Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
Chapter one hundred twenty-two
Jax
Emma snuggles closer to me, only to have her stomach growl, a deep, loud rumble. “Well, I can’t sleep through that,” she laughs and rises up on her elbow to kiss me. “I’m going to call my brother.” She rolls off the bed and walks naked and sexy as hell to hunt down her clothes. “Eight for my coffee with him and nine for dinner?”
“That works,” I say, standing up and scooping up her bra to hand it to her, my gaze raking over her puckered nipples. “Put that on before we forget dinner.”
She smiles and presses her naked body against mine and actually wraps her palm around my cock that is now rock hard again. “None of this until we do that.” She releases me and twists away, taking her clothes and her perfect ass to the living room to dress.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m dressed and back at the dinner table with Savage across from me. I’ve just finished a hot points list to share with Emma and Savage when she enters the room and claims a seat. “Dinner’s set, and my coffee date is in an hour.”
I slide my list to the center of the table. “These are the questions we want answered from this paperwork before we start randomly hunting for what we don’t know is there but might want to know.”
Emma grabs the list and reads, “The will and the inheritance stipulations.”
“Got that,” Savage says, holding it up. “Chance’s story checks out. There’s a stupid clause about Emma and her mother inheriting only with the castle ownership in place.”
“Because my father’s an asshole.”
“That problem can be solved,” I say.
“No, Jax,” she says, and I grab her hand and kiss it. “He can sign the castle back to me sixty seconds after I sign it over to him. If I feel good about it over dinner, we’ll make it happen.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s your money. I’m getting you your damn money.”
“It’s a shit ton of money, Emma,” Savage says. “Do you know how much?”
“I don’t want to know.” She goes to the next item on the list. “The DNA test.”
“Got that, too,” Savage says, and he holds up a folder. “There’s also proof that Hunter was being blackmailed and there are torn out journal entries that give details on the negotiations between Emma’s father and Hunter. It’s all tabbed out in this folder I have right here, all nice and organized with a labeled index.” He slides it across the table, and I open the folder, my heart thundering in my ears as I flip to the DNA test. And there the fuck it is. I glance up at Savage. “Can you confirm this is real?”
“I already shot a photo of it to my team. They’re hacking the records.” His cell phone buzzes with a text, and he glances at it and then me. “It’s real.”
The truth now exposed and confirmed seems to hang above the table and then lands like a bomb that shakes me to the core.
“It’s all true,” I say, my eyes finding Emma’s. “Hunter wasn’t my full brother. He was being blackmailed by your father. And a small part of me dares, for the first time ever, to wonder if that might have been enough to make him jump.”
“No,” Emma says. “Hunter didn’t jump. We both know that and he deserves full closure. You deserve closure. And we’re going to get it.” She grabs one of the journals. “My father killed him. My mother isn’t smart enough to pull that off. My father’s dead, so we’ve acted like it couldn’t have been him. He did it. We’re going to prove it.”
I don’t tell her that Hunter served her father better dead than alive. I don’t know what to think anymore. I grab one of the journals and start reading. And it’s not a gentle read. I end up stuck on passages about my mother: She lied and said he wasn’t mine. He breathes because I breathe. What’s his is mine. The end. It’s clear that he means the whiskey operation. He means our brand. Her father was evil. She’s right about one thing. Her father could have killed a man and never blinked an eye. Perhaps even his own son. He gave him breath. Did he also take it away?
Chapter one hundred twenty-three
Emma
The minute I step into the bar where Chance and I agreed to meet for coffee, we spot each other, and he’s on his feet. He stands there, watching me, gauging my mood, I think, looking Ken doll gorgeous, minus the blond hair, of course, in his khaki pants and a sweater. But the look on his handsome face is one of torment. I take a step toward him, and it’s like I’ve pulled his lever, given him a “go” sign perhaps.