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“How do you knowthat?”
“I told you. I know a lot of people and things.”
She sets her phone on the table without answering him.
“You aren’t going to answer?”
“No. I’m not going to answer. I’m not ready to go back.”
“Would you like to get out of here?”
“And go where?”
“A castle by the ocean.”
She laughs. “If only.”
“I’m serious, Emma. Come with me. I’ll take you away.”
“Would you be asking me that if I walked away from it all? The hotels, the money?”
The curtain pulls back and Randall is standing there, his dark hair slicked back, his gaze sliding between the two of us and landing on me. “What the fuck are you doing here, Jax?”
My lips quirk. “Enjoying good company and good whiskey.” I glance at Emma. “With a beautiful woman,” I add.
I expect her to blush and look away, but she doesn’t. For several beats she just looks at me, her stare unreadable, but the crackle in the air between us, the whip and pull of attraction, is damn near palpable.
“Emma,” Randall snaps, “you have people here honoring your father.”
“Right. Responsibility calls.” Her eyes, her sea-green eyes meet mine. “Thank you, Jax. For the company and the fine whiskey.” Randall offers her his hand, but she ignores it and stands up.
“Don’t you want the answer to your question?” I ask.
She glances behind her, over her shoulder, to meet my stare. “Yes, I do.” But she doesn’t stay for an answer. She walks away, doing the impossible, considering she’s a Knight and I’m a North, as she does; she makes me crave more of her, but thatcraving in me changes nothing. I came here, seeking her out, for a reason. That reason remains the same.
Chapter two
Emma
Randall’s hand comes down on my elbow; a possessive touch that bothers me more in this moment than perhaps it might, without Jax’s warning about his intentions. “What are you thinking?” he demands softly as we weave through clusters of tables. “You’re here to represent your father.”
My heels plant solidly on the hardwood and I whirl to face him. “Who died a month ago of a heart attack. Now my mother has fled to Europe to heal, shutting me out, barely speaking to me by phone. You do get the impact those two things have on me, right?”
“I get that,” he says, his fingers tightening on my elbow where he has yet to let me go. “But your brother—”
“Was supposed to be here instead of me. He’s not here. He wassupposedto be here, not me, but it’s me who’s here. Me who’s facing this, so don’t start lecturing me.”
Surprise flickers in his eyes at my unexpected pushback which of course, is because I don’t push back; not against my father, and all orders from my brother and even Randall, werealwaysfrom my father, but that is no more. My need to please himeven in his death changed two weeks back when I discovered things I wish I didn’t know. “Where is your head right now?” he demands, leaning in closer, sniffing my direction. “You smell like whiskey. Drinking at a public event-”
“Stop, Randall. Stop now. I’m not a child.” I’m a lot of things he and my family don’t know or understand. A lot of things I became to cope with this life.
His jaw sets hard. “I’m worried about you. It’s not like you to run off like this.”
“My father died a month ago,” I hiss. “What is normal for a month after my father died? Please tell me because I don’t know.”
“There she is! Emma!”
At the sound of Marion Roger’s voice, I squeeze my eyes shut because of course, I can’t ignore one of the owners of Breeze Airlines, the hotel’s largest corporate client. But God knows, her connection to a past I’ve buried is bad enough. Now, knowing what I know of her and my father, avoidance might be smarter than looking her in the eyes and tempting myself to tell her that I know everything. A temptation, if realized, could well be dangerous and I suspect that she knows I know this. I suspect she knows that I will do almost anything to keep what is buried, buried.
