Love Me Dead (Lilah Love 3)

A waiter appears and I order whiskey, North Whiskey, my family’s whiskey, which is in every Knight hotel in the country and beyond. I don’t give a fuck if it stays or goes or I wouldn’t be here. “Bring the bottle.”

He’s just filled my glass, and the glass is at my lips when Emma walks into the bar. Alone. She’s done her time on stage and ran for cover. The hotel might be hosting the event, but she isn’t. She’s halfway into the bar when voices sound behind her. She peeks over her shoulder and then with a panicked look, darts in my direction.

To my surprise—and I don’t surprise easily—she slides into the booth with me and pulls the curtain shut. “So sorry,” she says, claiming the seat next to me. “I really need to avoid a conversation and well, breathe a moment or ten. The only way to do that is to be having a private meeting that looks as if it’s just that: private, not to be disturbed.” She takes my glass and downs my whiskey.

Interesting that she didn’t run to Randall for comfort, but in fact ran away from him.

She glances at me, and when her beautiful pale green eyes flecked with amber meet mine, there is a charge between us, an awareness that parts her lips and has her turning away from me. Because she knows who I am?

“I’ll buy that bottle of whiskey for you,” she says, “for letting me intrude.”

A statement that either proves she has no idea who I am or that she’s playing me the way a Knight will play.

It doesn’t really matter. It’s like the sky opened up and delivered her right to me. “Considering I’m a North and that’s North Whiskey,” I say, refilling the glass. “I think I can handle paying for the bottle and helping the lady of the night hide out.”

Her eyes go wide. “You’re Jax North.” She blinks. “Of course you are. You look like the North family, all tall, blond, and handsomely brooding.” She drinks a bit more. “And that’s the whiskey making me overly verbal. My father didn’t approve of me being overly verbal.”

Except she just downed that whiskey and hasn’t been drinking all night. She’s nervous, rambling in a rather charming, vulnerable way that I find attractive, for reasons I don’t try to understand.

“I didn’t know ‘overly verbal’ was a thing.”

“You didn’t know my father well, then. Actually, no one did.” She swallows hard. “Back to you.” It’s a hard push from any question I might have made about that statement “no one did.” “You really do look like your father and brother. I can’t believe I didn’t immediately place you.”

“You mean Hunter, I assume, since my younger brother, Brody, beats to his own drum. A drum that doesn’t include running the core whiskey operation or any involvement with the Knight Hotel brand.”

“Yes, Hunter,” she says, and there’s a flicker in her eyes, an understanding that we’re talking about a brother that is no more with us on this earth than her father. “I met them both, briefly. I ah—”

I narrow my eyes on her waiting for her to finish that sentence, prodding when she does not. “You what?”

“You—”

“Lost them both, as you did your father,” I supply. “Yes. My father to a ski accident, a year ago next week. Six months ago next month for my brother.” I leave out the cause of death. That isn’t a place either of us wants me to go with the Knight family tonight. “And yes,” I add, “time helps, but anyone who tells you it makes the cut heal is lying. It just stops the bleeding.”

“Thank you for saying that,” she says in a deep breath, “because if one more person tells me time will make it better, I might scream.” She softens her voice. “I’m sad to say that I barely knew your father and brother, and only know you now because of this moment in time, that you neither chose nor invited.”

“Should I have?”

“Why would you? You don’t know me.” She laughs a bitter laugh. “Well, there is my family money. That’s what everyone knows and wants. They think they know my worth, but they know nothing.”

I don’t ask what that means. I dare to slide closer to her. I dare to allow my leg to press to hers, the current between us charming the air. “I am a North, which means that I have power and money. I don’t need yours.”

“Money feeds greed. What you have is never enough.”

“There are other things to want besides money.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Emma Knight.”

“Can I deny that perhaps for the rest of my life?”

I lean closer, the scent of her distinctly warm—amber and vanilla, I believe—my interest in this woman piqued in both expected and unexpected ways. “Why would you want to?”

“A complicated answer to a simple question.” Her voice cracks and she turns away from me. She reaches for my glass again and downs every drop in it. She sets it down.

“More?” I ask.

She glances over at me. “Yes, but I should warn you that I’m a very bad drinker.”

I refill the glass and sip before handing it to her. She stares at the glass before her gaze lifts to my mouth. Unlike moments before, she’s now thinking of exactly what I intended: about her mouth where my mouth was moments before. “I promise to catch you if you fall,” I say softly.

“Don’t start this relationship off by making promises you won’t even try to keep.”

Relationship. She’s planning on this encounter leading to more, which of course could simply be because I’m now in charge of my family empire, not just the contact for all things both North and Knight. Or perhaps it’s more. I plan to make it more.

“I never make a promise I don’t keep,” I say, and I will catch her if she falls, because once I catch her, she’s mine. Once she’s mine, everything comes full circle.

“Never?”

“Never,” I assure her, “which is something my friends value and my enemies dread.”

“Do you have many enemies?”

“A man or woman with money and power always has enemies.”

Her cellphone rings and she pants out a breath. “Of course. They’re now looking for me by calling me.” She pulls her cell from her purse and glances at the number.

“Randall?” I ask.

Her gaze jerks to mine. “How do you know that and him?”

“I know a lot of people. Enemies everywhere, Emma,” I say softly, and I find myself really wanting her to listen. Really wanting to protect her, which is a contradiction to everything I would do otherwise where the Knights are concerned. “And this one wants to be in your bed. If he isn’t already.”

“How do you know that?”

“I told you. I know a lot of people and things.”

She sets her phone on the table without answering him.

“You aren’t going to answer?”

“No. I’m not going to answer. I’m not ready to go back.”

“Would like to get out of here?”

“And go where?”

“A castle by the ocean.”

She laughs. “If only.”

“I’m serious, Emma. Come with me. I’ll take you away.”

“Would you be asking me that if I walked away from it all?”

The curtain pulls back and Randall is standing there, his dark hair slicked back, his gaze sliding between the two of us and landing on me. “What the fuck are you doing here, Jax?”

My lips quirk. “Enjoying good company and good whiskey.” I glance at Emma. “With a beautiful woman,” I add.

I expect her to blush and look away, but she doesn’t. For several beats she just looks at me, her stare unreadable, but the crackle in the air between us, the whip and pull of attraction, is damn near palpable.

“Emma,” Randall snaps, “you have people here honoring your father.”

“Right. Responsibility calls.” Her eyes, her sea-green eyes meet mine. “Thank you, Jax. For the company and the fine whiskey.” Randall offers her his hand, but she ignores it and stands up.

?

?Don’t you want the answer to your question?” I ask.

She glances behind her, over her shoulder, to meet my stare. “Yes, I do.” But she doesn’t stay for an answer. She walks away, doing the impossible, considering she’s a Knight and I’m a North, as she does. She makes me crave more of her, but that changes nothing. I came here, seeking her out, for a reason. That reason hasn’t changed.