Chapter 9 #2
There had been as much destruction in her apartment when she returned there after the visit with Karen, Geoff and the babies.
No graffiti but some of her furniture and other things were broken beyond repair.
Thank goodness Knox hadn’t come up with her.
She doubted Andrew would have survived that encounter.
When she saw the mess in her office she had taken photographs with her cell phone. She had decided to do the same with her apartment before she started the tidy-up.
It had taken her the better part of the night to put things away and then, after she had done so, to clean every room with biological wipes from top to bottom.
None of which had worked in eliminating Andrew’s presence in her private sanctuary.
Because no matter how hard she scrubbed, she couldn’t seem to take away the feeling of having been violated.
That everything in her apartment was now tainted by Andrew being in her personal space and touching her things.
She had dropped a bag of her bra and panty sets in a dumpster on the way in to work.
She knew she would never be able to wear them again, knowing Andrew had touched them when he pulled them out of the drawer to scatter them across the carpeted floor.
She’d stuffed the rest of the clothes he’d touched into another bag and left them at a thrift store.
She would go to a couple of the shops on the second floor at lunchtime and buy some new things to replace the ones she’d had to give or throw away.
Still, the thought of returning to her apartment this evening, knowing Andrew had the means to enter whenever he felt like it, filled her with dread. So much so that she believed she would have to find and move into another apartment, one with even more security.
Unfortunately, that was going to take time.
But she could always book into a hotel or, in a pinch, sleep on the sofa across the room here in her office.
Either option would be preferable to lying awake in her apartment, terrified of the next time Andrew decided to let himself in.
Although that hadn’t seemed to keep those men out of here the other night.
The thought of them coming back here was so unsettling, it made her feel slightly sick.
The only thing keeping her sane at the moment was the thought of having dinner with Knox this evening.
Just thinking about him was enough to—
She looked up, eyes widening with surprise, after the door to her office was suddenly thrown open and Knox appeared in the doorway.
Just thinking about him seemed to have somehow caused him to manifest inside her office!
Which, Ellie instantly realized, was a totally ridiculous conclusion to have come to.
Immediately followed by asking herself what he was doing here now, when they were due to meet again this evening. “Is it seven o’clock already?” she teased.
Knox didn’t answer her immediately; instead, he carefully closed the door on a curious Benny, who was hovering just behind him, before locking it.
Knox then crossed the room with a predatory grace until he was standing directly on the other side of Ellie’s desk. “Did he hurt you?”
From the fury glittering in Knox’s eyes, Ellie guessed exactly who he was referring to. She just had no idea how he even knew she had seen Andrew again since the two of them parted yesterday. Unless…
“Have you spoken to Andrew today?” she prompted sharply.
His mouth twisted. “Spoken to him might be a generous way of describing our meeting at the DERA offices this morning.”
“What have you done— Why did that question amuse you?” she asked cautiously.
His mouth twisted. “Because I asked Day that very same thing less than an hour ago.”
“And?”
“And he admitted to having broken into your apartment yesterday and to waiting for you when you got home,” Knox revealed grimly. “So I’ll ask again: Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she assured shakily. “Did you hurt Andrew?” If Knox had gone to the trouble of going to the DERA offices today, she somehow doubted he had left again without doing something to let Andrew know of his displeasure.
Knox narrowed his eyes. “Would you care if I had?”
“Not in the least,” she answered honestly. “In fact, I would thank you for it.”
Andrew had proven, time and time again, that he didn’t care how much he hurt her emotionally and physically.
Ellie had stopped caring about him when he first taunted her with the knowledge of his numerous affairs.
She had begun to actively hate him after the first time he hit her. Now she despised him utterly.
* * *
Knox felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders at hearing Ellie’s unequivocal avowal of not giving a fuck what happened to Day.
“He’s still in one piece. For now,” he added wryly.
“He might have a few bruised ribs of his own to contend with and a broken wrist, but that seems only fair, in the circumstances.” More than fair as far as Knox was concerned.
“As a consequence of him having admitted to having broken into your apartment yesterday…?”
Ellie swallowed. “He did. He made a mess of, or broke, a lot of my things. Including smashing a dinner service that had belonged to my parents into tiny pieces, which he knew had great sentimental value to me.” Her voice shook slightly, her lashes wet with unshed tears.
“Is it fixable?” Knox was furious with himself for not having asked Linus to check into the security of Ellie’s apartment building earlier.
As it was, he had called the other man on his way to see Ellie, asking Linus to treat her security as a priority. In the meantime, Knox was going to suggest to Ellie that she stay with him for the moment. Knowing how stubborn she could be, he knew that wasn’t going to be easy.
She shook her head. “I already threw the pieces away.”
“Vindictive bastard,” Knox growled.
“Oh, very much so,” Ellie agreed.
“But he didn’t physically touch you this time? Ellie?” he asked sharply again when she grimaced.
“He…pushed me, and I fell against a sideboard— Knox, please, you don’t need to go and see him again!
” She moved around her desk to grasp his arm as she looked up at him appealingly.
“I have a small bruise on my hip, that’s all.
I very much doubt he’ll come anywhere near me again after you visited him this morning. ”
“That isn’t good enough,” Knox rasped.
“No,” she acknowledged softly. “But I don’t want every conversation we have to be about a man I once thought I cared for.
Now I know that I really didn’t. He was in my life and seemed supportive when my parents died.
Yes, I know now that was only because I inherited a lot of money, but at the time, I genuinely thought he cared about me.
” Her mouth twisted. “All these years later, learning about his many affairs when we were together, and the way he’s treated me since we parted, I don’t believe he could ever have cared for me beyond the money my parents left me.
I now know that a man who loves—cares about me,” she corrected, her cheeks coloring, “would never behave in that hurtful way.”
Knox stilled. “How do you know that?”
Her smile was a little shaky, but her gaze never wavered from meeting his. “Because I’ve now met a man who I believe when he says he would never hurt or betray me.”
Knox studied her face for several seconds. “I’m hoping that’s me?”
“Of course it’s you,” she assured shakily.
“Thank God.” Knox took her in his arms, molding the soft curves of her body against his harder ones. “And for the record,” he murmured as he lowered his head, his lips just centimeters away from hers. “I think ‘care about you’ is a very lukewarm way of describing how I feel about you.”
She blinked. “It is?”
“Very,” he assured earnestly before he claimed her lips with his own.