Two Together
Table of Contents
DEAR READERS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
SAVAGE’S TRILOGY
GRAYSON BENNETT’S STORY
ALSO BY LISA RENEE JONES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the supplier and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at lisareneejones.com/contact
All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.lisareneejones.com.
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Dear Readers
Thank you so much for picking up the NAKED TRILOGY FINALE! I’m so excited to share Emma and Jax’s finale with you! Here’s a brief recap of what happened in book two to jog your memory before you dive in. Please do not read on if you haven’t read books one and two (One Man and One Woman). Those need to be read prior to beginning Two Together!
As Emma and Jax were preparing for the Harvest his company puts on for their clientele, they were also navigating the secrets and lies of their families’ past. Most importantly: Who killed Jax’s older brother, Hunter? Being in the castle where he died, has drummed up some demons for both Jax and Emma, namely, a man who was like a second father to Jax, Echo, who verbally attacks Emma and says he knows who she is, and that she needs to leave. Visibly shaken after this exchange, Jax tries to take Emma’s mind off the encounter and they go visit the beach house on the grounds of the castle where Jax’s father took his sons when their mother abandoned them to keep them out of the prying eyes of the public. Emma is so taken with the house, that they end up moving their belongings out there to stay instead of in the castle with the still-glitchy security and wiring which Savage and his men at Walker Security were still trying to fix and improve on.
When Harvest time comes, Jax must face some business difficulties in the way of Kent Sawyer, a hotel mogul threatening to withhold a business agreement with North Whiskey because Jax is in a relationship Emma, the sister of his competition’s CEO. Further along the lines of business dealings, Jax also speaks further with Eric Mitchell and Grayson Bennett behind Emma’s back about her brother, Chance’s, involvement in their investment consortium. He plans a trap for Chance, as he thinks Chance had either something to do with or more knowledge than he’s sharing of what happened to Hunter on that fateful night. Jax thinks he’s doing the right thing. Trying to expose Chance and his faults. Now that he’s with Emma, he’s not out to destroy Chance, just find out his true colors for Emma’s sake.
Emma battles her own demons as well. When the truth comes out about what York Waters, her ex, did to her when he continues to threaten her, she and Jax come up with a way to destroy him. And destroy him, they do. York walks right into Emma’s goading trap on the phone and confesses to his sins by way of boasting about his abuse of her. To that end, York’s involvement with one of the Knights’ biggest business partners ceases, and his confession is turned over to the authorities.
With their demons set aside, and their plans in place, Emma and Jax settle into their relationship. A relationship that is growing more serious by the day, and for every hurdle they’ve had to jump, they’ve found more solace and unspoken love in one another’s arms.
But all that is threatened when Emma is cornered at one of the weekend’s events by Randall, her brother’s right-hand man, who informs her that she’s to return to San Francisco within seventy-hours or she’ll regret her decision. He threatens both her and Jax, and says Jax knows something that could destroy her family. When Emma tries to track down Randall after he storms off, she’s met with a note someone left for her. A note and a DNA test…claiming Hunter was the son of Jax’s mother, and Emma’s father. Rocked to her core, Emma runs out to the beach to destroy the evidence that could destroy everything she holds dear. And as soon as the papers are swept away by the waves, she turns to find a woman in red. Significant since Jax has a hatred of that color since that was his mother’s preferred color of choice for her clothing. Though it could be Jill, Hunter’s fiancée, who has a penchant for sporting that color, but Emma is sure it’s someone with far more sinister plans in mind. And so we’re back on that beach. A bombshell being swept away by the ocean, and potentially another bombshell waiting for Emma by the castle…
CHAPTER ONE
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
—Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack
Emma
The Norths and the Knights are now bound by a secret, by blood.
Hunter shares my father and Jax’s mother.
But just as that blood binds us, death divides us.
The woman in red stands between me and the castle, shrouded in shadows, just outside the reach of the manor lights, too far away for me to make out her face.
I stand there watching her, the crash of ocean waves at my back, the wind tormenting my legs, now hugged by wet thigh highs, compliments of my gallant stomp into the water to dispose of a secret. My secret. Jax’s secret. A note and a DNA test left for me outside the castle’s bathroom door. I say that method of delivery either makes the note writer a ghost or a coward. I don’t know which. A coward, I think, and one who dropped a bomb on me and just ran. One who taunts me now while out of reach.
I wonder if Hunter knew his true bloodline.
I now feel certain that he did, he knew but Jax doesn’t know. I don’t believe he knows. My brother can’t
know either. But the woman in red knows. That’s why she’s here, watching me, dressed in red the way Jax’s long lost mom dressed in red. She knows. She left me that note. Maybe this is his mother. Maybe she’s back, but I don’t understand. Why now? Assuming she left me the note and DNA test, I don’t understand her motivation. It didn’t just point a finger at my brother. It pointed a finger at Jax, her son.
Desperate for those answers and others, I grab my shoes, start running toward her, my feet sinking into the cold sand, slowing my progress. I’m nowhere near her yet and already she’s turning away, darting toward the castle. “Stop!” I shout. “Stop! Stop now!”
“Emma!”
At the sound of Jax’s voice, my heart jackhammers. I don’t know how he’ll react to even the possibility that his mother is here. I don’t know how the woman in red will react to him being here, if she’ll stay or go. And so I run harder toward the woman in red, pushing through the cold and wind, saltwater on my lips. That tastes triggers a flashback of me on the tower when Brody had held me over the edge. Hunter stood on the same landing and I no longer believe that he jumped to his death. He was pushed. He was murdered.
“Stop!” I shout again, but I’m shouting into the darkness now, running forward, and hoping she’s still there, in the shadows, waiting for me the find her.
Suddenly, Jax is there beside me, a force of nature in the middle of a dark night, pulling me around and against his hard body. “What are you doing, woman? It’s cold, and holy crap, you’re wet. Why are you wet?”
“I need to catch the woman who was here, Jax.” I shove against his chest, but he’s unmoving, a boulder in the sand. “I have to talk to her now.”
“Talk to me first,” he says, the darkness suffocating, the message I just tore up and threw in the water taunting me.
“Jax, please. Go back to the party. You have to go take care of your clients.”
“I have a staff. Talk to me. Why are you wet? Why are you in a panic?”
“I think your mother is here.” I blurt out what could be a shocking statement to the man who lost his mom as a child before I can stop myself.
His hands come down on my arms, his entire body going ramrod stiff. “What?”
“Just please go catch her before she’s gone, Jax,” I plead.
“It’s not her.”
“Jax, listen to me. Please. She was wearing red. It was a message. Your mother—”
His hands move to cup my head. “This is nothing but a ghost story.”
“I don’t understand. Your mother is not a ghost story. What ghost story?”
“You’re in shock from Brody holding you over the edge of that landing.”
“That was days ago, and putting aside the ghost story comment that I don’t understand, what if I’m right and that was your mother?”
“If that were my mother, and it wasn’t, I have nothing to say to that woman.” He laces the fingers of one of his hands with mine. “Let’s go home and get you dried off.”
Home.
I’m so stunned by the ease at which he uses that word, home, that I’m momentarily speechless. Everything he wanted, that I wanted, for our future, has now changed. In just that blink of time, Jax is walking and ushering me with him, forcefully moving by no means but the pure strength of his powerful body. His arm sliding around my shoulders, his big body sheltering mine against the cold and wind, but I can’t shelter him from what is to come. I can’t protect him, either, if I let him keep walking.
I dig in my heels. “Stop. Stop, Jax.” We’ve just reached the beam of the property lights, and I rotate to stand in front of him, planting my hands on the solid wall of his chest. “There are things going on that we can’t discuss right this minute. Please. Call Savage. Have his men stop the woman in the red dress. Now. Before it’s too late.”
“Emma—”
“I don’t know if she’s your mother, but she’s someone who knew to wear a red dress.”
“Jill wore a red dress tonight,” he reminds me. “And you know that she isn’t happy that you’re here. She could be playing games with you.”
And right now, more than ever, I wonder why Jill hates me as much as she does. I wonder where she falls in this nightmare. “And if it’s not Jill?” I challenge, but I don’t give him time to reply. “Just call Savage. Put my mind at rest.”
His jaw flexes, his expression hard lines and shadows, unreadable, but torment radiates off of him. And this is just his reaction to the topic of his mother. He doesn’t even know the rest of the story yet. “Jax,” I whisper urgently.
He reaches into his jacket and pulls out his phone, punching a number, and placing his cell to his ear. Almost immediately he says, “I need to know if there’s a woman in a red dress who was near my castle tower or on the beach.” He listens for a moment and eyes me. “How many women in red dresses?” His expression tightens. “Find out if they were there and look at the security feed. We’ll be at the house. No. Emma is wet and do not, and I mean do not, make a smart-ass remark about that statement, Savage, or I will hurt you.” He hangs up and slides his phone into his pocket. “Four women in red dresses. He’s locating each of them. Now. Let’s go to the house.”
My feet are still set solid in the sand. “What if they find her? We need to be here.”
“You’re soaked, Emma. You’re shivering.”
I drop my shoes. “I’m not shivering, and it’s just my hose that are soaked.” I yank up my dress to mid-thigh and start peeling down the hose on one side.
“What are you doing?”
I toss the one hose away and start on dragging down the other. “Warming up and making myself acceptable again.” I toss the second hose. “Let’s go inside and wait on Savage’s update. And you need to finish attending to business.” I grab his arm and start walking, trying to drag this six-foot-two and two-hundred-plus-pound man with me.
It doesn’t work.
He catches my forearm and turns me to him, and now he’s dragging me to him. “What is going on, Emma?” he demands, his voice low, and yet, it radiates with tension. He knows there’s a real problem. He knows I’m rattled, and underneath all that cool, calm masculinity, he’s rattled, too. That DNA test has opened up more than one grave tonight and yanked out more than ghosts. It’s brought forth demons, his demons, and it scares me. For him. For my brother. For all of us. But there is no turning back now.
“Someone left me a note,” I confess, and I do so without hesitation. There is no part of me that doubts this man. I trust Jax. I need to protect him. “It wasn’t a good note. And then that woman was watching me from the edge of the beach by the castle. She was watching me, and I think that she left me that note.”
“And what did this note say?”
“Not here. Not now. I’ll tell you about it when we’re alone.”
He seems to let that go quite easily, instead asking, “Why were you on the beach, Emma? What was this woman watching you do?”
“I tore up the note and threw it in the water.”
His eyes darken and narrow. “Why, Emma? What did the note say?”
I can’t wait to tell hm. He needs to understand why the woman in red is important. “It seemed to suggest that your brother was not only murdered, but it named two people who had a motive for killing him. You were one of those two people, Jax.”
He gives me a deadpan stare. “And who was the second?”
No denial when most people would scream, “I didn’t do it!” Just “who was the second,” but I don’t see this as guilt, but rather the opposite. He’s not the one that matters in his mind. He’s not important. The real killer, who he desperately wants to locate, is important. Knowing this, knowing he sees the other name as his target, my brother’s name does not want to leave my lips.
Footsteps sound, with Savage charging toward us, and he has something in his hand that I can’t make out. Jax turns back to me, focused on that name, I have yet to offer up to him. “Who, Emma?” he demands softly.
<
br /> “When we’re alone,” I insist, my resistance made easier as Savage nears and then joins us. “It wasn’t a dress,” Savage says, showing us the garment in his hand. “It was a red rain jacket that was left behind.”
CHAPTER TWO
Emma
“What the hell is going on, Savage?” Jax demands.
Aside from my throat closing up right now, there are obvious implications to that coat being left behind. It shows planning, even malice.
And it’s that malice that has me hugging myself against a chill that reaches straight to my bone. Whoever wore that coat, not only intended to freak me out, but they knew it was significant to Jax. That means that only a handful of people, all close to Jax, could be responsible.
“No one saw anything?” I query, praying for good news.
“We were looking for a red dress,” Savage says, eyeing Jax. “I’m back to what the hell is going on?”
“Obviously, someone knows the property well enough to move right under your noses and not be seen,” Jax says. “Is the power still out on one side of the castle”
“It is now,” Savage says. “It’s like that damn tower has ghosts, like Casper is here, strumming the wiring like it’s a damn guitar and fucking with us.”
“More like the woman in red,” I say. “She knew your blind spots.” I look at Jax. “She knows the house.”
Before he can answer, Savage is already talking. “The only true blind spots with Walker Security, are none. We aren’t bitch-ass men who are too busy thinking with the head in our pants to get our jobs done. We have cameras in excess and in places no one but us knows exist. Whoever wore this jacket came from somewhere, and we’ll catch them there.”
I rub the thin material of the jacket. “Unless the coat was under another coat,” I suggest. “This is could easily be folded up and slipped into a suit jacket or a purse.”
“We’ll know who went to that side of the building,” Savage says. “It’s not like we’re looking for a needle in a haystack. Guests aren’t standing in line to walk the dark castle paths.”