Page 128 of Twisted Knight

“I think we need to invite that man to one of our family functions. Maybe our annual summer barbecue we have coming up. It’s important that he understands what we are about. How important this family is to this town. The jobs we provide. The money we infuse into this economy. The legacy we must continue. Maybe then he can fathom what we’re giving him the keys to and how he needs to protect and preserve the company as best as he can.”

“I’m not exactly sure he cares, Mom.” And when I look up this time, Holden is gone. The circle of men is still there, but he’s not.

How stupid is it that my shoulders sag at his sudden absence. With him here, at least there was something to look at. To look forward to.

“Let me at him.” She winks. “I’ll make sure he cares. No one can resist Emmaline Rothschild’s charms.”

FORTY

Rowan

It’s dark by the time I pull into my driveway.

I’m tired from the exhaustive conversations over nothing that apparently were deemed necessary at Caroline’s deck party. I’m drained from the nonstop prodding from my mother about Chad and my future. I decide that if I never go to another function again, I could die a happy woman.

Walking up my path to my house, my only thought is how I want to climb into bed with a good book and get lost in it. Anything to stop my head from thinking. About my conversation with Chad. About the pressure from our moms. About seeing Holden there and how it made me feel. About—

“I’d expect you to wear sapphire earrings to an event like that.”

I yelp at the sound of Holden’s voice and the sight of him as he steps out of the shadows on my front porch. “Jesus, you scared me,” I say.

But he doesn’t even react to my yelp with a smile. “They’d match your dress.”

And be complete overkill for a sundress.

“I told you, I can’t accept them.”

He chews the inside of his cheek as he tilts his head and narrows his eyes. That stare I felt from beneath his sunglasses earlier is back, but this time I can feel the singe of its heat.

“Is something wrong?” I ask as other questions I don’t put words to play rapid-fire through my mind.

Why are you here?

What’s going on?

Why do you seem so angry?

“Mmm,” is all he gives me as he reaches out and rubs my bare earlobe between his thumb and forefinger. It’s incredibly intimate in the weirdest of ways and causes chills to chase down my spine and stoke the ache lighting between the apex of my thighs.

“Mmm? That’s all you’re going to give me?”

He chuckles but it’s short and daunting. “He had his hands on you, Rowan.”

“Who?” And the second the word is out, I know exactly who he’s talking about—Chad. “Why, Holden Knight, are you jealous?”

“I don’t share.” Three words. Three syllables. Absolutely no mistaking the threat behind them.

My breath catches as he moves his hand down to rest on the curve of my shoulder. He rubs his thumb back and forth over my collarbone.

“I’m thinking I should be insulted by your insinuation.”

“I don’t care what you think.” The way his eyes flit down to my lips and then back up to my eyes has my nipples pebbling against the lace of my bra.

“That makes two of us.”

“Are you really going to marry him, Rowan?”

I run my tongue over my bottom lip this time when he looks at my mouth. His nostrils flare ever so slightly. “Maybe. Someday.”