not. Not if I push him. I think the biggest obstacle I have with Chance is him wanting to protect me the way I want to protect him. We both want to preserve the good memories of our father.”
Preserving her father’s memory might well be Chance’s way of preserving her opinion of him, as well, but I don’t say that. We’re going to find out one way or the other who her brother really is, but it’s not going to be here and now. She knows it. I know it.
Emma brushes off her hands and stands up. “I need to show you something.” She disappears into the bedroom where I hear her messing around in what I believe to be her suitcase. I stand up and join her to see if I can help.
By the time I’m there, she’s holding up an accordion file and the journal. “I’m house sitting at my parents’ house, or my mother’s house now. I went through my father’s desk and I found the journal but there was more. There was this file. Everything, and everyone, in that file is some sort of target he went after.”
My gaze narrows. “Went after meaning what?”
“It looks like he had each one investigated.” She reaches inside and hands me a sheet of paper. “I wrote down a list of everyone he went after. Your brother’s name isn’t on the list.”
I take the sheet of paper and scan the names, my lips thinning. “But North Whiskey has done business with every name on this list.”
Emma’s face pales. “So much for me thinking this debunked your brother as a target. You think this list is a list of people to use against your brother?”
“I think that’s exactly what it is.”
My cellphone buzzes with a text and I glance down to find a message from Savage: I’ve arrived. I’m in the bar drinking because you haven’t hired me yet, but for the record, a drunk Savage is a dangerous Savage. I’m the big guy with a beautiful scar down my cheek, but don’t mention it. I’m highly sensitive that way.
I might be put off by this if I didn’t know his type. He’s one of those guys that hide behind humor but will cut your throat out. And considering my brother is dead and in the ground, that works for me right now. I flip to my camera and take a picture of the list of names before handing the paper back to Emma. “I have a security person meeting me downstairs.”
“You really think we need security?”
“After that incident at your building, I’m not taking any chances.”
“Have him come up here.”
“I’m not even sure we’re hiring the guy. I’m not having him up to the room.”
“And you want to talk to him frankly about my family.” She folds her arms in front of her. “Got it.”
I settle my hands on her arms. “If I hire him, I’m going to have his team look into this list and more.”
“Good,” she says tightly. “I think we both need answers.” She doesn’t even think about unfolding her arms.
“If I hire him—”
“Go talk to him, Jax,” she says, her tone still just as tight as seconds before. “Like you said, we both need answers.”
She’s right. We do, but I’m not sure either one of us is going to like what we discover. I lean into her and kiss her, but I say nothing and with reason. I’m pretty damn sure that if I tell her that I believe her family had my brother murdered, she’d leave. And since I don’t want her to leave, that’s a problem I’ll solve only one way. I leave the room without her, hoping like hell this Rick Savage character can get me an answer that doesn’t turn Emma into an enemy but I feel every step that separates us like a mile. I know I’ll pay for doing this without her, but it’s necessary.
I step into the elevator and I swear I can still smell Emma’s perfume on my clothes, a sweet, flowery scent that drives me just a little wild. She’s on my skin, under my skin. She’s driving me crazy.
The car stops at the lobby level and I head to the hotel bar where it’s not hard to find Savage. He’s the only one there and he’s not only leaning on the bar, he has a shot glass in his hand. He glances my direction, his dark eyes sharp, a brutality in their depths that stretches across marble tables and leather chairs to meet mine. He lifts the glass in salute and then downs the contents.
Cutting between tables, I walk a carpeted path to join him at the long end of the bar where the stools don’t clutter up standing space.
“Another,” Savage tells the bartender, and looks at me, that scar he’d warned me about jutting down his cheek, just outside the line of his neatly trimmed goatee, his thick dark hair neatly managed. No matter how unhinged he might act, he’s not. He’s a man of control. “You want one?” he asks.
I wave off the bartender. Savage smirks. “Got enough of that at home, I suppose.” The bartender hands him the new shot. He lifts it pausing by his mouth. “Down the hole,” he says and grimaces as he sets the glass down. “I have to tell you, I have a love-hate relationship with North Whiskey. Sometimes it loves me up and sometimes it loves me down. Those down moments come with some real hate.”
“Try drinking less.”
“I’m a more is less kind of guy.” He straightens and more is right. I’m six-foot-two and two hundred and twenty pounds of hard work in the gym. He has to be six-foot-four and two-forty and it’s all muscle. He salutes. “Tell me how I can serve you.”
“Tell me about Walker Security.”
“Started by the Walker brothers. Three of those bastards. All ethical as fuck and tough as nails. Royce is ex-FBI, Luke is ex-SEAL Team Six, and Blake is ex-ATF. Blake’s the hacker everyone i
n the world, and I do mean world, as in leaders of countries, wants on their job. Aside from that, we have a clusterfuck of ex-everything from CIA, special forces, and every special this, that, and fuck that you can find. The best of the best.”
“And you are?”
“Green Beret. Mercenary. I was an off the grid kind of guy until Blake gave me a reason to stick around. I don’t fuck up and I know how to pull in the resources you need.” He holds his hand up, wiggling fingers at me. “Talk to me.”
Talk to him. Where the hell do I start? My dead brother seems logical and I scrub my jaw and wave to the bartender. “Whiskey Sour. Make sure it’s North Whiskey, gold label.”
“That bad, huh?” Savage asks.
“Does anyone need you when it’s that good?”
“Excellent point,” Savage says. “Excellent fucking point.”
My drink is set on the counter and I motion to a small round booth. “Let’s sit.”
Savage nods and we take a seat. I run down everything with him. The relationship between the families. My father’s death. Emma’s father’s death. The list of targets Emma found and plenty more.
“And your brother died how?”
“An accident or suicide. The investigation was inconclusive but suicide was what ended up on the death certificate. I get the impression they threw accident in there to make us feel better about what happened.”
He asks for details about the “suicide,” gory details that have me ordering another drink. When I finish telling the story, my drink is gone and he’s studying me. “You think he was murdered.”
“I know he was murdered and to complicate matters, I’m now involved with Emma Knight.”
“I got enough information from your former PI to know who that is. So, let me get this straight and I may need another drink to digest this. You think the Knight family did killed your brother, but you’re presently playing touch football in bed with the princess of the Knight Empire?
“That about sums it up.”
He waves to bartender.
“I’m also now protecting her.” I detail everything that happened at her apartment and my upcoming event that needs proper security in Maine.
When I finish, Savage grimaces. “You do realize she could be playing you, right?”
“She’s not.”
“Said every man who got fucked over by a woman.”
My patience now runs thin. “How much to do everything I need done?”
“A big number, but it will be done right and you’ll get your answers.”
“Expected considering the Maine location and event,” I say. “When can you start?”
“Now. I’ll update you on a full rollout in a couple of hours. I’ll have an invoice emailed to you.”
I reach in my pocket and hand him a card for my email address. “I don’t want anyone to know you’re there. I’ll arrange invites for your team to the Harvest. Just get me names.”
“I need you to detail everyone at the castle and their role. We’ll check them all out.”
“Most importantly,” I say, “Jill is my operations manager. She’s also my brother’s ex-fiancée.”
“And you brought her up because something hits you wrong about her?”
“Something in the way she seemed to want to get me away from here and Emma.”
“We’ll start with a focus on Chance, Randall, Jill, and Emma.” He arches a brow, waiting for me to cut him off for naming Emma. I don’t, but not because I think Emma is guilty of anything. There’s a reason she’s shut out of the family, and I don’t even think she knows what it is, but maybe, just maybe that reason has something to do with all of this.
Savage leans closer. “Emma could become our weakness. Make sure she tells you everything.”
“She has.”
“Speaking from experience, man, she hasn’t. She’s known her family her whole life and you only a few days. Even if she’s your future wife, right now, she doesn’t know that and neither do you. If this is about murder, one misstep could make her the weakness that gets you killed.”
***
Emma…
After inhaling two more pieces of pizza, I grab my father’s journal and sit down on the bed, holding it. Tightly. I don’t want to open it and yet, inside I know there are clues that I dread for the pure logic of what they say about my idol. I’m not a big drinker, but for inspiration, I go to the fridge, pull out the mini bottle of North Whiskey and head back to the bed. I open the lid and down a drink, the burn sliding all the way to my belly. I do it again, starting to feel warm all over. With a deep breath, I open the journal and start reading, page after page, until I finish the bottle. The voice on those pages has me getting another bottle, and by the time I’m ten more pages in, and it’s gone as well, my head is spinning. I lay on my back and rest the open journal on my belly. There are secrets in this journal I don’t understand, but there are things that I do understand.
Things I haven’t told Jax, but if I do, he might destroy my family business and me with it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jax…
On the walk back to the room, I remember what shouldn’t have been forgotten. Emma swearing to York she would hold onto a secret, one with Marion at the core. I know Marion. I know she’s related to York. If York is involved in whatever this is with my brother—and his showing up when he did, his timing right as I arrived on scene, tells me he is—maybe Marion and her husband are as well. I need to know what that was about. By the time I reach the room, I’ve decided that has to happen now.
Entering, I scan the living area, Emma is not in easy view. The man in me, the one who can’t get enough of this woman, would be more than happy to find her naked on top of the bed, waiting with open legs and arms. I’d forget questions about York and Marion for at least a good hour or two. I’d forget a lot to have Emma all to myself and naked right now.
I round the corner to the bedroom and quickly discover that I’m not that lucky tonight.
Emma’s on the bed all right, her head on the pillow, her long dark hair draped over her shoulders, but she’s also fully dressed, on her back, her eyes shut. Adding to my certainty that this scene doesn’t play out how it had in my head are two empty mini bottles of whiskey beside the bed. At least it’s North Whiskey, which would lead me to believe she had me on her mind, but she also has that damn journal laying on top of her stomach and thanks to Savage, I really want a damn look inside.
I step to the foot of the bed, staring at that damn thing where it lays open on top of Emma, and I know that no matter how valiant Emma might be on this topic, I have to make a choice: the journal or the woman, and the answer comes easier than I expect. For once in my life, when given the choice between a woman and something else, the woman wins. Rounding the bed, I gently pick up the journal and lay it on the nightstand.
“You could have looked at it,” Emma says, surprising me by scooting to a sitting position and leaning against the headboard.
“You’re awake,” I say, sitting on the mattress next to her, leaning over her, and pressing my hand on the other side of her hip.
“Read it, Jax.” She overemphasizes her words, speaking slower than usual but more precisely, clearly feeling the whiskey. “Oh God,” she presses her hand to her face, “I’m a horrible drinker.” She drops her hand. “Really bad.”
“A lightweight is more like it,” I tease, motioning to the two mini bottles, that might be small but straight up pack a bunch for a little think like Emma. I don’t fault her for drinking. She’s trying to process her father’s words in that journal, the way I was trying to process what I had to tell Savage. “Liquid courage to read the journal.”
“He doesn’t name names when he writes out all his vile thoughts,” she says, “but it might mean something to you, something that I can’t see for the disappointment in my father.”
“We’ll read it together tomorrow.”
“There are things you need to know, Jax.”
My ey
es narrow. “I thought he didn’t name names.”
“Other things. Other things that you need to know.”
“What do you think I need to know, Emma?”
“Who some of the players in my father’s sick games are, players he doesn’t have to name. I know who they are. But telling you could ruin the Knight empire and I don’t know you well enough yet to trust you with that.”
It’s hard to argue the smartness of that statement. It’s impossible not to push her for more. “Then tell me something else. What secret are you keeping for York?”
Her fingers brush my jaw, her eyes searching my face. “I think I might really like you, Jax.”
I want her to really like me and drunk people tend to say what they might not otherwise, and it’s usually honest. I catch her hand. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”
“You’re addicted to me, you said.”
“Obsessed was the word, but addicted works, too. I am addicted to you. Is that a problem?”
“To fucking me. You’re addicted to fucking me. We have this sex thing, but when that’s over—”
“That’s the whiskey talking. We had this conversation. We’re not just sex.”
“Do you want to have sex right now?”
“I always want to have sex with you, Emma, but that’s not the point.”
“Yes,” she assures me. “It is. It means this is a sex thing.”
“I don’t want to have sex every time a woman laughs a certain way or looks at me. Not unless it’s you.”
“When I laugh you want to have sex with me?” She manages to sound confused and hopeful, a combination most likely only possible while drinking.
It’s adorable. She’s fucking adorable and sexy. “Yes, sweetheart,” I confirm. “I do.”
“How many women do you call sweetheart?” she snaps right back.
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