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“No!” Emma exclaims. “No. No, you will not sign that castle over for one second. I don’t trust Chance. He already tried to trick you. I don’t want the money.”
Pain darts through Chance’s eyes. It’s clear that he loves her, and that her anger and distrust cut him. And she’s not done. She points at him. “Give whatever money you promised me to mom. I want nothing else from this family.”
I’m on my feet stepping in front of Emma before she even finishes her last sentence. “Emma.” My hands come down onher shoulders. “There’s a way to do this and protect everyone involved.”
“We can’t be together.”
“That’s crazy talk, woman,” I say. “We can. We will. This changes nothing.”
“It does,” she says. “It changes everything.”
“I vowed to never let you go, and you said, ‘remember that, whatever happens.’ So, I repeat: this changes nothing.”
“You say that but what happens when you wake up one morning next to me and you seeher?”
“First of all,” I say, “that’s not going to happen. I’ll wake up and think that I’m lucky as hell to have you next to me. And we don’t even know if she did this. We may never know.”
“But it will always be there between us,” she argues. “We won’t exactly be having family holidays.”
“We damn sure will. We’ll figure out what that means for us starting this year. We’re going to make this year special.”
“I need out of this office right now, Jax. I don’t feel well. The drugs and stress—I need air.” She twists away from me and heads for the door.
I let her go for one reason only: I need to make sure there’s no bombshell to sideswipe us later. I turn to Chance who is now on his feet, his hands on his hips under his jacket. “If you didn’t kidnap Emma, who did?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his expression grim. “But we need to find out.”
“If it was Randall, you need to deal with him and not gently.”
“That goes unsaid,” he agrees. “I’ll send you the documents I have to your room. You might see something that I don’t see. Where are you staying?”
“The Ritz.”
“Of course.” His lips thin. “No Knight property for you.”
“Not now, but you gave me at least a little bit of closure, man. That took courage. And I appreciate the hell out of it.”
“I won’t protect her,” he says. “My mom. I won’t protect her. Not if she killed Hunter. I’ve thought a lot about this during plenty of sleepless nights. I won’t protect her,” he repeats. “You have my word.”
I give him a slow nod and then I leave with only one thing on my mind: catching up to Emma and never letting her go. Once I’m in the hallway and I have no idea how or why I know where to go, but instincts kick in, and I do. I head for the stairwell, and when I enter, Emma’s there, as I expected, leaning against the wall. I step in front of her, my hands settling at her waist.
Her hands find my hands. “You found me,” she whispers.
“I will always find you, baby.Always.”
Tears escape her beautiful green eyes, trailing down her pale cheeks. My thumb strokes them away. “Damn it,” she murmurs, catching my hand with hers. “I’m not a crier. I’m not. You’re going to think you just professed your love to a cry baby. I just—I’m pissed. These are angry tears. At my father and my mother. At my damn brother who did some shady shit obviously. I don’t want Hunter to be dead. I don’t want this to be the reason we came together and the reason we fall apart.”
“You are not a cry baby. You’re human and I like that about you. You’re real, Emma. The most real person that I’ve ever known. We came together because we fit each other. I professed my love to a beautiful, intelligent, honest, woman that I need in my life.Andwho has yet to tell me that she’s going to move in with me.”
“I’m afraid of all the things that could go wrong,” she confesses.
“And if you can imagine even one moment, going through those things without me, then you don’t love me half as much as I do you.”
“I don’t want to be without you. Ever, Jax.”
“Then don’t be without me, baby. If there is anything Hunter has taught us, it’s that life is short. Don’t let ours slip away without each other. Move in with me.”
“Yes. Yes, I would like that very much.”
