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)
“Thank God,” Emma gushes. “I’m starving and I don’t even care if you see me eat an entire pizza. I just want it in my body.”
And there she goes being adorably her again. I laugh, tension easing deep in my gut, tension that I didn’t think would ever ease. Tension that started months before my brother’s death, when he wasn’t acting himself. But it does ease now and I find myself in the moment, focused on Emma, who doesn’t even hesitate.
She digs into the pizza, picking up a slice and taking a bite, her eagerness honest. She’s honest. I don’t feel many people are honest, but she is, this woman is, and a wave of protectiveness rises inside me. Why the hell am I trying to make her the enemy? It seems that’s what she’s endured all of her damn life.
“Where do you live?” she asks, settling her slice on her plate and plucking up a pepperoni. “Aside from Maine, of course.”
I grab a slice for myself. “I live in the castle.” I take a bite of the pizza.
“Have you always lived there?”
“Yes.” My lips thin with a topic that leads to no place good. “It’s divided into living quarters and business offices. Hunter and I lived in the castle. My youngest brother, Brody, has an independent streak. He lives in New York City. He runs North Whiskey and Cigar Shops from there.”
“I knew he ran those shops,” she says. “I’m not sure how, but you know your family has been connected to our hotels for all my life. I suppose I heard it down the road somewhere. How many are there?”
“A hundred now. He’s turned it into quite the empire.”
“Sounds like it. How well did you know my father, Jax? Just curious. I’m not going anywhere with this.”
“Not well. Hunter was always the heir apparent. My father was his contact until my brother took over. I ran the financial side of the operation, strategic planning, new product development.”
She considers that for a moment that stretches into a few minutes as we eat in comfortable silence, and I suspect her mind is where my mind is at. Our parents knew each other, but we never met, not until now but I take that one step further. Now both our fathers are dead. There’s an ominous quality to that thought.
“Why Brody’s independent streak?” she asks as she finishes off half her slice in an easy change of topic that I suspect isn’t easy at all. Her mind may well be going just as dark as mine, and she wants an escape. “And why New York City? Couldn’t he run his little empire from the castle? Or from Maine at least? And how big is the castle?” she laughs. “Sorry. That was me throwing you questions left and right.”
“The castle is twenty-thousand square feet, which is why the business offices are run from inside as well. As for Brody, he felt like he would never be king of the castle, as he likes to call it. He wanted to prove he was his own man.”
She studies me a moment and looks away, but not before I see the flash of emotion in her eyes. She relates to Brody. I think she’s really seriously thought about leaving the hotel chain. “How old are your brothers? Or—” She looks at me. “Jax—”
“It’s okay. Brody is thirty-two, and Hunter was thirty-six when he died.”
“So Hunter grabbed the throne, while Brody pushed away. Meanwhile, you were boxing. That’s a big leap from Whiskey. Why? The same reason as Brody? To find your own space?”
“I had some anger issues,” I admit.
She finishes off a slice as I do the same. “You?” she asks. “You seem very much in control, cool and calculated.”
“Which I learned from boxing. You don’t beat an opponent by charging. You beat them with strategy.”
“How old were you and how long did you box? Semi-pro is pretty high up the chain, isn’t it?”
“College. And yes, I had a shot at going pro, but I blew out a knee. I just wasn’t the same after that.”
“That must have been devastating.”
“At the time, yes,” I admit, “but it helped me become who I am today. We grow with every mountain we climbed. Even the ones that we fall down.”
“Even those we fall down,” she says softly, almost to herself. She flicks me a look. “I think falling is better than not climbing.” I want to ask her about that comment, but she doesn’t give me a chance. “You speak of your mother in a very past tense. I wanted to ask about her before, but you didn’t seem to want to talk about her and if you don’t now, I get it, and we’ll move on, but is she alive?”
“I have no fucking clue. She left when I was thirteen, divorced my father, took a chunk of change, and never looked back.”