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I take his hand, and I don’t immediately let go. “Two years ago,” I say, my grip tightening, “at the castle, when my brother was still alive.” Our eyes hold, a push and pull, between us before I release his hand.
“Yes,” Chance agrees, and to his credit he doesn’t look away. “He was a good guy.”
Good guy? Fuck him. “Is that why Randall and your father did the dirty work with him? Because you couldn’t get by him being a ‘good guy’?”
“I wasn’t aware of any dirty work,” Chance says, but the flick of his eyes to the left before he makes eye contact again, says otherwise. “Just a pet project of my father’s.”
A fucking pet project? That description of a series of events the ended in my brother’s death about undoes my fucking temper and I never lose my temper. “His desire to own a castle, or our whiskey operation, which is on the same property?” I challenge.
“That’s it,” Emma says. “Jax and I are leaving. I’ll see you later, Chance.”
“Nonsense,” I say. “Emma got you your meeting, Chance. We’re headed to Starbucks if you want to join us.”
Emma turns to stand in front of me, her hands on my chest. “I did not get him a meeting,” she says. “No.He’s not coming.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll talk to Chance.”
“But you don’t want to sell and I promised you that this was over. And this could go sour quickly. I don’t want that to happen.”
“It won’t. I plan to stay around, Emma, which means Chance and I need to get this behind us.” I soften my voice, my hands settling on her shoulders. “Let’s get it behind us.”
She swallows hard. “I didn’t do this.”
“I know that.”
“She didn’t,” Chance says. “I will repeat that ten times if needed. I came by to check on her.” He motions to his hoodie and sweats. “I’m on my way to run. That said, I do want to know the man who obviously stayed the night with my sister and just made a statement that tells me that wasn’t a one-time deal.”
My gaze lifts above Emma’s shoulder and meets Chance’s stare, a glint in his eyes, a warning. He’s worried about Emma. He thinks I’m using her to get to him now. “Then coffee it is.”
Emma whirls around and poke’s Chance in the chest. “If you say one word about the castle, I will hurt you.”
“I won’t bring up the castle.” He looks at me and adds, “It’s a dead topic.”
Dead topic.
Because my brother is dead?
“Where are we going?” he asks. “I need to run by my apartment and take a minute.”
He means he needs to make a few calls and cover his ass. “There’s a Starbucks on the corner, a block away,” I say. “Let’s make it easy and go there.”
He gives me a short incline of the chin. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
And I’m never getting my fucking shower. Chance heads down the hallway and Emma turns back around to face me, “Jax—”
I kiss her. “Let’s go talk to security about York.”
“You don’t even want to discuss what just happened between you and Chance? Or what could happen with Chance?”
“What’s going to happen is that we’re going to talk and drink coffee with your brother. Then we’re going to shower because I’m still in last night’s clothes. And then, we’re going to fuck. After which, we’ll eat that real meal that has now become coffee before we come back here and do it all over again, with some work thrown in the middle. Okay?”
“I approve of all of the above,butif you insist on keeping my brother a part of this, do you want to meet him in an hour and go shower first?”
“No.” I ease her close again and damn it, she feels good, too good to walk away from. Too good to be a Knight. “I want to do this, get it over with, and then have you to myself for the rest of the day.”
“Okay, but for the record, I think this meeting is poorly timed and bad for us.”
“I’m not a man that puts off the bad. I get it over with. So all that is left is the good: you.”
