“Trust me, I’ll treat you well.” His voice reverberated with sincerity. His expression was earnest. I believed him, but would I treat myself well and give us a chance? Or run as I always did when things became emotionally tough or difficult to navigate?

There was a reason I’d never gone searching for my mother. My dad was no saint, and perhaps there was another side to that story. I’d blindly believed my father, but had he been the one to mislead me? Over the years, he’d shown little interest in being a father. A father protected and pampered his little girl. My father never did much of that. I was more like a possession to him than a beloved child. He didn’t pay much attention when the bikers hung around our house and flirted with me. Nor did he notice when, at fourteen, I stated hanging out with a guy ten years older than me. All he’d done was take me to the doctor to get birth control because he didn’t want to be responsible for another screaming brat around his house. I could only assume I was the original “screaming brat.”

I’d been sucked into the fringes of the biker lifestyle over the years, digging myself out of it time and time again. Weasel was my last straw, and not until he’d beaten me senseless.

My move to Seattle was my final effort to extract myself from that culture and explore other possibilities. Jock was the best thing that ever happened to me. He was everything my father wasn’t. I owed him a lot.

But did I owe him my loyalty to the point I wouldn’t date a man my brother disapproved of?

Chapter 21—The Night

~~Axel~

Geneva was distancing herself from me. Whatever was going on in that pretty little head of hers, I saw the exact moment she started to pull away. I dug in for the long haul. Tonight more than ever, I knew she was worth every bit of grief she caused me and all the chocolate in the world.

“Axel, there’s also the issue with Jock.” She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, distracting me from my mission momentarily. Anything to do with her lips sent my head into a tailspin and my dick twitching.

I thought we’d gone over all this? Jock knew about us, or about my intention to date her. He wasn’t happy with it, but in my opinion, he didn’t get a vote when it came to his sister’s love life. She had the right to make her own decisions, even if they ended up being mistakes.

“What issue?”

“He doesn’t like you.”

“I disagree. He’s warming up to me.”

“All the more reason for us to forego another date. I’d hate to endanger your relationship with him.”

“First, the only relationship we have is professional. Second, we covered this already. He knows about us. I was straight with him.”

She sighed, as if I’d shot down her last line of defense, and she didn’t have another argument. I was more than a little hurt and insulted that she considered a relationship with me such a burden. Maybe I was wasting my time here. Maybe I should walk away, or let her walk away.