One Man (Naked Trilogy 1)

“Starbucks would be good,” she says. “There’s one on the way. We could caffeinate and eat after the shower.” She frowns. “Or are you actually staying at a Knight hotel?”

“No,” I say, moving on from a topic that highlights my hate for her family. “Starbucks is always good, especially since we don’t have them near the castle.” We finish the walk down the stairs.

“You don’t have Starbucks near the castle?” she asks, in disbelief, thankfully moving on from my hotel choice. “I don’t know if I can go with you after all.”

“I promise to keep you well-whiskey’d and pleasured to make up for it.”

“Hmmm. That sounds dangerous. The well-whiskey’d part.”

“I’ll hold you up if you have trouble walking,” I tease, repeating what I’d told her our first night together, and she laughs, grabbing a hoodie from the coatrack by the door. I grab my tuxedo jacket and shrug into it, finding myself wondering if there was a time that York made her laugh.

“We look like quite a pair,” she says, letting her hoodie fall to her hips and motioning between us. “Me in sweats and you in a tuxedo.”

“I’ll be in sweats and a T-shirt in a few minutes myself,” I promising, opening the door for Emma.

She steps ahead of me only to gasp, “Chance. What are you doing here?”

Her brother. This should be interesting. I step to Emma’s side, which places me and Chance in a direct view collision course that proves immediately enlightening. I’d hoped that I’d misjudged him. I’d hoped that like Emma, I’d decided his guilt over what went down with my brother’s last days, wrongly, but right now, looking into his eyes, I know I wasn’t wrong about him at all. He wanted Emma to feel me out, to see if he could get whatever his father wanted from my brother, from me—and I know it wasn’t the damn castle. He didn’t want her to catch me the way she caught me. That puts me too close for comfort and now I’ve caught him. The problem is that I just told Emma we have nothing to do with her family or mine, and yet, now, I know differently. Now, Emma is in the middle of me and Chance, and that has everything to do with family.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jax…

Emma’s reaction to Chance showing up is instantaneous. “We’re not buying the castle,” she says, linking our arms, her gaze finding mine. “I didn’t set this up. I swear to you—”

“I believe you,” I say. “I know.”

She studies me a moment and then looks between me and Chance. “The castle is a closed subject forever.”

Chance pins his sister in a stare, one that burns with frustration, before his gaze slowly shifts to me again. “She didn’t set this up. Emma’s not that kind of person.”

But he is. He fucking is and I have to wonder if he and York somehow communicated about my presence. He offers me his hand. “It’s been a long time, Jax.”

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 make eyes 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.”