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Randall gives my arm a squeeze, a warning—no, a demand that I perform right here, right now. This from a man who wants in my bed and in my life, a man who obviously can’t see the many reasons that has never happened. I turn to greet Marion and her husband, Monroe Roger, both of whom are not more than ten years my senior, which places them just under forty. My father was fifty-five. My mother is only forty-nine, a stunning, well-aged forty-nine, that obviously, considering Marion, was still too old to please my father.
“Nice of you to attend tonight,” Randall greets them, offering Monroe his hand and leaving me to come toe to toe with Marion, her bouncing red curls and piercing green eyes beam with fake affection.
“How are you, honey?” she asks, pulling me into a suffocating hug and I swear she’s wearing the jasmine perfume my mother favors.
“I’m fine,” I reply tightly, pulling back. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” she says, brushing my cheek in a far too intimate gesture, intimate in ways that suggests something more than friendship. An advance of sorts, one that I understand. I know how sex is used as a manipulation tool. I know in ways that no one in my family knows I understand, but they created. I don’t welcome this woman in my life in any way, shape, or form. I don’t plan to replace my father in her bed but that’s her family’s way. Fuck whoever and however you can for money and power. “You’re not okay.”
I fold my arms in front of me. “I’m fine.”
“Why don’t we sit and have a drink?” Monroe suggests.
“I’m rather tired,” I say, welcoming the escape.
“Just one drink,” Monroe pushes.
“We can do one, right, Emma?” Randall suggests. “A nightcap to help you rest?”
My lips tighten and I think of the hell I will receive later if I decline, which motivates my agreement. “One. Yes. Of course.”
Monroe motions to a table in the center of the room and the four of us claim our seats. The waiter is on top of us almost instantly and as everyone places their orders, heat burns my neck, drawing my gaze directly forward, landing on Jax. I ‘m now sitting across from his booth and he never pulled the curtain shut again. We stare at each other and when the waiter stops next to me and says, “Ma’am? What would you like?”
“Irish coffee,” I say. “North Whiskey.”
I feel the jab of Randall’s attention on me, but I ignore him. The waiter bows his head, “Of course,” and then walks away.
“I hear you’re scouting a location in Germany,” Monroe says, the comment directed at me, with reason. My role at the Knight Hotel empire is to scout and develop new locations.
“I am,” I say. “I leave in two weeks for Berlin. It will be my first time in Germany.”
This launches the table into sharing all their experiences in Germany, which was my intent. I wanted them talking about themselves, about their experiences, rather than asking questions about me. I don’t look at Jax again. I don’t dare for fear I’ll make my interest obvious, but he looks at me. I feel his attention, a heavy blanket that warms me far more than the coffee and the whiskey. I down my drink and order another, while no one at the table seems to even notice. Another for a lightweight like me proves a mistake. Halfway down the glass, and my head spins, while my stomach churns with an emptiness that hasn’t been properly filled in weeks.
I stand up and Randall catches my hand. “Where are you going?”
“The bathroom calls me,” I say. “Loudly. I have to pee.”
Marion laughs at my less than ladylike statement that defies my proper Emma Knight persona, but much about the Knight family now defies the proper manners I grew up being taught to be. Tugging my hand from Randall’s, I free myself, and step away from the group. I start walking and weaving through tables, quite certain there is a sway to my step, so much so that it’s embarrassing and I can’t look at Jax. My God, what am I doing? This isn’t like me. This isn’t even close to like me. I cut down a hallway and hurry to the ladies’ room. Once I’m there, I push in to find it blessedly empty.
I lean on the counter and mentally replay that night I’d stayed in my father’s house alone after his death, digging throughmy memories for the man I knew, but all I find are secrets. His secrets that are no longer secrets. I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know if I’ve ever known who I am. I was just who they wanted me to be. Whohewanted me to be, which is why I did things to feel something else, something that was all me, something that I now regret. I look in the mirror and study my heart-shaped face so like my mother’s, my long brown hair streaked with hints of red, while hers is a rich shiny dark brown that I always envy. My light green eyes, her green eyes. I think of all the times she and I traveled together, scouted together. And while we were away, my father played and plotted in ways I can barely fathom.
I push off the counter, knowing that I’m about to work myself up and that will do me no good, not when I have to go back to the table. I apply lip gloss and then open the door and suck in air as I come face to face with Jax. A man so raw and male that I pretty much melt where I stand just looking at him when this isn’t my usual reaction to men. I’m used to rich and powerful men. I’m used to the games they play, the way they chase me for my name and family money, therefore, why would I melt? But there’s something different about Jax North. Maybe right now I’m just in a place where I need a fantasy, an escape, and I just want to believe he’s different, and so I do. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he says softly, and when I sway slightly, he catches my waist, his touch a searing brand. And Lord, help me, the heat that rushes through my body tells a story. I want to be branded by this man. “I thought you might need assistance.”
I swallow against my suddenly dry throat, against the heat burning low in my belly at his touch. “Because I was walking drunk?”
His lips, his really beautiful, somehow brutal lips, curve. “Because you’re surrounded by assholes.”
Words that would be funny if they weren’t so accurate. “I’m afraid that’s a perpetual problem I can never escape.”
“A perpetual problem we accept is a choice. We choose who we surround ourselves with.”
“You’re born into your family. That’s not a choice.”
Even in the shadows of this dark hallway, the blue of his eyes darkens. “I wasn’t aware the company you were keeping tonight was family.”
Just like that, alcohol and this man have exposed one of my secrets. My family is not my happy place. “Those people exist because of my family.”
