Chapter 32 #2
“This has nothing to do with him.” He sounds neutral, and I hate that. I can’t read between the lines with neutral. Even anger would be better.
“It does have to do with him.”
“Well, it shouldn’t. This is about me making sure my wife can buy whatever she wants.” He calls me his wife so effortlessly, it’s going to be hard when he doesn’t.
“Maybe your wife has everything she wants.”
“We both know that’s not true. So, when we get back to New York, leave that job and spend the money.” He tugs on my arm playfully. “I’m sure you’d make better use of the time working on your portfolio for the job you’re actually trying to get.”
“How did you know about that?”
“It’s obvious. You’re working on a new portfolio, and you were talking about paying me back. You wouldn’t be able to do that on your current salary.”
“This is true.” The wind lifts the ends of my ponytail, and it dances around my face as I nod.
“What’s the job?”
“Broadway. That’s my dream. I want to work as a scene artist at a theater. The Lyceum would be amazing.”
His face brightens. “Now, that’s more like it. Why are you not working there now?”
I let out a loud laugh. “Me at the Lyceum? No. Not yet. Maybe… never. I’m going to have to work really hard just to get an interview.”
“You’ll be fine. Your work is amazing.”
My eyes widen at the compliment. “You really think so?”
“Absolutely. I don’t think you have to try as hard as you think, Isla.”
“I wish that were true. I’ve been turned down by lesser companies, so why would my dream job accept me?”
“Because sometimes, lesser companies don’t hire the best people because they’re overqualified. Too good for the job. They go with lesser people because of the chance that they may stay longer.”
That makes a lot of sense, but it’s still wishful thinking. “I never thought of it like that.”
“You should.”
“I’ll try. I’m just waiting to finish a few more pieces, so my portfolio will be as perfect as I can make it. Then I’ll apply.”
“How long is that going to take?” He gives me a probing stare, like he already knows I’ll obsess over every detail.
“I’m nearly there.” A hopeful smile tugs at my mouth. “I had a great portfolio years ago, but it got destroyed in a fire at my last job.”
“Sorry to hear that, love.”
“It sucked like hell. Hiring managers like to see a minimum of ten pieces of work, but you have a better chance with twenty. In my case, they all have to be perfect, perfect, perfect.”
“Nothing is ever perfect in the eyes of a perfectionist.” He sounds like he’s speaking from experience.
I bite the inside of my lip, deciding to tell him a little more about why I need a bit more time. “I’m kind of cursed, so I need to get them as perfect as possible.”
His brows furrow, and he laughs. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s not funny, and it’s kind of true.” I wince, giving him a sidelong glance.
“What madness is this now, love?” Amusement dances in his eyes. “Tell me what makes you think you’re cursed?”
I quickly fill him in on my tale of woe with Madame Corvina. And of course, by the time I’m done, he thinks I’m insane.
“Baby, that’s horse shit.” He shakes his head at me. “A load of it.”
“I believe it’s true.” Heat creeps into my cheeks at the admission, and I force a small, awkward grin. “All kinds of terrible things have happened to me.”
“Terrible things happen to people all the time.” A shadow passes through his eyes, protective and pissed. “That woman was just a bitch making up shit to scare off kids.”
“Well, it worked. It’s terrified me since.”
“Some people thrive off terrifying others.” His gaze turns razor-sharp.
“I’ll bet no one ever terrified you, Monster.” I laugh lightly, unable to imagine anything that could scare him. Knox Vale is an unyielding force to reckon with.
But his smile dies, and something uneasy slips into his eyes, turning them distant and hollow in a way I’ve never seen before.
“You think nothing scares me?” His voice quiets, the previous playfulness evaporating.
“I… can’t imagine it.”
He exhales a slow, heavy breath. “You’d be surprised what can terrify a person when the right monster raises them.”
My heart stumbles. “What… do you mean?” Instantly, my mind jumps to his father. He seemed nice to me, but I know he’s strict. It wouldn’t be surprising if he pushed Knox, even hurt him. “Was it… your father? Was he the monster?”
Knox lets out a humorless laugh. “I almost wish it was. That would make more sense.” He shakes his head. “But no. It wasn’t him.”
“Then who?”
“My mother.”
“Your mother?” The words barely form.
“Yes.” His voice drops lower. “Her. You noticed she wasn’t at the wedding? Or anywhere?”
“I noticed,” I admit softly. “I just didn’t want to pry.”
“My mother is a well-kept secret,” he explains, jaw ticking. “But I guess it would be weird if I didn’t tell you what happened to her. Very few people know the truth. And when I say very few, I mean Sheila and one or two other people outside my immediate family.”
“We don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to.”
“I should tell you,” he answers, eyes lifting to mine. “If we’re doing this… getting-to-know-each-other thing.”
“My lips are sealed,” I whisper. “Whatever you share stays with me.”
“I know.”
He releases my hand and walks toward the old oak tree. I follow, stopping in front of him as he leans back against the trunk, crossing his arms like the weight of the memory is too heavy to hold himself upright.
“She never wanted kids with my father,” he begins quietly. “But she loved his money. Loved it more than she loved us. Especially me.”
I swallow, dread pooling low in my stomach.
“When he wasn’t around, she’d beat the shit out of us. Mostly me.”
My hand flies to my heart. “Beat you?” My voice cracks. “But you were just… you were all just children.”
“That didn’t matter to her. She got to me most because I was the eldest.” His eyes are fixed on some point behind me. “I took all the punishment for my brothers because I didn’t want her to hurt them. I thought if I took it, she’d leave them alone.”
My chest aches. “Knox…” I can’t imagine that such a thing happened in a family like theirs. “Did you ever tell your father?”
“Not at first. She’d threaten me with everything she could imagine.
And I believed her. I was a kid, terrified and trying to survive.
” A muscle jumps in his jaw. “But eventually, things got out of hand. My father started noticing bruises I couldn’t explain away.
He stopped believing I got them playing football or falling over.
Especially during breaks when I wasn’t even playing. ”
“So, you told him?”
“One night, yeah.” His voice turns tight and strained. “He confronted her, and she denied everything. Made me look like I was exaggerating, or lying, or unstable.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.” His eyes darken. “She exposed herself.”
“How?”
His throat flexes. “My father caught her hitting me. With a baseball bat.”
“Oh my God.” My stomach flips.
“I’d just stumbled over her darkest secret and found out she was having an affair and pregnant with another man’s child. They got divorced shortly after. It was ugly. My father sent us to England to live with my grandparents to escape it, but we stayed there longer for the break.”
The breath leaves my lungs in a staggered rush. I don’t even realize my hand is shaking until he glances at it.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice breaks. “I can’t believe she did that to you. And you protected your brothers through all of it.”
“I had to.” His gaze drops, and for a moment, I see it—the fracture beneath all that steel and the wound that never healed right.
“All the rage I used when I played football… that was me unleashing. It felt good when they christened me the Monster. It gave me control I never had as a kid, and I wore it like armor. I was the same, probably worse, when I started at Vale Global.”
A dull thud echoes through my chest, and my fingers curl in on themselves as a shard of truth pierces my heart. My father broke that cool edge of control. He and the scandal.
Knox must read every thought racing across my face, because he steps forward, his movement slow and careful, like he’s approaching something fragile he’s terrified of damaging.
His hands close firmly around mine, grounding me. “Hey,” he murmurs, voice low but steady. “Don’t go there.”
I blink up at him. “Go where?”
“I know what you’re thinking.” His thumbs sweep gently over my knuckles, rough and soft all at once. “Your father… what happened with him… none of that touches this.” He holds up our hands to the light.
My throat tightens. “Doesn’t it?”
“No, love. The past is the past. Mine. Yours. All of it.” He gives my hands one more reassuring squeeze and a small, mischievous smile tugs at his mouth.
“Right now, we should keep walking. I’m sure we have a lot more to talk about.
I could tell you about the time I got drunk in college and woke up in the back of a truck full of chickens enroute to Budapest.”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it, cutting straight through the heaviness in my chest. Only Knox could casually drop something like that after revealing the darkest part of his past. He smiles at me, like he enjoys the sound of my laughter.
“How on earth did that happen?”
“I’ll tell you the parts I remember. And what happened after.” He slides an arm around my waist, gently steering me forward down the moonlit path.
The night wraps around us, and as we walk and he talks, I feel like maybe we could leave the past behind us.