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Bella had one pass with Knox. He was taking this.
“Ask your question,” Blake said.
“Why?”
Fuck.
The answer to that wasn’t straightforward.
To save InkWell—which was insider trading—and Blake would never voice that. To anyone. Ever. Even though it was a long shot, and technically—legally—not what he was doing.
Or was it to destroy Randall Scott? Yet another long shot, but probably the only one available in this lifetime.
Or a little bit of all of those, and to make sure Bella didn’t marry anyone else.
Which led to the same question. Why?
But Jacob deserved an answer. If his brother suddenly got engaged to a girl, they’d never met—although hehadmet Bella at the fundraiser—Blake would be dragging his ass to a bar and getting him drunk to find out what the hell he was thinking.
“She’s Randall Scott’s daughter,” Blake said.
Jacob stared at him. “Kennedy Enterprises?”
Blake nodded and watched the cogs of his brain do the math and catch up.
“I thought she was a Montgomery?”
“Ward is her stepfather,” Blake said. “I can’t tell you any more than that.”
“Scott is your competitor. Fuck, he’s everyone’s competitor. What am I missing here? Because it’s not pretty inside my head,” Jacob spluttered.
Blake ran a hand over his head and sighed. “I’m not breaking any laws, and this is a win-win. Fuck, Jacob, I care about her. Fuck, if anyone tried to touch her, I’d rip their hands off their arms.”
“Woah,” Jacob said, rearing back slightly and raising his brows. “Maybe I was wrong.”
Blake frowned. “No. You’re not wrong. I’m not in love with Bella. This is a partnership. A business one. Jacob, you cannot tell Mom.”
“It might help. She doesn’t seem happy,” Jacob pointed out. “Clearly, there’s some history with the Montgomery family.”
Blake had nodded for a long moment. “Any idea what it could be?”
His mom was a designer. After confronting her about the possibility of him being his father, he wondered if there had been some business dealings between them that had gone wrong.
Samantha Dufort could get hot under the collar when she wanted to.
“Nope. I tried to ask her, and she shot me that oldadults have secrets and children don’t need to know themline. To which I told her I was a twenty-three-year-old man.”
“And?”
“She snorted at me,” Jacob snarled.
“Harsh.” Blake laughed.
“So you’re falling in love with Bella. Meanwhile, this is a financial deal?” Jacob circled back to the start of their conversation.
And the reason for lunch.
He wasn’t an idiot.
