A Gentleman in the Street by Alisha Rai Page B

have kicked our asses.”
    “Deservedly,” Ben said, in a rare moment of seriousness.
    Jacob warmed at their instant agreement.
    Hypocrite. You didn’t storm out when Remy called Akira a slut.
    That had been…different. Completely different. Still, Jacob internally squirmed, immediately throwing up a mental block on last night’s events. If he thought about it at all, he would be utterly useless.
    “She said Mei called Akira names often enough.” He hesitated. “Did either of you hear her talk about her daughter like that?”
    He was gratified when Ben and Connor instantly responded in the negative. “But, you know, they had a contentious relationship. You could tell Mei wasn’t very fond of her,” Ben mused. “Mei tried to keep up appearances, but she was so cold to her in public, I can’t imagine she was much kinder to her in private.”
    Connor’s eyes warmed with appreciation. “At least Akira didn’t take any shit. I kind of loved how she would bait Mei.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The act she would put on. Mei would walk into a room, and Akira would just slip into it. Like every word she uttered was designed to annoy the woman.” Connor shrugged. “Hell, it’s kind of how she treats you, right?”
    Jacob dropped his half-eaten French fry, struck by the words. “What do you mean?” he repeated.
    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 in Shield of Sorrows .”
    Jacob stared at his brothers. “What are you talking about?” Shield of Sorrows had 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