“Don’t you have work or something much more important to do than sitting around and chatting with me, Tyler?”
“We can trade small talk all day long, Jewell, but why don’t we just cut to the chase and you tell me why you were gone for three months, why my brother was a bear during those months, and why now you have crater-sized dark circles under your eyes?” He softened the interrogation with a wink and a grin.
Jewell’s own smile vanished while he spoke. She feared this man because she knew he had a way about him that would make the floodgates come flying open. And because he was Blake’s brother, she shouldn’t think for a minute that she could rely on him, no matter how nice he was to her.
“I think your brother can answer all of those questions,” she told him with a brittle laugh.
Tyler reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m not asking Blake. I’m asking you.”
She was so close to tears that she had to turn her head away. If only she had a single friend she could talk to, maybe she wouldn’t feel this incessant urge to spill her guts to Blake’s brother. But it was so difficult to hold everything in when he was looking at her with those openly friendly eyes.
“It’s complicated,” she finally said, and he let out a sigh.
“I’m not going to pretend that I can possibly understand everything, Jewell, but I have been able to tell from the first moment I met you that you’re a good person. And though I love my brother very much, I know he can sometimes give people the wrong impression of who he is. There’s a long story here, but it isn’t my place to tell it.”
“Why aren’t you bitter?” she asked, wondering how two brothers could be so very different.
“I was too young to be affected as badly as Blake and Byron were by the disasters of our past. Then as I got older and saw the hell they were going through, I decided that I had a choice of being happy or angry. I much prefer happiness. Sometimes it really helps to get things off your chest, to talk to someone. The shrinks might call it cathartic.”
The man was practically begging her to open up to him, and she was tempted, so tempted, to do just that. But what if it backfired on her and made her situation worse? Oh, wait. How much worse could it get?
Before she was able to stop herself, Jewell found herself opening her mouth and letting the entire story spill from her lips. To his credit, Tyler didn’t interrupt a single time. His eyes narrowed, and he gripped his coffee cup tightly a few times, but he didn’t release her hand, and he didn’t ask any questions.
“…so last night, he demanded marriage, and really, I don’t ever have any prospects of getting married, so what difference should it make? But at the same time, I still believe in the institution, of two becoming one in the eyes of God and all that, and…I don’t know. I’m just confused right now.” Her long, sad story now finished, she was trying desperately not to give in to tears.
Jewell had been around Tyler only a couple of times now, but she couldn’t have imagined seeing such fury on his normally happy face. With his eyes now slits and his mouth pressed firmly into a frown, the man was just as frightening as his two brothers. She wondered if he realized it.
A shudder passed through her. Maybe she should have just kept quiet. Heck, there was no maybe about it. She shouldn’t have spilled her guts to Blake’s brother.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Oh, Jewell, I’m the one who’s sorry. You’ve been shouldering far too much for far too long. I know that Blake must have honorable intentions toward you now, but he is certainly not going about it in the right way. You have done nothing wrong by talking to me. Let me handle my brother.”
The way he said the last sentence sent a serious chill down her spine. “I don’t want to come between your brother and you,” she gasped, gripping his hand tightly with hers, panic in her eyes.
“My brothers and I may not always see eye to eye on things, but nothing will rip us apart, I assure you.” Tyler’s lips finally turned up just the slightest, but his eyes remained grim.
“Tyler, I’m so sorry. Really I am. Can’t you just forget that I told you any of this?”
“It can’t be undone, Jewell, and it shouldn’t be. You need someone in your corner. I will speak with my brother — I guarantee you that.” He stood up purposefully.
“Right now?” she squealed. She’d screwed up terribly, and she had to stop him before things got worse.
“The sooner, the better,” he told her, and he started off toward her front door.
“Tyler, I really don’t think this is a good idea.” This would only infuriate Blake, make him even more exasperated with her than he already was.
“I guarantee there won’t be any backlash, Jewell,” Tyler said, and then he was gone, her front door closing behind him with a loud click.
Jewell walked into her sitting room and slumped down on the sofa, praying she hadn’t just lost her only way to get Justin back. She had no idea what was going to happen next. What if Blake just gave up completely on her and she lost Justin forever because of it?
She’d have only herself to blame.
But there was nothing she could do now. Once one of the Knight men had his mind set on something, there was no turning back the clock. All she could do now was wait and see what Blake’s next move would be. The waiting might well kill her…
Chapter Thirteen
Tyler sure is a strange one, Blake told himself for the umpteenth time as he neared the office building he shared with his brothers. Tyler had called an hour earlier, cursing him out like wildfire, calling him all sorts of names, and that wasn’t at all like the guy. Blake was amazed not to feel more irritated about it.
Tyler was their peacemaker, the one who never lost his cool. From a few of the things his brother had growled at him, Blake had no doubt that Tyler had been to see Jewell and that she had told him everything. Instead of being pissed off about it, Blake was happy to see, or at least suspect, she hadn’t lost all her fight. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Tyler’s being so protective of Jewell, but Blake also knew Tyler would never try to overstep his bounds with Jewell. The brothers never poached on each other’s territory, though they weren’t beyond pretending to do so.
As he neared the executive offices, he wondered what Tyler would say. The funny thing was that if Blake would listen to anyone other than Max, it would be one of his brothers, and especially Tyler, since Tyler was always the voice of reason when anger seemed to consume Blake to the depths of his soul — if he even had a soul. But Tyler sure as hell hadn’t been the voice of reason an hour ago. He’d been too busy yelling.