One Man (Naked Trilogy 1)

***

I leave Emma in the bathroom, finishing her morning routine, which isn’t an easy task, considering she’s wearing a tiny pink silk robe that makes me want to take her back to the shower. Once I’ve stepped away though, entering the bedroom, I slip into action mode and waste no time dressing. Out of the necessity of time, I skip shaving, but dress in an expensive navy pinstriped suit that says I’m ready to do business, be it with York, Emma’s brother, or Eric Mitchell on this financial deal I’m negotiating with him that gets more complicated the closer I get to Emma.

Next up, I order coffee, a selection of pastries, and then step onto the patio to dial Savage. He answers on the first ring. “Morning, sunshine,” he greets. “How do you like your eggs?”

“The same way I like my life, right side up. What do you have for me?”

“I’m an ass man myself, hardboiled.”

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“One day you will,” he says, whatever that means, and thankfully he moves on from the nonsense. “As for what I have for you? I homed in on York as the active aggressor. He met with his aunt Marion last night, minus her husband. After that meeting, Marion called Emma’s brother and then he called and texted Emma’s phone.”

“I know about the attempted call and the text. Chance and Marion want to meet Emma this morning. She believes Marion wants to silence her.”

“Because she knows Knight Senior was having an affair with Marion.”

“Yes,” I say, impressed at how quickly he got to that information. “York is threatening her to keep her quiet about it, coming at her like a freight train. I’m gambling here and saying my brother knew, too, which means York went at him, too.”

“I’d say that’s a good gamble. We hacked York’s, Chance’s, and Marion’s calendars. Interesting thing about Marion’s calendar—the month your brother died, you know what we found? Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing, but she has a full calendar now.”

“She wiped evidence,” I say following his lead. “But she was also having an affair. That’s a good reason to wipe her calendar.”

“An affair that she was desperate to hide. That leads me places but we’ll go there together later. Our team has only been on this for a few hours. We’ll know more soon.”

“I’m escorting Emma to work and then headed to meetings,” I say. “Make sure she stays safe.”

“Safe as an angel in a savage heaven. What exactly is York using to threaten Emma?”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought she told you everything?” he challenges.

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“It’s bred in me, man. I can’t help it. Do you want me to find out for you?”

“No,” I say. “She’ll tell me. Focus on finding out what’s really going on here, because it’s more than an affair.”

“Understood. You want her to trust you. Just don’t trust too much.”

“You don’t need to keep delivering that warning, Savage. I know what I’m doing with Emma. Focus on getting me answers.” I disconnect.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Emma…

The nightmare haunts me even now, sitting at the room service table with Jax. I sip my coffee and listen as Jax tells me about the castle’s history that dates back a hundred years, but even so, even as interested as I am in what he’s saying, I can’t shake this nagging, ominous feeling that nightmare produced.

Still I ask questions, I engage. I want to know this man, I want to know about his life. “And the whiskey is produced right there?”

“The actual whiskey production is in Portland. We have two thousand employees there. At the castle, we run the business office, and there’s a facility for new product development. The attached land has a storage facility for the whiskey.”

There’s no way my family doesn’t know this, not if they were scouting the property. I open my mouth to say as much, but Jax’s cellphone rings. He grabs it from the table and glances at the number. “Jill. My operations manager.” He answers the line, and they begin talking about the event he’s invited me to attend this weekend.

“We are not blindfolding customers for a taste test,” Jax says, pushing to his feet in obvious agitation. He walks toward the balcony and just that easily, I’m flashing back to the past.

There’s a blindfold on my eyes and I want it off, I want it off so badly, but I can’t get it off. My hands are bound, and oh God, I’m naked. I try to do what he told me to do, to sink into the darkness, to lose myself in the darkness and forget everything else, but I can’t. It’s as if pins are prickling my skin. I shift from a past memory to the nightmare and all I can remember is falling into the darkness, certain that I will hit the ground and die any moment.