Getting by (A Knight's Tale) (12 page)

Then there was my mother, the woman didn’t know boundaries, and the cute Anderson girl didn’t like anyone trespassing on her territory. Yet, so far she let Mom into her world, that or Emma jumped inside Mom’s and felt safe. But how long would it last? And when things got ugly between the meddler and the loner, who would I side with? Mom liked to push limits, Emma hated to be pushed. Should I even choose, because certainly Emma chose herself, and there was no us?

“That you stalked her?” Liam finally responded to my original question. Meanwhile, Mitch dealt. We all placed our bets, like my life I got the crappy hand. “Jake, I truly learned to love the girl—in a brotherly way. I’ve hung out with her outside the office when you two invited me for a meal or to hang out.” He changed two cards and continued talking. “Emma’s my favorite employee when she brings the big contracts. However, she’s a very complicated specimen. You get her, I don’t.” Then he narrowed his eyes and gave me a look between annoyance and desperation. “And I truly don’t want to.”

He placed a second bet after he rearranged his cards. “Understand me; breaking into her boss’s office isn’t legal.” Of course it wasn’t. We would’ve called the police if it had been any other employee. But not on Emma, and even when I didn’t know what she was doing exactly, I had a hunch it was work related. The girl grabbed some files and went back to the conference room to work. I watched her all night, up until the time she sent the email to Liam. By then Liam was watching her with me, trying to guess what she was doing.

“I had to bring it up, and I didn’t want to do it in front of Sam,” Liam said, at the same time I folded and waited for the other two to finish the first round. “He’d go crazy and try to sue me, her, or you. God knows he’s losing his marbles over her. And, as she brightly pointed out, she got me a few accounts.” He lost, and Mitch shuffled and dealt again. “Clients I really wanted, which for some fucking reason, Sam didn’t pursue. Why…I don’t know. Sam’s losing his touch and resenting her. That much I gathered. Did you have to explain how you caught her? Aka, that you spy on her on a daily basis?”

“No, and she thinks Sam doesn’t suspect her.” I folded again. Two lost favors to Mitch, crap.

“How many times did he review the footage, three?” Five, he made Liam and I fly to New York the same day. I stayed out of Emma’s sight—or tried to avoid seeing Emma that week. I made Liam keep it low key because there was no need to upset Em. “Damn it, Mitch,” Liam cursed, and headed to his room. “I’ll bring a new deck of cards—unmarked.” I gave a glare at Mitch, whose guilty expression confirmed he had marked the cards. How didn’t I notice?
Because your head is on the fifth floor, room five fourteen—next to Emma,
I told myself. Liam dropped the new deck of cards on top of the coffee table.

“If Sam knew you two were an item, he would’ve guessed that you doctored those tapes, and tried to snatch the company from us with a hefty lawsuit. I can’t do much for her from London, Jay.” I placed my hands over my lap and began to drum my fingers. “Sam and Em aren’t getting along. She’s walking on thin ice. With her grandparent’s health, I can’t transfer her. Do you have any ideas on how to keep the woman out of trouble?”

“Partnership.” Mitch opened the deck of cards but I seized it from him. Fool me once, my fault, fool me twice, and I’m going to be his slave for the rest of my life. Should we switch the way we bet and handle money instead of favors? It would be much simpler to write a check than do his fucking bidding. “Make her a junior partner and take her away from Sam, Liam. Give her one or two percent of the company. Ask her to invest in it. Do the math. She brings in more business than Sam.”

“We are not a law firm,” Liam contested. “Though you’re right, Sam’s a dead weight compared to Emma. There should be another way. My older employees won’t like it if I turn one into a partner and not the rest.” I began to think about how much money I could come up with by tomorrow when I realized my hand was next to crap. My years of being a slave for my brothers were coming back.

“Jay, stop playing,” Liam said. “Your head is next to Emma. We’re cleaning you out, bro. Thoughts, suggestions, shall I fire the woman?”

“She’ll die if you do.” I panicked, empathizing with her. Defeated, I set my cards on the table taking all my chips out. They were right. I was done for the night. “What if Emma starts her own company as an affiliate of K&W. I’ll back her up, and you two can work out the clients. No Sam involved.”

“Jacob Knight,” Mitchel said, and slapped the cards on the table, folding. Liam recovered his favor. “Although that is an extremely good idea for both Emma and Liam, think of the consequences. Twenty four seven unadulterated Miss Anderson and her cuteness, no physical contact allowed.” He playfully lifted his eyebrow. My brother was annoying. “Can you handle it?”

That question resonated inside my head, but Mitch continued his rant before I could even think about it. “Three months, and you’re still whipped.” Then he changed his tone to a sarcastic one. “Pardon my misinterpretation of the situation—you’re so over her we’re not having this discussion.”

He pulled himself off of the couch and walked to where I was. Then he went ahead and gave me a not so friendly slap on the shoulder and began to walk to his room. Stopping, he turned to give me the look. “I’m in with a new business, Anderson and Knight. Emma Anderson-Knight, has a ring to it, doesn’t it, Liam?” My hands automatically went into a fist, wanting to wipe the smirk off of his face.

“Whatever you want,” Mitch dropped his cards on the table and talked directly to our little brother. “I’ll invest because it’s a smart move, Li.” Liam distracted himself by gathering the cards and fixing the table—neat freak. Then Mitch directed his gaze toward me. “But Jake, define your…whatever it is with Miss Emma before proceeding. Try to get closure, or better yet, get it together. As the guy who has shared a room with you since conception, I recommend you dig deep and think twice.”

What was there to think about? She dumped me.

“Finally meeting the woman makes me understand why a fling lasted twenty some months.”

Because she was funny, adventurous, knew how to keep things interesting and always had something to talk about?

“And I didn’t scratch the surface on who she is—Emma is it for you,” Mitch said with a cocky tone. “If you were into serious relationships, of course.” He then transformed, his smirk and his face became serious. “Figure this out before we offer her forever, I’m going to bed. It’s past two, and Mom will call in four hours or less.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, thinking about the pretty girl with curly auburn hair and delicious lips. Was she
it
for me? Perhaps in another life where I could do relationships, but not in this one.

“Li.” I opened my eyes and turned to him after Mitchel locked his door. “Would you open the affiliate with her?”

“Sounds smart, and a doable situation.” Liam sat back and rubbed his temples with his thumb and middle finger—a tick we inherited from dad—tapping his forehead simultaneously with his index finger. Why was this so hard? “I worry though. Think about this, hypothetically, of course. A partnership will last for a few years, maybe twenty or more.” It sounded about right, so I nodded in agreement and let him continue. “In two years, average Joe comes to the office and picks her up, dinner and a movie—their second date or third.”

My body tensed thinking about his stupid hypothesis. “You spot them while reviewing the surveillance footage because your compulsion to make sure she’s alive and happy hasn’t faded. Joe and Emma hit it off and a year or two later a shiny diamond appears on her important finger.” I rubbed my hands against my pants to dry the sweat. Why was I sweating?

“Not long after, she becomes Mrs. Emma Average Joe and in no time Joe Jr. pops out.” My hands clenched into fists. I wanted to pound average Joe, or my brother for making up such a foolish story. “Can you handle it, while you do the surveillance or by chance visit the office while she carries a little baby girl with auburn hair, whose name won’t be Pretty Girl Knight?”

Stunned, I couldn’t move past his stupid scenario, which subsequently tore my insides apart. Impossible, Emma didn’t do forever, complicated and heavy. Did Average Joe change her views and convince her to compromise, take a leap and create a family—together? I didn’t want a family. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to protect them, or be enough, like I wasn’t for her, or possibly hurt them. Emma’s decision made sense, and I’d face Average Joe with a polite smile and send a nice wedding gift, even if she didn’t invite me to her small wedding. I would pay for a honeymoon she wouldn’t forget, VIP access to her favorite museums.

“I’m with Mitch, Jay,” Liam said, interrupting my train of thought and swallowing hard. “No one has seen you two together as a couple but me.” I arched an eyebrow because Emma and I weren’t a couple exactly. “When you and Emma are together, it’s different, you’re different. I don’t want to sound sappy, but the two of you are the best part of each other.” Liam gave me a sad smile. “I wish Mom had gotten to enjoy who Jacob Knight became when Emma Anderson was around. You were alive again.” Then he shrugged and stood up.

“Decipher the code and arrange the pieces before offering a long term commitment to us—Emma and I. Goodnight, bro.”

My mind went back eight years in time. I had been with the agency for almost three years. We weren’t soldiers but knew how to fight. Each one of us possessed the strength to endure the most severe conditions and survive; our training included not only physical tasks, but also intelligence. I could kill a man with a butter knife, if I stabbed him in the right vein and with the right amount of strength. They used us to acquire information from what the governments liked to call the enemy.

During training, I learned how to fly all kinds of crafts, drive all types of ground transportation—including trains, and sail about every ship that exists in the world. Hence, I tried to always pilot our own jets and helicopters.

I joined the agency believing my work would help others. My unit infiltrated countries in Africa and tried to dissolve the militias before civil wars began. The Middle East was a different scenario, one not every unit touched—including mine. Since we weren’t official or part of a real division, none of us held a real rank to follow or had any recognition from the world.

There was always danger in what we did, never once did I believe we were immortal, as some of my comrades did. However, one night when things appeared to go as planned and we were about to intercept a cargo of weapons, the entire unit went down. After so long, I still don’t understand how it happened. No one knew our involvement—yet they had been waiting for us. Three steps inside the woods, four miles before the coordinates we had been given, a hand grenade flew toward Larson. He didn’t have time to pray for his life or shoot at whoever was behind the attack. I saw him blown to pieces, blood spitting in all directions.

“Run for cover,” I said.

The humidity made it harder for me to breathe, and just when I was about to reach the trees, they ignited instantly. It was as if they had been soaked with gasoline and were set to be a bonfire for the entire world to see. There was no time to scream anything. I began to shoot with my M26MASS toward the inside of those woods, where the shower of bullets seemed be coming from. Did I shoot anything? I didn’t know. My men were no longer visible. “Down,” yelled someone, who I believed was Salas. A second later, a blow came from behind me throwing my body at least ten feet from where I stood.

They died and I couldn’t save any of them. And since then, every night I recount the scene and try to think of a way to save them all. I knew in my heart that Salas had covered the grenade trying to save whoever was still alive, while pushing me away. I didn’t live through a war like the heroic soldiers that had given their lives to keep the world safe. Yet I lived in my own hell and kept carrying the guilt of knowing that those men depended on me to see them through another day and I failed them.

What could I do for a family, if I couldn’t save seven grown trained men from hell? There wasn’t anything I could offer Emma, and she didn’t want to be saved by me. I had to follow her lead and let her go, as she did me. Before heading for bed, I opened my phone and checked my album where pictures of me and Emma were conveniently saved to remind me of those times I had been alive. Liam was right, that girl brought me back, and without her I was dead.

Chapter 15

Jake

AS MITCH PREDICTED, Mom called at seven in the morning, expecting us to join them for breakfast by eight. This left plenty of time to visit with us, and Emma.

“I’m too old for family vacations or reunions,” I grunted, before getting into the shower. We had to do something, or by the time we turned fifty this would be a weekend occurrence. I chuckled at the thought, it was impossible, by then she’d be sick and tired of her three bachelor boys.

We agreed, while getting ready, that the next time they sprung such festivities, the three of us would decline. My parents expected us to drive them around and behave like ten year old boys. We loved them, but this had to stop. Once I was ready, I headed to the main door of the suite, where my siblings waited for me. When I saw them, I shook my head. The three of us wore black long sleeved knitted jerseys and jeans. Damn, we even looked like triplets. Not caring about the appearance, and after a laugh, we exited the suite and headed toward the elevator.

Emma’s scent still lingered inside it—lavender and roses. I decided next time we’d take the stairs to avoid my body’s reaction to her, though I didn’t let my brothers in on my plan. This was not the time to bring her up again. The doors of the elevator opened three times before we reached the main floor, and by then the car was full. Everyone came out from it and headed toward the restaurant, which buzzed with guests. Half of them looked familiar. Gaby’s guests I assumed.