Accidental Knight: A Marriage Mistake Romance(30)

Lovely. Both vehicles already look empty. Tension tightens my neck.

“Maybe it’s better they’re inside, rather than waiting for us out here.”

Bella shrugs. It’s like a choice between catching a cactus in the face or sitting down on one slowly.

We’ve got company, and it’s the shitty kind.

She knows her parents. I know Avery Briar.

A locked door also wouldn’t mean much to any of them. Parking next to the barn so there’s plenty of room for both vehicles to turn around and leave, I steel myself for some major bull.

She puts the mail and the binder that Roger gave her in the back seat. “I have to say hi to Edison before going inside.” As she opens her door, she looks at me, “Lock the truck, would you?”

“Done.” I hit the lock button after climbing out, shut the door, and prime the alarm.

Edison sticks his head up over the top rung of his corral as she approaches.

I stay back, letting the two of them carry on another secret conversation like the one they’d had by the fence earlier. My eyes wander between her and the SUV for any possible movement inside.

Unlike her parents’ car, the windows are tinted real dark, and Briar always travels in groups.

I’m not even bothered at losing the bet. Part of me is glad that horse is around.

What’s waiting in the house is nothing but goddamn trouble.

She gives Edison a final pat, mouths something, and then walks over and glances at the place. “So what’s the game plan? Will you stand by the door like you did at the corporate office? Backup?”

“Is that what you want?” I understand she needs to feel like she has some control.

“Yes. No. Maybe? Ah, I don’t know!” She huffs out a breath. “Can we just...play it by ear?”

Ninety percent of life is lived by ear.

“Sure, darlin’. When you’re ready...” I nod toward the house, indicating she should start walking that way. When she finally does, I’m less than a step behind her, shadowing her small figure with mine.

If the Reeds want to lay the shit on thick, they’ll have to do it with a brick wall that can jump in front of her anytime.

Same goes for Briar and his crew.

If it were winter, there’d be smoke rolling out of my mouth. My fists are at my sides, ready for insanity, maybe partly hoping for it.

Calm down, asshole, I tell myself. You may be ready and willing and able, but the girl isn’t.

Maybe she’ll handle her folks better than she lets on, if push comes to shove. But the Jupiter men are a different beast – the feral fucking kind.

I train my eyes on Bella, watching her shoulders stiffen as we walk in the house.

It’s weirdly quiet. Then the door to Jonah’s office creaks opens in the distance.

I know she hasn’t gone in there yet. That’s the spot her parents chose, along with Avery.

Imagining them hovering over Jonah’s old desk adds an extra hit of adrenaline to my blood.

“Bella.” I lay a hand against the small of her back, firm and encouraging. “Right behind you.”

She sniffs once. Then, stiff, and chin up, she moves toward the room without missing a step.

It’s an imposing scene. Fitting in its own fucked up way, seeing the Reed family legacy in this room like nowhere else.

A huge painting of Amelia Earhart hangs behind the solid oak desk. She’s decked in a full flight jacket, posing in front of her famous Lockheed Vega with a triumphant smile. Jonah swore up and down she was an extended relative, a woman he admired till his dying day for her grit, and the company’s namesake after Jonah rebranded it in the fifties.

My attention doesn’t go to the painting, though. I settle in the doorway, taking a moment to get a good look at who’s inside.

Molly Reed is a lawsuit waiting to happen for bad plastic surgery, with hair so bleached it’s an odd lemon-yellow color, sprayed so stiff not even the fierce North Dakota wind could blast a strand out of place.

There’s a vague resemblance to Jonah in Gary. The round shape of his face and the deep inset eyes. Same shade as Bella’s and her grandfather’s, lively green.

His hair is nearly white, receding back from a high forehead. I wonder how much of that grey came from his controlling wife.

Then there’s Avery Briar. He’s barely richer than the Reeds, but he looks a hundred times more refined. A tall, fit silver mongoose of a man with his spectacles perched neatly on his beak of a nose.

Cunning. Sly. Gifted fucking liar. It’s in his narrow grey eyes and pointy face stretched over bone.

The silence in the room thickens. I’m not the only one sizing up the others.

“Annabelle, it’s about time! Where have you been?” her mother asks. “We’ve been here for half an hour.”

Half an hour! I shift my weight, wondering how such a boring phrase can sound like a total disaster in the wrong mouth.

“I had a meeting with Roger Jones,” Bella says, flipping her hair back. “Company business.”

“So unnecessary.” Her mother waves a hand toward Briar, clucking her tongue. “This is Mr. Avery Briar. He’s interested in fixing this mess and taking that stupid old oil company off our hands. You’re welcome.”

Bella’s mouth starts to move, but she doesn’t get a word in.