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“Didyou—”
“No, I did not kill Hunter,” he bites out, “and I can’t believe I had to answer that question. I can’t believe you don’t know me better than that.”
His cellphone starts ringing, and he growls with irritation and pulls it from his pocket. He answers the line. “Whatever it is can wait.” He listens a minute and grimaces before he hangs up. “We’re about to have company.”
It’s in that moment that the door bursts open, and I turn as Jax explodes into the room. I have the briefest of stunned moments, time standing still. And then everything comes back in focus and there is just Jax, standing there in the doorway in black jeans and a black sweater, his blond hair mussed up, so damn beautifully male. My hero who has come to save me. “Emma,” he breathes out, his eyes landing on me, relief spreading across his handsome face as if the call didn’t convince him I was okay. He needed to see me.
“Jax,” I whisper, my heart swelling with emotion, and the next thing I know, I’m being dragged into his arms. We wrap ourselves around each other, and when his hand comes down on the back of my head and he kisses me, he kisses me like a man who feared he would never kiss me again.
“Enough already,” Chance snaps. “Enough!”
He wouldn’t say enough if he’d been kidnapped. If he’d woken up naked and had no idea who undressed him. Suddenly angry all over again, I twist away from Jax’s kiss and turn in his arms, but I don’t step away from him. He doesn’t step away from me either but to my side. “Itisenough, Chance. What happened to me is too much. You went too far.”
“I hadnothingto do with this,” Chance growls. “I was worried sick over you. Do you know meat all,Emma? Do you really think I’d do that and to what end? Pissing you off and sending you right back to Jax? That’s what would have happened. That’s whatis happening. I would know that. How is this even logical to think I’d do something that stupid or hurtful?”
“We all know Hunter was dad’s son,” I say. “We all know he was negotiating with dad to become a part of our operation.”
“What I know is that this asshole,” Chance points angrily at Jax as he rounds his desk to stand almost directly in front of him, “is turning you against me.” He looks Jax in the eyes. “You’re fucking her to fuck me.” He then turns his gaze to me. “He’s the problem here, not me. He probably did this himself to turn you against me. Taking your clothes off was for added effect.”
Chance barely gets those words out before the two of them are moving toward each other. My heart jackhammers, and I race to catch Jax, stepping between them, pressing a hand to both of their chests. “Stop. Stop now. Both of you. Don’t do this. Tell him you didn’t kill Hunter, Chance. Tell him now.”
“He knows I didn’t kill Hunter. He’s full of shit, Emma. He’s using you.”
“You bastard,” Jax growls. “You are truly a piece of work.”
“Yeah?” Chance says. “Come show me.”
“Jax,” I plead, my voice shaky. “Jax, please.”
His eyes lower to mine, and the anger, the pain, the hate in their depths cut through me. I see everything in his stare. Hewants to hurt Chance. He thinks he killed Hunter. He feared I was dead. His lashes lower, and he turns away, scrubbing his jaw and turning back to us.
“Thank you,” I say, giving my brother my back and catching Jax at the waist. “Thank you, Jax.”
“That was for you, baby, because I love the hell out of you and because I told you I wouldn’t take your brother from you. Which is why I’m going to wait downstairs before I do something I regret.” He sets me away from him, and when he goes to turn, I catch his arm.
My heart swells. “You love me?”
“More than you can possibly know, baby, which is why I’m leaving.” He pulls away and walks to the door.
I cast Chance a desperate look. “Do something. Make this right. If not for me, for Hunter. Hunter was our brother, too.”
Jax opens the door, and my brother gives me a deadpan stare. This is useless. If Jax is leaving, I’m leaving. I rush after him.
“Wait,” Chance says. “Don’t go. I’ll tell you both what I know.”
Chapter one hundred fourteen
Jax
He’s going to tell us what he knows.
That statement stops my exit from Chance’s office. I halt and seal the door again but I don’t turn because I don’t know what I’ll do if Chance says one more wrong thing to me or Emma. I don’t know if staying in this office right now is a smart decision.
“Jax.”
Emma’s touch and her voice, I can’t leave, not yet. I turn around, and she’s right there, wrapping her arms around me, tilting her chin up to look at me. “You know I love you, too, right?”
And just like that, those words soften me. She softens me in ways I never knew possible. “And baby, that makes me a hell of a lucky man and Ido notwant that to change. Which is why I should leave,” I say.
