Chapter Eight
Hailey
I’m still laughing when I hit the stairs, taking them two at a time, and when I push through the front door of my building,
Knox is waiting on the sidewalk in a charcoal coat that makes his shoulders look impossibly broad. He watches me descend the
steps with a look I’m still learning to read, something between hunger and reverence that makes my stomach flip.
“Hi,” I say, because apparently I’ve forgotten how to form complex sentences.
“Hi.” He offers his hand, and when I take it, his fingers close around mine like he’s been waiting to touch me all day. “You
look beautiful.”
“You clean up okay yourself.”
Understatement of the century. The man is lickable. His jaw is freshly shaved, and I want to drag my teeth across it just
to hear what sound he’d make. A black sweater peeks out from under the coat, fitted enough that I can see the outline of muscle
underneath, and suddenly I’m thinking about what it would feel like to slide my hands beneath that wool and find warm skin.
Down, girl.
But it’s hard to behave when Knox Bishop is standing there looking like every dirty fantasy I’ve ever had, watching me with
those gray eyes that seem to be calculating exactly how long it would take to get me out of this dress.
The restaurant is called Osteria del Cuore, and it’s tucked behind an unmarked door between a dry cleaner and a boutique selling overpriced candles.
Easy to miss unless you know what you’re looking for.
Knox leads me down a short flight of stairs into a candlelit cellar where exposed brick walls are hung with old photographs and dried herbs.
The ceiling is low enough that he has to duck slightly, and there can’t be more than ten tables, all of them tucked into intimate alcoves that feel like secrets.
“How did you find this place?” I ask as a hostess leads us to a corner booth hidden from the rest of the restaurant by a half-wall
of wine bottles.
“I did recon.”
“You scouted restaurants for our date?”
“I scouted several restaurants.” He pulls out my chair, and when I sit, his hand brushes my shoulder in a way that sends heat
racing down my spine. “I wanted to find somewhere we wouldn’t be interrupted.”
The table is small enough that our knees brush underneath, and neither of us moves away. I look around, taking in the flickering
candles, the quiet murmur of other couples, the way the light catches the wine bottles like captured sunsets, and the tightness
inside me loosens. This isn’t a place for small talk or surface-level conversation. This is a place for telling truths.
Wine arrives without us ordering, something red and Italian that Knox apparently selected in advance. When he pours for me,
his fingers brush mine on the stem of the glass, and I have to remind myself to breathe.
“So.” He leans back, but his eyes never leave my face. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“You probably already know everything, given your research methods.”
“I know your patterns. Your routines. What coffee you order, what books you buy, how you walk when you think no one’s watching.”
His voice drops lower. “I don’t know what’s underneath all that. The things you hide. The things that keep you up at night.”
“Maybe there’s nothing underneath. Maybe I’m exactly as shallow as I appear.”
“There’s always something underneath.” He reaches across the table, and his fingers find mine, just resting there, warm and
steady. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
Umm . . . I expected flirtation, banter, the usual dance of a second date. Not this. Not directness that cuts straight to
bone.
“Wanting something I can’t have,” I hear myself say. “Getting close enough to taste it and then watching it disappear. I’ve
done that before, wanted someone so badly I could hardly breathe, and when it fell apart . . .” I trail off, then force myself
to continue. “I’m afraid of feeling that again. I’m afraid of not feeling it again. Both options terrify me.”
His thumb traces a slow circle on my palm. “What do you want?”
“Right now?” I meet his eyes. “This. You. Whatever this is turning into.”
“It’s turning into something.” His grip on my hand tightens slightly. “I’ve never been good at halfway, Hailey. When I want
something, I want all of it. Every piece, every corner, every shadow. That can be a lot for some people.”
“Is that a warning?”
“It’s information. You should know what you’re getting into.”
Our first course arrives, a shared plate of burrata that’s so creamy it practically melts on the tongue. Knox watches me take
the first bite, and his mouth quirks when I close my eyes and make an involuntary sound of pleasure.
“Good?” he asks, his voice lower than before.
“Criminal.” I open my eyes and catch him staring at my mouth. “You should try some before I finish it.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, trading bites of the burrata, and then the pasta arrives—fresh tagliatelle
with truffle that fills the small alcove with an earthy, intoxicating scent. Somewhere between the first glass of wine and
the second, the conversation drifts into different territory.
“I need to tell you something,” Knox says, setting down his fork.
I tense, because nothing good ever follows those words. “Okay.”
“I’ve noticed some things that concern me. Nothing I can put my finger on exactly, but my instincts are rarely wrong.”
“Things like what?”
“Like someone standing outside your apartment last night. Watching.” He takes a sip of wine, casual, but I can see the tension
in his shoulders. “After I left. He was across the street, just standing there. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You mean besides you?”
He doesn’t flinch. “Besides me.”
“Knox.” I lean back in my chair, fighting a smile. “You just confessed to following me for months. Forgive me if I’m not panicking
over a hunch.”
“It’s more than a hunch.”
“Is it? Or is this your way of justifying why you need to keep stalking me?” I take a sip of wine, watching him over the rim
of my glass. “Because if you need an excuse, you don’t. I already told you I don’t mind.”
I can see him wrestling with how to respond. Part of me knows I should take this more seriously. But the other part—the louder
part—is too amused by the irony. Yes, I have a stalker. I’m looking right at him. If Knox Bishop wants to use some phantom
threat as an excuse to stay close, to keep watching, to continue this delicious game we’ve been playing? I’ll humor him. There
are worse fates than being obsessively protected by a man who looks like that.
“I’m not using it as an excuse,” he says. “I’m telling you because you deserve to know. And because I plan on staying very
close until I figure out what’s going on.”
“How close are we talking?”
“Close enough that if someone’s watching you, they’ll know they’re not the only one.” His eyes meet mine across the table.
“Close enough that if anyone tries anything, I’ll be there before they can blink.”
“And what if I don’t want you that close?”
“Then you’d tell me, and I’d back off.” He reaches across the table, his fingers finding mine. “But something tells me that’s
not what you’re going to say.”
He’s right. God help me, he’s right.
“I don’t mind,” I admit quietly. “The watching. Knowing you’re there.” I turn my hand over so our palms press together. “Most
people would probably run screaming from a man who just admitted to surveilling them.”
“You’re not most people.”
“No. I’m not.”
Something passes between us, an understanding that goes deeper than words. He knows what he is. I know what I am. And somehow,
impossibly, those broken pieces fit together.
Somewhere between the main course and dessert, I set down my fork and decide to push.
“You said you like control. What does that mean, for you?”
“It means I like to know exactly what’s happening. Where. When. How.” His voice drops. “It means when I’m with someone, I
want to be the only thing they’re thinking about. I want to know I have their complete attention, and I want them to know
they have mine.”
“That sounds intense.”
“It is.”
“What if the other person likes giving up control?”
The air between us thickens. I watch him swallow, his throat working.
“Then we’d be very compatible.”
I lean forward, closing the distance between us over the small table. “I’m not good at rules. Never have been. I like pushing,
testing, seeing what I can get away with. Seeing how far I can go before someone stops me.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Does that bother you?”
“It makes me want to push back.”
My thighs clench under the table. I don’t think he misses it. “And what about being watched? You seem to like that.”
“I like watching,” he corrects. “But I’ve been known to appreciate an audience, under the right circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
“The ones where I’m in charge of who sees what. Where I decide what gets revealed and what stays hidden. Where the person
I’m with trusts me enough to let me make those calls.”
His hand slides higher on my arm, fingers trailing up past my wrist, and I feel the touch everywhere. In my pulse, my spine,
places much lower. Every nerve ending in my body is suddenly, painfully awake.
“I don’t mind being seen,” I say quietly. “When it’s someone I want seeing me.”
Knox’s eyes are almost black in the candlelight, his pupils blown so wide there’s barely any gray left. His breathing has
changed, gone slower and more measured, and when he speaks, his voice has dropped to a rasp that scrapes over my skin.
“You’re making it very hard to be a gentleman.”
“Good.”
He flags down the server without looking away from me. “Check, please.”
The temperature has dropped by the time we step outside, and snow is drifting down in lazy spirals that catch the light from
shop windows and streetlamps. Knox takes my hand as we walk, our breath fogging in the cold air, and for a while we don’t
speak. We don’t need to. The West Village is beautiful at night, brownstones and bare trees and holiday decorations glowing