“Jack.”
He wrenched his attention away, turning to face Cooper.
His best friend’s amusement was replaced with disbelief.
“What?”
Cooper flicked a look in Emery’s direction and then back to Jack. Understanding dawned, and he grinned. “Really?”
Feeling like he’d been caught doing something wrong, he shrugged, rubbing the nape of his neck, which was weirdly hot.
Cooper leaned on the bar, lowering his voice. “Woman is beautiful. Iris is taken with her, which says a lot. You know she doesn’t suffer fools easily.”
True.
“But you heard Iris. Pure as fucking Snow White.” He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t fool around with a woman like that.”
No. You didn’t. And Jack wouldn’t.
As he remembered the calculating look in his father’s eyes that Sunday he talked about Emery, he knew he couldn’t approach her—even if he wanted to get to know her with a fierceness he’d never felt before.
What no one else knew—what Ian Devlin was keeping close to his chest probably to use in the future—was that Emery Saunders was actually Louisa Emery Paxton. She’d inherited the majority shares in her deceased grandfather’s company, the Paxton Group, a billion-dollar corporation that owned airlines and an aeronautical company.
If Jack attempted to insinuate himself into Emery’s life, Ian would only use him to get to her.
Tightness clawed at his chest as it always did when he thought about his father and brothers. Jack had tried his best to break away. Now and then, one of them would hound Jack to come back into the fold. And Jack did whatever he could to avoid fucking up and giving Ian something he could use to blackmail Jack.
All this time he thought he’d made it out. Free and clear of Ian.
But Jack realized now that he hadn’t.
When he finally settled down, it would have to be with a nobody. Someone Ian couldn’t use.
It couldn’t be with a woman as wealthy as Emery Saunders.
Disappointment that seemed out of proportion to the situation, considering he hadn’t even spoken two words to Emery, flooded him.
Cooper must have seen something in his face because concern furrowed his brows. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.” Jack’s voice was flat. “Just realized you’re right. I’m not ready to settle down.”
His friend gave him a slow nod, but there was suspicion in Coop’s eyes.
Avoiding him, Jack looked up at the flat screen.
For the next two hours, he did his best to ignore the urge to look across the bar at Emery. He tried not to look at her when Iris and Ira came over to say good night while she hung back a little. If Iris hadn’t told him she was shy, Jack would think the New York princess was aloof.
She didn’t look like a New York princess in that long, clingy dress.
Christ, the image of her in that dress was imprinted on the back of his eyelids.
As the Greens departed with Emery at their back, Jack’s willpower fled, and he looked.
Just as Emery glanced back over her shoulder at him. When their eyes caught, she blushed again.
She made his chest ache.
Fucking ache.