One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(91)

“It doesn’t matter what happened,” came Ty’s growling drawl. “You are not my son.”

Knox’s eyes flew open at that. “Goddamn right, I’m not.” Knox’s whole life was not founded on a lie, with everyone from his mother and father to his grandparents complicit in the deception. No.

Knox raised a hand to his mouth, but it was shaking. The corners of his vision were narrowing. Anger whipped through him, frenzied and powerful. His dad’s command echoed through his mind. Never lose control. Oh, but he was perilously close. He refused to desecrate his father’s memory by violating his number one rule. His father—the man who’d taught him everything and loved him until his last breath, the man who was watching Knox from on High. The man who haunted his truck.

Emily’s hands had slid down from Knox’s cheeks to rest on his chest. He couldn’t quite bear to look at her, but he took her hands in his and held on tight, the better to steady the trembling.

Eloise flattened her back against the wall and glared at Ty through slits of eyes. “Did you think the truth wouldn’t come out? You brought him here. Isn’t this what you wanted? Your bastard son to take over our family business, to steal everything we hold dear? I told you this would happen, but you didn’t listen to me. You never listen to me.” Her voice cracked. A ripple of raw emotion shimmered through her and was gone just as fast. She swallowed, the sneer returning to her lips. “It was always her, wasn’t it? It was always Linda. I guess it’s time for me to get out of this marriage and get my slice of the pie while there’s any pie left. I’ll wait for Carina to get out of surgery somewhere else. June, call me when the baby’s born.” With a dignified shake of her hair, she pushed away from the wall and walked toward the exit.

Knox was a lot of things, but he was no man’s bastard son. No way had Ty brought him to Briscoe Ranch as some sort of gesture of atonement or to reveal himself as Knox’s fa—. No. He refused to think the word.

Ty chased after Eloise. He grabbed at her wrist, but she jerked her hand away and sped her pace. “Eloise, don’t go. Not now. We have to stick together now. For our girls, for our grandbaby,” he shouted after her. “I was a stupid kid. You know that’s all it was. Linda meant nothing to me. She never did.”

But Eloise was out of there. Granny June sped past them on her scooter. “I’ll go talk to her,” she said. “We’ve got to make this right. For everyone in the family.”

Knox watched his grandmother leave, while all the while Ty’s words rang through his mind, loud and clear. You know that’s all it was. Linda meant nothing to me. Ty really had slept with Knox’s mother. My God.

Ty whirled to face the room, zeroing in on Knox. “Linda never meant anything to me and neither do you. You’re not my family anymore than she is.”

Emily squared a searing look at Ty. “Stop this. Right now. Before you say something you can’t take back.”

Snickering, Ty jabbed a finger at Emily’s face. Her flinch was unmistakable. “That’s rich, you giving me advice. You stay out of this, girl. You have no dog in this fight.”

“Like hell, I don’t,” Emily said.

Ty’s attention dipped to Knox and Emily’s joined hands, then gave a bark of mad laughter. “Because you’re fucking him? You think I don’t know? You think we all don’t know what’s been going on between you two, you little slut?” Every word was hurled at her like shards of glass, meant to wound.

That cleared the fog from Knox’s mind right good. “Don’t you dare speak to her that way.”

Emily went rigid, though her expression was one of pure control. “It’s okay, Knox. I can handle this.” To Ty, she said, “You think that insult is new? You think you’re the first man to call me that? Do you have any idea of the number of bruises I carried on my body as a child?” She held her index finger out like a sword and stabbed Ty hard in the shoulder. “So many of them fingertip-shaped bruises. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I don’t have to take shit from anyone. Not even you.”

Ty rolled the shoulder she’d jabbed. The expression in his eyes turned rageful enough that Knox took a step back, pulling Emily with him.

“You were nothing when I took you in, you ungrateful bitch,” Ty bit out, looking more rabid by the second. “Homeless, jobless. I gave you a chance at a real life. I opened my family to you. But look at you now. All these years, it turns out you were just using my family’s good fortune, and then, when the next moneybags showed up, you moved on to him. Could you be any more transparent? You were nothing before you came begging me for a job. And you’re nothing now. Nothing but a user. My God, it’s embarrassing to watch.”

“Shut up,” Knox said to Ty. To Emily, he added, “Let’s get out of here.” He needed space to process everything Ty, Eloise, and Granny June had revealed. He’d wanted to be there for Carina and Decker, and he knew Emily would want to be there, too, but Ty had turned the experience too toxic for either of them to withstand.

But Emily wasn’t ready to back down. “I’m so tired of these … these powerful men projecting their anger onto me. All these monsters clawing at me, trying to drag me down, telling me, You’re nothing,” she said, mimicking Ty’s deep voice. “I’m not nothing. I’m a goddamn phoenix, reborn from the ashes of a childhood hell. I remade myself completely and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”