“A plane is an important detail,” Savage assures me. “There are flight records. This helps. What else?”
“If you’re asking me if I was raped? I don’t know, but sitting here now,” I consider a moment, “I don’t feel like I was, and I know this sounds crazy, but I think I’d know. Though a stranger undressing me and seeing me naked feels pretty shitty. Did he touch me, even if he didn’t rape me? Did he take photos?”
“The York situation is public,” Savage says. “A professional could have staged it to look like it was some sort of revenge he plotted to fuck with your head.”
“Could he have done that from jail?” I ask.
“Yes,” Savage agrees. “He has people who work for him who are just as dirty as he is, but I don’t think he’d bring you home and put you in your own bed.”
I frown and glance at Jax. “I dismissed the idea of York at first. Leaving me at home truly didn’t feel like him, but now I’m rethinking. You two clashed. He hated you. What better way to torture us both than grabbing me right from under your nose, and then leaving me naked? It’s the ultimate fuck you.”
His expression burns with anger. “If I find out he did this, I will throw every resource I have at him to ensure he goes to jail for a very long time.”
“Let us work the plane angle,” Savage says. “You were drugged for a reason. Among those reasons, you weren’t supposed to remember your method of travel.” He starts to get up.
“Wait,” I say, and when Savage settles back into his seat, I ask, “Do we know how he got to me?”
“The elevator. It wasn’t really broken. It was connected to an underground tunnel where it was controlled.”
“I didn’t know about the tunnel,” Jax adds. “And I’d ask Brody if he knew, but he’s now in rehab.”
I blink. “What? Rehab?”
“He got wasted on drugs and booze,” Savage says. “He had a seizure a few hours ago, and Jax had us check him into rehab.”
Jax gives a grim nod. “I talked to the doctor an hour ago. There’s some thought that he might have had a grief-induced nervous breakdown.”
“Oh, God,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry, Jax. I’m really sorry, but at least he’s getting help.”
“There is that,” he agrees. “And clearly, he wasn’t the one who brought you here and undressed you. If he had been, I don’t know what I would have done.”
I swallow against the tightening in my throat. “We just really don’t know who did this,” I say, and the implication is clear: we don’t know how long I’ll be looking over my shoulder.
“I still vote Randall’s behind this,” Savage says. “He wanted you back here, and he gambled that, even if Jax followed, you’d be too freaked out to go back to the castle. He could easily have hired the help to pull this off. Hell, maybe he paid Echo to do it.”
“We didn’t confirm with Chance,” I say, “but it does seem logical that Randall knew about Hunter’s blackmail and the merger. I’m just not sure why he’d be freaked out enough about it to kidnap me. None of this has an impact on him.”
“We didn’t talk to your brother about the merger,” Jax points out. “We don’t know Chance’s motivation on that or what he’s offered Randall if it goes through. It could be nothing more than Randall fearing I’d screw that up with Grayson Bennett.”
My brows furrow. “But what does me being with you have to do with that?”
“He either thinks you’re keeping Knight on my mind, or there’s still more that we don’t know. Like, what he has to gain or lose by way of the merger, either of them. For all we know, because we didn’t ask and Chance didn’t offer, Randall has an inheritance riding on the castle as well.”
My eyes go wide. “That’s true. That’s just the kind of thing my father would do.” I reach for my purse at my hip. “I’m calling Chance.”
Jax catches my hand. “Food and rest first, baby. We’ll all think better once those things happen.” There’s a knock at the door.
“Perfectly timed,” Savage says, slapping his hands on his legs. “That will be your food. And for what it’s worth, Emma, I agree with Jax. Rest. I’ve got men watching the hotel. I’ve got men working on our many mysteries. I’m going to get them working on the plane, and then, I, too, am going to catch a few z’s in my room as well.” He stands up and heads for the door.
Jax follows and directs the room service crew to take our food to the bedroom. I follow, and when the room service attendant leaves, Jax with him for a moment, I scoot to the edge of the bed and peek at the food under the various trays. Savory and sweet smells tease my nostrils and rumble my belly. I’ve just covered up the mac and cheese, which looks scrumptious, when a rush of awareness drags my gaze to the doorway, where I find Jax standing there, watching me. Our gazes collide, and a rush of emotion quakes between us. We’re finally alone and the turbulence in his eyes tells me that Jax really didn’t think that was ever going to happen again.
He thought he lost me.
On some level, despite his claim otherwise, I do believe that some part of him, at least for the briefest of my time away, thought that maybe, just maybe, I’d walked away by choice. This man, this gorgeous, powerful, in control man, doubted himself and doubted us. It may be crazy to some, but to me, a woman who knows powerful men as people who don’t doubt themselves, I find this humbleness in him so very human, so very real. He doesn’t know that me walking away from him is no longer possible. He doesn’t know that I can no longer live without him.
To let him know such a thing makes me vulnerable.
To be vulnerable means to give trust.
And I trust this man, the way I love him.
With all that I am.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Emma
Jax steps into the bedroom in a rush of power and heat that sends my senses into a hot fever rush. My heart thumps in a quickened pace, my skin flushes, and anticipation for that moment when he comes to me is all I seem to process right now.
But he doesn’t come to me.
He walks to the curtain and pulls it shut, casting the room in shadows, a light on one of the nightstands a dim burn, while the burn I feel for this man is a spark always one touch away from a flame. He walks to the opposite side of the table, standing there above me, all broad and tall. “Eat, baby. I need you to eat.”
“Eating isn’t what’s on my mind right now, Jax.”
His lips, those full, gorgeous, talented lips of his, curve. “What’s on your mind?”
“You.” But then my stomach growls. Loudly.
He laughs. “And food. Eat, woman.” He rounds the table and sits down next to me, hugging me close and kissing me, a soft brush of lips on lips, a tease that promises more but denies it all the same. “We have a lifetime for me to have my way with you, and to do everything else on both our minds. And just so you know there are some really dirty things on my mind.”
“Tell me,” I urge.
“With pleasure,” he says and then adds, “After you get those drugs out of your system.”
Sitting here next to him, in the intimate room, his arms around me, I have that coming home feeling again and a suggestion. “I’m pretty sure an adrenaline rush will help get the drugs out of my system, too.”
He gives a low, sexy laugh. “As much as I want to go with your way of thinking, it could also be the reason you crash. Eat, baby. Like I said, we have a lifetime if I get my way. Get comfortable.” He shifts and drags my foot over his lap, pulling off my shoe.
I laugh. “Are you really taking off my shoes so that I can eat?”
“You bet I am.” He pulls off the second as well. “Making room for the calories.”
I crinkle my nose. “In my feet?”
“The best place to wear them, right?” he teases. “Stuff your face, baby, and fall asleep.”
“Take your shoes off, stuff your face, and fall asleep with me.”
“Deal,” he says, winking, and moving away to the s
ide of the bed to remove his boots.
I’m smiling when he returns and starts pulling the lids off a ridiculous amount of food. “You know I can’t even begin to eat a tiny portion of any of this.”
“I can,” he assures me, which has me laughing. Laughing feels good. We feel good, and I need this and him, right now, more than I think I realized. Beneath the surface, contained but clawing, are my emotions and the distinct imprint of fear. Someone could come for me again, and I’m not sure how to deal with that.
“You okay?” Jax asks, his finger brushing my cheek. “What just happened?”
I blink. “Happened? Nothing. Nothing. I’m just glad you’re here.” I kiss his cheek. “Really glad you’re here.”
He cups my face and kisses me. “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you.”
“Promise?”
“With all that I am.” He smooths my hair behind my ear. “Eat, baby.”
I nod and soon that clawing feeling is smothered in cheese, pasta, and all kinds of yummy food, all made better by conversation and more laughter. We talk, but we don’t talk about the hell around us. We talk about our Thanksgiving feast. We talk about a tree the size of a house. For just a tiny little moment in time, we share a meal and leave everything else in another place, a dark hole, where we don’t dare travel.
Turns out, my stomach approves of the chocolate cake Jax ordered over my mac and cheese, while Jax approves of his burger in a big way, downing it quickly. “I have one bite of cake left,” I say. “You want it?”
“Since it was my cake, yes.” He leans in and takes the cake off my fork, and when he looks at me, the heat between us has turned chocolate cake into an aphrodisiac. Or maybe, it’s just Jax. A man who now owns more than my body. He owns my heart.
“Time to sleep,” he says, pulling me down on the mattress, stroking hair from my face. “And we’re keeping our clothes on or I can’t be responsible for my actions.”
“Let me be responsible for your actions.” My hand slides under his shirt and hot, taut skin and flexing muscle is my reward for my boldness.
“Oh no, baby. Not until you rest.” He shifts us, and suddenly, my back is to his front, and he’s wrapped around me.
“This is so not fair,” I whisper, though the feel of his big body hugging mine isn’t exactly a bad thing.
“Punish me later,” he murmurs.
“Challenge accepted,” I say, but even as I do, I nuzzle in closer to him, the safe cubby hole he’s created for me offering welcomed warmth on a day filled with cold reality.
“I love you, Emma,” he whispers near my ear, his warm breath mixed with his words, lifting goosebumps on my skin.
I catch his hand and lace my fingers with his. “I love you, too, Jax,” I say, a tiny smile on my lips as I lower my lashes and drift into a blessed slumber.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Jax
The hotel phone on the nightstand wakes me from a deep slumber, but Emma literally doesn’t move. I quickly shift and disconnect the call, pulling a blanket over Emma and checking the time to find it’s now six pm. Easing slowly off the bed, as not to wake Emma, I grab my boots and walk into the living room and pick up the phone on the desk.
“You called?” I ask when the front desk answers.
“You have a package, sir.”
“I’ll pay a healthy tip to have it brought to me,” I say, unwilling to allow Emma to wake up alone.
I text Savage while I wait: You up?
He calls me. “Up like a hurricane,” he says, whatever the hell that means. I sit down on the couch, and he launches into an update. “No electronic proof that Emma’s mother contracted a hit out on Hunter. No electronic proof of York, or anyone who visited or communicates with York, hiring a pro to kidnap Emma. Though I have to add that, in prison, there are ways to reach those pros and avoid a fingerprint.”
“I can’t hole her up in a closet, Savage. How do we keep that from happening again?”
“I’m at the door. My recommendation is not one I plan to make over the phone.”
“Emma’s still asleep.”
“I’ll be as quiet as a church mouse hunting cheese.”
I disconnect the line and walk to the door to find him right smack in front of me. “Jesus, Savage,” I murmur. “In the dining room. We can talk freely there.” I back up and lead him there.
I pass through the living room and turn down a hallway opposite the bedroom, passing a bathroom to enter a room with a long conference-style dining table. I step to the window, staring out at the picturesque of hills, ocean and rooftops, with Emma, not the view, on my mind. Savage stalks into the room wearing black fatigues and a black T-shirt, like I need a reminder that we’re in a damn warzone. He holds up an envelope. “I shoved a wad of cash at the kid that brought this to save Emma from the knock on the door.”
I take it from him. “This will be from Chance. It’s supposed to be the data to back up everything he told us today.” I toss it on the table. “What’s the plan to deal with York?”
“He’s a piece of shit. Give him too much to worry about to care about her.”
“Keep going.”
“Why don’t you just tell me to do it and let me handle it?”
My gaze rakes over the scar down his cheek that says he’s been in the trenches; he’s been in battle. And he lived. I’m an honorable man. I try to be the man my father would want me to be, but right now, I need to be the man who protects Emma. “Do it.”
“That was easier than expected.”
“What if it’s not him?”
“Eliminating him is step one.” He motions to the folder on the desk. “Deciding who else is a problem comes next.”
“Agreed.”
The two of us sit down at the table across from each other, and I open the thick envelope, pulling out a stack of files and several journals. On top of it all is a card with Emma’s name on it. I hand Savage half the stack of files and then go back to that card, staring down at it. When I found Emma again, she was all that was on my mind. Now, I’m thinking about her brother. I know he loves her. I believe he told us the truth, but how he handled the situation with the castle doesn’t sit well.
“What’s that?”
At Emma’s voice, I look up to find her in the doorway, her long brown hair a silky mussed up mess around her face and shoulders. Her cheeks warm with pink. She’s so damn beautiful, she’s sunshine that lights an otherwise barren and dark sky. She sure as hell lights my black soul, and that’s exactly where I was when I met her. A black soul headed to hell and dragged to heaven.
“Hi,” she says, those pale green eyes falling on me.
I smile and set the card down next to me. “Hi.”
“Hiya, Em,” Savage calls over his shoulder. “What’s cookin’, good lookin’?”
She laughs, a fluttery sweet laugh. “You’re insane, Savage.”
“I like that about me,” he replies.
“Me, too, actually,” she says, walking up behind him to punch his shoulder.
“Ow!” Savage growls, while Emma laughs again, and I stand and pull a chair out for her.
She meets me at the end of the table where I fold her into me and kiss her. “How do you feel?”
“Much better and like I could eat all that food we just ate all over again.”
“Room service it is,” I say. “Your brother made good on his word. He delivered all the documents he promised. We’re just digging into the files. Want to help?”
“Absolutely.” She kisses my cheek, and damn, she is just so sweet, the kind of sweet that gets me wicked hot and hard from nothing but that random act of affection. She blows up my emotions when there was a time when feelings were the devil.
She settles into her seat, and I claim mine next to her. “What’s this?” she asks, picking up the card and glancing at me.
“It was inside the delivery from your brother.”
“Oh.” She stares down at it, the pink in her cheeks fading
to pale. “I should—” She glances at me. “I should open it.” She gives a shaky laugh. “I’m so uncomfortable with my brother right now. It’s rather disconcerting. I ah—I think I’ll go in the other room and open it.”
I catch her hand and kiss it. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Her eyes fill with tenderness, and she lifts my hand this time and kisses it, her eyes warm with emotion before she stands and walks away.
I suck in a sharp-edged breath and look skyward, the need to protect her so damn intense that it skirts around inside me like a live charged wire. I lost my mother. I lost my father. I lost Hunter. Brody is in rehab. To lose those we love is devasting, which is why I cannot allow Emma to lose her own brother if it can be avoided. But she’s been through hell, and I will not let him put her through more. If Chance hurts her, I will hurt him.
CHAPTER FORTY
Emma
Hope, fear, anger, frustration.
I feel all of these things as I sit down on the hotel couch with the envelope in my hand, my brother’s script, so like my father’s, on the front. I reach for the flap, and my God, my hand is trembling. Why is my hand trembling and why won’t it cooperate and just do what I intend? I grab my wrist and draw in a calming breath. This is silly. I’m letting way too many things control me when I, long ago, learned how to compartmentalize and just get on with life. I need to do that now.
Jaw set, I release my hand and open the envelope to find a simple rose on the front of the card. Inside the card is a folded letter. I pull it out and start to read:
Bird Dog;
Yes, I know you hate that name, but I won’t ever stop teasing you. It’s just too fun. I also won’t stop loving you. I know I made mistakes. I should have done what dad never did and included you more. I should have given you the chance to help.
Obviously, you would have had influence over Jax. The two of you could have come up with a solution when I couldn’t, that worked for us all. Dad trapped me. I believe that he believed that if he gave me a good reason—saving yours and mom’s inheritance—to do a bad thing, I’d do it. And he thought that meant I’d be successful in the future. I’m pleased to say he failed to make me him, but he almost didn’t.
Two Together Page 16
