Ben and Connor glanced at each other. The two were so close, despite their bickering, sometimes it seemed like they shared a brain. Jacob had nurtured that bond, but now it only annoyed him.
“Uh,” Ben stalled.
“Answer me.” All of the jumbled chaos rioting around in his mind suddenly calmed, his thought processes crystal clear.
You made me think you despised me for fourteen years, and now I find out it was because I committed the cardinal sin of attracting your lust. I reserve the right to not be punished for your desires.Absolutely right. She didn’t deserve to be punished for his wants.
He’d told himself repeatedly today she was wrong. He had never told her he hated her or found her disgusting, or even that he disapproved of her lifestyle. For fourteen years, he’d simply avoided her. He hadn’t sought her out or tried to bait her.
But a little voice in the back of his head had been unconvinced. And now that voice had come roaring back with a vengeance.
“I think the two of you have a complicated relationship,” Connor said diplomatically.
“What do you mean?”
“It means it’s okay for two people to not get along.”
“Akira has always been perfectly nice to us, though we don’t see her that often,” Ben admitted. “But we like her. Maybe she picks up on the fact…you don’t.”
The blood rushed in Jacob’s ears.
“I don’t think you would ever be as vocal about your dislike as Mei was. But she’s astute, Jacob.”
“You guys think I hate her?” he said roughly.
His stomach caved when both his brothers nodded, Ben more reluctantly. “Especially after you killed her inShield of Sorrows.”
Jacob stared at his brothers. “What are you talking about?”Shield of Sorrowshad been his first book, published when he was the tender age of twenty-six, and had launched his series about CIA Agent James Talent, a rogue operative frequently called on to save the world.
“Lidia was Akira, right?”
“No.” Even as he denied it, a sinking sensation came to the pit of his stomach. “She wasn’t anything like Akira.”
“She might have been Korean-American, not Japanese-American, but…” Ben ticked off the points on his hand. “She was rich, sexy, mouthy, beautiful, and the heir to a fortune.”
Also, utterly shallow and all-around unlikeable, a femme fatale luring the hero to his doom. In the book, she had been killed execution style by the shadowy villain, the final death before the stalwart James had taken the man down. Lidia hadn’t been designed to be a character anyone would mourn.
“It was weird when we read it. We didn’t think you even knew Akira well enough to dislike her personally.” Connor made a face. “But the other option was that you just disliked her on principle. And you’re not the type to insta-hate someone.”
“I’m not,” he said, numb. He would never condemn Akira for living whatever life she damned well pleased.
How could he, a small, truthful voice whispered, when he knew the only thing keeping him from doing the same was his obligations to his family? How could he despise a woman for acting on her base instincts? If there was no one in his life who would suffer for his decisions…
Naked limbs, sweat, grunting, growling, biting, his hard cock sinking into a tight pussy, a wet mouth.
He shuddered, slamming the mental brakes on the Pandora’s box of fantasies he had kept contained in his brain for the majority of his adult life. On the fantasy she had brought to life for him last night.Not for you. Never for you.
Jacob wiped his hand over his mouth, but it couldn’t rid himself of the bad taste left there. He prided himself on being a good man, a progressive man. He felt like the lowest of the low. “I don’t hate her,” he confessed. Both men leaned forward, and he realized he was close to whispering. “There was no history. I didn’t want to be like Dad… I had you guys and Kati to think of and take care of…” Every word Akira had hurled at him last night came flinging back at him. “I wanted her. I didn’t want to want her. My response must have seemed like disapproval. But it wasn’t directed at her.”
There was silence for a moment before Connor spoke. “You aren’t Dad. You could never be like that fucker.”
Jacob’s hand tightened on his beer, the reflexive defense of their father popping out of his lips. “Dad was—”
Connor held up his hand, stalling him. His mouth twisted cynically. “I’m not Kati. I was old enough, Jacob. I remember what Dad was like.”
“He was ill-equipped to have children,” Ben said quietly, somberness stamped into his face. “Far too irresponsible.”
“He tried,” Jacob faltered. “He had…problems.” Despite all his flaws, Jacob had loved his father. And unlike his brothers, who had been one and two when their mother had died, he remembered a different man. A man who had been less troubled and more balanced. The memories were why he had stuck so close to home, long past the time he should have become independent.
