Seduced by Jess Michaels Page B

drink to find War staring at him expectantly.
    “You are out of the business, War. Let it go,” Jack insisted.
    His brother’s mouth tightened, and he downed his own drink in one swig. “Yes, I suppose I should do that. Since I’m married now and leaving London behind very shortly, letting it be is my best course of action. But you are my brother, Jack. If you need my help, you obviously know where to find me. I hope you know you may turn to me if you need to do so.”
    “I wouldn’t drag you back into the mud, Warrick,” Jack said softly. “You are too clean now. Though I appreciate the offer regardless.”
    Jack couldn’t believe he was saying that. There was a time he would have done almost anything to get his brother back at his side. But War had been badly injured six months ago. Even now, Jack saw his brother’s slight limp, knew there were terrible scars beneath his shirt. It put things in perspective, he supposed.
    His life might not be worth saving, but War’s was.
    “You could come work for me,” War pressed.
    Jack hardly held back a bark of laughter. “Clean up horse shit? Oh, please, tell me more.”
    War shook his head. “You’re already in sales, Jack. I could use someone to talk to those interested in my services.”
    “They can talk to Claire. You and I know full well she’s going to end up your true partner in this endeavor.”
    “She’s pregnant,” War said softly.
    Jack jolted. He might have expected that news. He knew War and Claire were deeply and passionately in love with each other. But a child? War’s child? One that shared their blood?
    “A few months along,” War continued. “Since we only just wed and there is enough talk circulating about her return to Society and her marriage to a man like me, we decided not to tell anyone just yet. We’ll reveal the truth to her family before we leave London.”
    “Congratulations,” Jack said, lifting his glass.
    War nodded, doing the same, and they drank to his unborn child. Jack looked at War closely as they did so. There was a smile on his brother’s face unlike any he’d ever seen before. But there was also some tension around his eyes.
    “You will be a good father,” he offered.
    War met his gaze. “Will I? We never had a role model for that, did we?”
    “No.”
    He and his brother likely had different fathers, based on their mother’s ways. The man who had ended up raising them for the bulk of their lives had helped to sell her body on the street, drank to excess and had nearly killed them both through beatings.
    “What if I turn into him?” War asked.
    Jack shook his head immediately. “You are a hundred times the man that bastard was. You could never be like him.”
    “I used to bust heads for you on the street,” War pointed out quietly. “I’m no stranger to using my fists to get my point across.”
    Jack tensed, hating the guilt that passed through him like a slow wave. He was the one who had dragged his younger brother from the hellish home they’d grown up in. He was the one who’d turned War into the muscle for his operation a few years later.
    “I know you,” Jack said. “You are a good man.”
    War grunted as if he weren’t certain and said, “I suppose we’ll see if that is true.”
    “Think about Francesca,” Jack said, referring to Claire’s two-year-old daughter from her relationship with Jonathon Aston, the child she and War had risked everything to save.
    War’s face relaxed. “I do love Francesca,” he admitted.
    “Even when she is screeching at the top of her lungs, demanding what she can’t have?”
    “Even then.”
    Jack leaned forward. “And you’ve never thought of raising a finger to her, have you? At her worst?”
    “At her worst, I’ve thought of trying to rupture my own ear drums,” War chuckled. “But never hurt her, no.”
    “And if someone threatened her—”
    “I would kill them slowly,” War said with a scowl. “Painfully.”
    “Then I think you will do