One Man Page 3

  “Stop,” I order. “Stop right now.”

  “Problem?”

  At the familiar voice, Randall’s hands fall away from me and he turns to face Jax. “Jax North. Never where you’re supposed to be, now are you?”

  “Seems like I’m exactly where she needs me to be. Step away and let her go into her room.”

  The air around Randall snaps and pops. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “A man of little patience,” Jax replies all cool composure, “as you well know.” A statement that infers a history I don’t expect. “Just as we both know,” Jax adds, “that she’s a Knight and you are not.”

  If there was anything that could hit a nerve with Randall, it’s this, and I’m certain, for reasons I don’t understand, Jax knows this and knows it well. It’s also everything I want to say to Randall but have not, not in the way Jax just did, and for reasons I’m not certain I can live with going forward.

  “Spoken like the son who only inherited when everyone who mattered in his family died,” Randall replies dryly.

  Jax’s eyes meet mine from over Randall’s shoulder and there is something cutting in his stare, something cold that wasn’t there before, as if he feels I am one with Randall. I shake my head, silently rejecting such words but he’s stone, unreadable stone. “Do you really want to travel this path you’re traveling right now, Randall?” he asks, his gaze shifting back to the other man.

  “I could pull your business,” Randall threatens.

  “And I’m certain she could overrule you.”

  She being me, but he’s wrong. I don’t have that power, now more so than ever. Randall makes an amused sound. “You know nothing about her or our operation, Jax North.”

  “I know that you’re acting like an asshole,” Jax replies. “Think about it, man. Tonight is not the night.”

  Tonight is not the night. He means because of my father. Doesn’t he? Why do I feel like there is something more there, something between these two that I don’t understand? Jax steps closer to Randall and speaks softly, whatever he’s said escaping my ears, but it reaches Randall’s. A telling tale I read from the stiffening of his spine, the tension rolling along his shoulders that even beneath his suit jacket cannot be missed.

  A second passes, then two, and I can’t see anything but Randall’s back. I can’t hear them speak either but suddenly they turn to leave and disappear around the corner. I breathe out, my posture softening. What just happened? A part of me wants to charge after them. A part of me feels like this battle that just erupted is about me and therefore I have a responsibility to end it, but is it? I felt a familiar energy between them. I read something unspoken in their exchange. I suck in a breath when I understand what happened tonight. I sat down with Jax and made myself a target, or rather, a weapon he could use against Randall.

  I can almost feel the slice of the emotional blade, the pain of yet another person using me and this one, this one almost succeeded. This is exactly why everything I do for me has to be anonymous, has to be outside this world of cut and be cut. I was drawn to Jax. I wanted Jax. I wanted him to the point that had he pushed just a little bit harder, at just the right moment, I might have ended up naked with that man. Stupidity is hard to swallow and I rotate and face the door, shoving the key in front of the sensor. Once I’m inside, I lean on the door and swallow against the tightness in my throat. Why am I even staying the night? I live in the city. I don’t have any desire to turn breakfast into business contacts. I’m suffocating in the Knight empire.

  Decision made, I grab my phone, book an Uber, and with it only fifteen minutes out, hurry deeper into my suite, where I quickly change into jeans, sneakers and a baseball cap that will allow me to get out of here without the likelihood of garnering notice. Packing takes me another ten minutes and since Randall hasn’t shown up, my escape holds hope. Hurrying to the door, I peek into the hallway to find it empty. My overnight bag is light and I take the stairs, heading down twenty flights, but that’s fine. I need to clear the booze out of my system that’s still hazing my mind. Once I’m on the ground level, I pull the cap down lower and enter the lobby.

  Finding it sparsely populated, I exit to the street and spy my Uber right away. Dashing that direction, I open the rear door, toss my bag inside and greet the driver. I’m about to climb inside when a prickle on my neck is impossible to ignore. I turn and scan the area around me, my eyes landing hard on the tall, good looking man standing just outside the hotel entrance: Jax. Jax is standing there, and I swear the weight of his stare heats my skin, calls me to him, the look in his eyes leaving me no question. He’s looking for me. He’s found me.

  But I can’t stay.

  Because there is one certainty I know, one that I feel to my soul. Once I get involved with that man, there is no turning back. And there is no question, there’s no coming back from where he takes me. There’s no recovery from what Jax North would do to me. I get into my Uber and shut the door. “Drive, please,” I say, but I don’t breathe easier when we begin to pull away. I barely breathe at all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jax…

  I was right.

  Now is not our time. It was never supposed to be our time. That meeting with Eric Mitchell comes first. I watch her drive away, the woman I came here for and I let her go. I let her go and with good reason: I want her too much. That wasn’t a part of the plan. I stood there with her by that bathroom and I willed her to be anyone but a Knight. I convinced myself that she wasn’t one of them, and that she needed to be saved from the Knight family curse. A curse I plan to create. Then it happened. Randall brought up my dead family in front of her and I knew I had to be wrong.

  She is one of them.

  And yet, I stand here, the cool air off the ocean washing over the heat radiating off of me; one part anger, one part desire for a woman who denies knowing my brother when I know she knew him, but at least I now understand how the Knights took him down. They, or rather Emma Knight, is a bit like a drug that you want to taste even before she touches your tongue. She could lure a man to hell and he’d never want to come back, but I won’t be following Emma or pursuing her at all. I won’t have to.

  Tonight I set the trap.

  Tonight I ensured that she will come to me.

  And my castle awaits.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Emma…

  The Uber ride is silent but for the hum of the engine, streetlights splintering the darkness in bursts that fade quickly only to return, refusing to allow me to disappear. The way my father’s secrets refuse to allow him to rest in peace, or perhaps it’s me that can’t find peace. Tonight I stood in a crowd and pretended I was the same person I was a month ago, when I can never be that person again. The question though becomes, who am I now?

  The car halts in front of the Folsom Street tower, a high-end property partially owned by the Knight corporation, and used for rental income and personal use. In various locations, this thirty-floor building is home to me, my brother, and my parents, or rather, my mother. Exiting the car, the cool night air, made cold by the wind off the nearby ocean, lifts my hair off my neck and drives me into a hurried pace, though the truth is, I feel like there’s more than wind at my back. The relief I feel when I enter the lobby—a compact but modern design with low hanging lights that screams of a luxury hotel the kind that suits the Knight brand—is momentary. I fear I would seem spoiled to anyone who didn’t really know better, but luxury is suffocating me. It’s a façade, like my bank account and status in this family.

  I enter the elevator and punch in my code, but I don’t head to my one-bedroom apartment I’ve leased the past six years. Nor do I travel to the twenty-ninth floor where Chance lives. He’s hiding out in nearby Sonoma anyway, under the guise of business, but I know better. He simply didn’t want to accept that award tonight for our father, almost to the point of odd, and I wonder how much he knows about dad that I never knew. I shove that thought aside because I can’t lose my brother no
w too, and Chance—Chance isn’t my father.

  The elevator dings my arrival at the penthouse level, to my parents’ floor, my mother’s home now that I’m to look after while she’s gone. Right now, I’m not sure she’s coming back, but then, the blow of learning about Marion after my father died crushed her. That’s why I’m here now. I don’t know what else she might know, but if she knows what I know, I’m not sure she’d survive the blow. I’m not sure what I should do with what I know, but I have to make sure that she doesn’t get the chance to feel that pain.

  The doors open directly into my parents’ home—I can’t seem to think of it any other way—and I step inside, lights automatically flickering on in the foyer and illuminating the half-moon shaped hallway before me. An odd prickling on my neck has me hugging myself and turning to ensure that the elevator seals shut. Without the code, no one can get inside, but in today’s technology-driven world, that elevator has always made me nervous. It is what it is though, and I accept it, but not lamely. I turn on the security system and then hurry down around the corner, dark hardwood absorbing my heavy steps.

  Entering the living room, I pass the grand piano and cross through a sitting area framed by magnificent towering windows, to halt at the double doors to my father’s office. My hands grip the knobs but I hesitate to open the doors and I know why. This room was his private space and it’s now the tomb of his real self, even if his body has left this earth. A self I don’t fully understand, but I think—no, I know—that if tonight proved anything to me, it’s that I’m reacting to situations, not controlling them. That has to end. And so, I open the doors, and I dive deeper into the hell of shark-infested waters.

  Entering the room, a hint of an earthy cigar scent tinges the air, a cigar my father enjoyed in this very room, and try as I might, I can’t squash the emotions clawing at my chest. Those feelings, all the mishmash of feelings, are here, they’re present, they aren’t going away. And so I carry them with me as I walk to the desk surrounded by bookshelves, shelves filled with every type of book imaginable, books that I used to spend hours exploring, reading, loving. Hours with my father, who educated me, challenged me, loved me. I know he loved me. I just—I don’t know if he deserved my love.

  I sit down and open a drawer, pulling out a folder that is buried deep in the midst of many files, and I remove the large envelope I plan to take with me. In turn, just to be safe, I grab an accordion file thick with documents. Shutting the drawer, I then do what I shouldn’t do here and now, but rather later. I open the file and remove the leather journal inside where my father kept all the words he didn’t dare speak or register electronically. My heart starts to race as I flip in hunt of the page I need to read again. I need to review it again because I need to be wrong about what I think I’d read. That’s why I’m here, I realize. Not to take charge, but to disprove my own memory.

  I flip so fast that I nick my finger, a sharp sensation followed by blood pooling, but I don’t stop looking for what I seek. I snag a tissue and wrap my wound, my hand shaking as I stop on the page I seek. My eyes land on the middle of neatly written words, words that were crafted with thought and precision, not rushed in an emotional frenzy. I swallow hard as I read: We were all better off when he was dead. The shaking overtakes my entire body and I look down to find blood seeping through the tissue on my finger.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Emma…

  The women in my life are many, too many, but only one really matters…

  I wake Saturday morning to the doorbell, sitting up in the center of my bed, my father’s journal falling from my lap, those words, his written words, and so many more burned into my mind. Papers are scattered around me, the accordion file I’d found in my father’s office emptied into random piles. I grab the journal and fling it across the room. He didn’t name names or give specifics about anything or anyone, but he still said plenty. I was worried about my secrets destroying this family. My secrets are nothing. I am nothing to him. The doorbell sounds again and I groan with the certainty that it’s a delivery of some sort that I don’t want, but I can’t stand not knowing.

  Climbing over the top of the papers, I perch on the edge of the mattress and glance down at my leggings and thick tank top and decide I’m suitably dressed. The doorbell rings yet again with a determined visitor, a delivery a building staff person isn’t allowed to leave at the door, no doubt. With a huffed breath, I cave to the fact that whoever this is isn’t going away. Pushing to my feet, I cross the bedroom and bound down the stairs to the living room that frames my front door. “Who is it?” I ask, wondering what time it is, because I truly have no idea.

  “Open up, Bird Dog.”

  Even if I didn’t recognize Chance’s voice, no one else calls me Bird Dog, and thank God for it. I unlock the door and open it to find my brother standing there, his dark hair a rumpled mess, his sweats and T-shirt telling me that he just came from his habitual weekend run. The one he hasn’t taken since dad died. The two Starbucks coffee cups in his hands telling me why he believes he can get a say with that old nickname. “I hate when you call me that.”

  He pushes off the doorframe his muscular shoulder is holding up and offers me a coffee. “If it fits, you must acquit.” I roll my eyes and accept the coffee.

  “Bird Dog does not fit me.”

  “Back in the day, you were always chasing my secrets to tell mom and dad. Now you chase property for the Knight hotels. It fits. Drink your damn coffee.”

  I sip the white mocha with approval. “This is the only reason you get to come in.” I back up and head toward the living room, claiming my big olive-colored chair that accents my cream-colored couch. “Especially since you made me go alone last night.”

  “Randall was there,” he says, shutting the door.

  “Randall,” I say. “Really? You think that brought me comfort? He acted like my grief was an inconvenience.”

  “He was just trying to get you out of your own head.” He sits on the other olive chair across from me and sets his cup on the glass coffee table, the muscles in his arms drawing my attention again.

  My brow furrows. He might not have been running, but he was doing something. “Are you living at the gym, or what? Because you haven’t been living at the office, like usual, which isn’t a bad thing. Just an observation.”

  “We each deal with things how we deal with things. And I have my shit together. Shit’s getting done.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “I shouldn’t have let you go alone last night. I don’t know why an award for dad fucked with my head so badly.”

  I burn to talk to him about all I know and all I’ve discovered, but my brother is a good man. I don’t believe that he’s involved in anything I’ve discovered. The question is, do I destroy him by telling him the truth about our father, or do I destroy him by staying silent and risking some of it biting him in the ass? Right now he has plausible deniability to all things in that accordion file and journal.

  “Was it really bad?” he asks.

  “Of course it was really bad, but Randall made it worse than it had to be. I can’t believe dad made him his executor and not you.”

  His jaw clenches. “Neither can I, but I do have a soft spot for you and he knew that. Randall—”

  “Wants control for the rest of my life. That won’t happen. You know that, right? I know you’re close to him, but he’s not for me.”

  “I know that, but dad hoped—”

  “I know what he hoped and he gave him control to try to force me to marry Randall. I’ll walk away from everything before I do that.”

  “I know you will.” He reaches into his pocket and sets a check on the table. “That’s to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “What is this?” I set my cup down and grab the check, opening it to read a seven-figure sum. I tear it up. “I’m not taking that.”

  “Fuck, sis, I’m low on checks. I’ll just wire it to you.”

  “I’m not taking your money.”


  “It’s our money. Dad—I loved him, but he fucked you over on this. I’m not doing the same.”

  My heart squeezes. “I’m not taking your money.”

  “It’s our money. That’s just how it is. I’m going to tell Randall to release any funds the will allows him to release to you.”

  “That’s nothing,” I say. “Nothing for another seven years and only if Randall signs off.”

  “I’m going to make him sign it the fuck over to me.”

  “You can’t do that,” I remind him. “I read the fine print. Did you?”

  “No, but you’ve got to be kidding me. That can’t be right. He can’t release you?”

  “Nope. Dad knew you’d make him hand over my trust, so he ensured you can’t.”

  He curses. “What the hell was he thinking?”

  “It doesn’t matter. My trip to Germany will be my sanity. I need a break from Randall.”

  “I’ll rein him in,” he promises. “And I’m going with you tonight.”

  My brow furrows. “Tonight?”

  “The fireman’s charity event.”

  “That’s tonight? Oh God, Chance. I can’t do more Marion Roger tonight. Do I really need to go?”

  “I need to saddle back up and I know it. Saddle up with me because every fucking time someone tells me they’re sorry for my loss, I will slit my wrist.”

  “Don’t say that,” I chide, knotting up just hearing him say such a thing.

  “You know I wouldn’t off myself. That’s not me.”

  “We just lost dad,” I remind him. “You haven’t exactly been yourself.”

  He draws a deep breath and exhales. “Look. Sis. I get it. I’ve checked out but I’m back.”

  “Are you?”

  “I am. I was never really all that checked out. Taking over the entire Knight operation for dad comes with a price. I’m wearing a target on my chest and I needed some time to assess a few things dad handled on his own before I interacted with a number of people. I have my plan. I’m ready to move forward.”