Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What the fuck are you doing sleeping in the home cinema in my apartment?” Knox demanded furiously early the following morning. It was out of pure habit that he had bothered to pull on a pair of black boxers before coming downstairs.
Linus looked up from where he was slumped down in one of the comfortable seats in the private cinema. “This is the only room in the apartment that’s soundproofed.”
Knox felt the burn of color in his cheeks as he realized Linus hearing him and Ellie making love together was probably the reason the other man had felt in need of that soundproofing.
Knox and Ellie had made love many times during the night, their desire for each other seemingly insatiable. Once Ellie got over her initial shyness, they had both been vocal in their enjoyment of each other.
In fact, the only reason Knox was here now was that he had come downstairs to make coffee and toast to give them the fuel they needed before they made love again.
The only reason Knox had realized they weren’t alone in the apartment was that he had spotted Linus’s distinctive black-and-silver backpack in the hallway near the elevator.
Knox gave a self-conscious wince. “How long have you been here?”
Linus gave him a pointed glance “About six hours, give or take.” He stretched his arms up in the air.
“I did call you last night to let you know I was on my way, but you didn’t answer.
I called several more times, with the same result, so in the end, I gave up and just let myself in.
When I got here, and heard the…distinctive noises from upstairs, I didn’t think it wise to even attempt to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms.”
The other man definitely looked the worse for wear.
His dark blond hair was tousled and sticking up in several places, the scruff on his jaw was heavier than normal, his eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and there was an oily looking stain down the front of his creased navy blue T-shirt.
His jeans were unfastened at the waist, and he was barefoot.
Knox frowned. “How did you even get in?”
“Please, don’t insult me or my skills,” Linus scorned. “Besides, this was Magnus’s apartment before it was yours. You didn’t change any of the codes.”
“Fair point,” Knox acknowledged grudgingly.
“The moment I realized you weren’t alone, I barricaded myself in here and caught up on some of the sleep I lost on the flight over.” Linus gave a martyred sigh. “Bloody Fergus has the family jet this weekend to take Thea to the Bahamas, so I had to travel on a commercial airline.”
“But you traveled first class, right?”
Linus grimaced as he nodded. “But the beds are never long enough for a six foot three inches tall man, and I hate being shut in a small space with stale air and so many strangers.”
Knox knew that was probably because Linus, being the tech expert of Wynter Security, spent the majority of his time shut in his apartment in London behind his numerous computer screens. He only came out from behind those screens when it was absolutely necessary or if one of the family asked him to.
Linus’s presence, not just in Knox’s apartment, but in New York, meant he had to have had a good reason for leaving the sanctity of his mancave and traveling here by public transport.
“Is everyone okay at home?” Knox pressed worriedly.
Linus gave him a pitying look. “If they weren’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Then why are you?”
Linus shrugged, trying to stretch the kinks out of his body. “I think, to save me having to repeat myself, we should wait for your Ellie to join us.”
“How do you know my…nighttime companion is Ellie?” Knox asked.
“Well, the interest you’ve taken in her welfare this past week hasn’t gone unnoticed and,” he added when Knox would have spoken, “I distinctly heard you shout out her name several times when I first arrived. While we wait for her to come downstairs, could I have a coffee? A very hot and very sweet coffee—”
“Knox, did you get lost on your way back to the bedroom?” Ellie’s teasing voice sounded much closer than where Knox had left her upstairs, reclining in the comfort of his rumpled bed.
He could only hope she had a towel wrapped around herself to cover her nakedness.
“Oh.” The puzzlement could now be heard in Ellie’s voice when she obviously reached the kitchen and Knox wasn’t there.
“Or maybe you forgot where the kitchen is. Okay.” She seemed to be talking to herself now.
“Ah, I did wonder… This hallway leads to a gym. And this one— Wow, you have your own personal cinema.” Ellie admired as she came to a halt in the doorway.
Much to Knox’s relief, she was wrapped in a towel.
She also looked sexy as hell with her disheveled golden hair loose about her shoulders and those beautiful aqua-blue eyes on full display as she hadn’t put on her glasses.
She perhaps wasn’t aware of it—yet—but she also had several visible love bites on her neck and shoulders.
Her eyes widened when Linus sat up in the plush seat so that he was visible. “Sorry, if I’m intruding—”
“You aren’t,” Knox informed her firmly
“Definitely not,” Linus confirmed as he rose slowly from the seat. “Eleanor Hall, if I’m not mistaken,” he stated rather than asked.
“Yes, but I prefer to be called Ellie,” she confirmed as she continued to eye him warily.
“Linus Wynter,” he provided.
Ellie’s gaze moved quickly to Knox, her eyes asking him a dozen questions at once.
None of which Knox could answer until he had actually spoken to Linus. Besides which… “Why don’t you go upstairs and put on a robe or some clothes, and I’ll go to the kitchen and make us all a pot of coffee?”
She nodded. “I’ll leave you down here to chat with one of your bosses.” She turned quickly on her heel and almost ran out of the room and down the hallway.
“One of your bosses, hm?” Linus teased.
Knox snorted. “You might be one of the owners of the company, but the New York CEO still ranks high enough not to consider you my boss.”
“That’s good.” Linus didn’t attempt to hide the mockery in his hazel-green eyes. “Because if I were your boss, I would probably use this moment of privacy to remind you that company rules prevent you from becoming personally involved with a client.”
Knox chuckled. “Ellie isn’t strictly a client.”
“That’s what my cousin Rufus, my two brothers, and Declan claimed too, and now they are all engaged or married to women who, although technically not clients, still should have been off-limits.”
“So, sue us.”
Linus grinned. “I am really pleased for you.” He gave Knox a hearty slap on the back. “I never thought I’d see this day.”
Knox scowled. “What day?”
“The day you allowed yourself to forgive the past and fall in love again.”
Strictly speaking, neither Knox nor Ellie had actually used the L word. They had made love all night, indulged in any and every pleasure they wanted to, but it had all been done silently except for their cries of pleasure. Some of which Linus had heard.
“Ah.” Linus eyed him teasingly. “Did you forget to mention that word to Ellie?”
“No, I… This is all new, okay?” he snapped.
Linus gave a pained grimace. “A lady with Ellie’s personal history might still need to know how you feel about her.”
“I have every intention of telling her,” Knox assured. “But at this moment, I’m more interested in knowing what you’re doing here.”
* * *
Ellie went into the en-suite bathroom to Knox’s bedroom, washing quickly before going back into the bedroom to get together some clean clothes to wear, all the time thinking of Linus Wynter’s sudden appearance.
Not just in New York, but in Knox’s apartment.
One thing Ellie was sure of, Knox hadn’t known the other man was going to be here.
If he had, he would have made sure to be dressed before Linus arrived, and he would definitely have advised her to do the same.
From the little Knox had said about the other man, she knew Linus usually lived and worked in London.
Linus looked as if he’d slept in his clothes for the past few hours. Which, if he’d flown to the US overnight, he probably had.
Why had he, was the question. She—
Oh my God!
Ellie had just caught sight of her own reflection in the ceiling-to-floor mirrored doors that opened up into Knox’s dressing room.
She had love bites on her neck and shoulders. And bruises on both her hips that appeared to be the same shape and distance apart as Knox’s fingertips.
Color flared in her cheeks as she realized Linus and Knox would both have been able to see the bites on her neck and shoulders because the towel only covered her breasts, not the skin above.
It was already warm in the apartment, but there was now also a furnace of embarrassment burning inside her after seeing those visible and possessive marks on her body.
She quickly pulled on a pair of dark jeans and a loose linen shirt in the same aqua color as her eyes, after which she ran a brush through the tangles of her hair. She thought about putting on some makeup, but in the end decided to just brush a light pink gloss on her lips.
Neither the clothes, the brushed hair, nor the lip gloss hid the fact that her flushed face and glowing eyes made her look like a woman who had been thoroughly claimed the night before.
And maybe, just maybe, she mused dreamily as she stared at herself in the mirror, she and Knox had already conceived the first of those babies they both wanted.
“Are you okay?”
She turned sharply at the sound of Knox’s voice. “Is it all right for me to be here?”
He frowned as he stepped fully into the bedroom. “What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t this apartment belong to Wynter Security?”
His brow cleared. “It did, but when Magnus moved to the UK, I bought this apartment from him.” He opened his dressing room door, took out a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, and pulled them on as he continued talking to her.
“Security pays well,” he explained, smiling as he stepped forward to take her in his arms. “So at least you know I’m not interested in your money,” he teased before sobering.
“This wasn’t the way I had envisaged the two of us waking up together this morning. ”
Ellie chuckled. “It was a bit of a surprise to see Linus downstairs.”
Knox grimaced. “You should probably know that he arrived sometime late last night and then slept in the cinema when he realized we were together upstairs.”
Which meant the other man had probably become an unwilling audience to their noisy lovemaking.
Could this day get any worse?
It seemed that yes, it could. Because immediately after they had rejoined Linus in the kitchen and the three of them were sitting at the breakfast bar drinking coffee together, the other man told them of the in-depth investigation he had done, at Knox’s request, on Andrew Day.
Hearing the stark facts of Linus’s findings was, despite Ellie already knowing most of it, humiliating to say the least.
She had been so naive to fall for the way Andrew had clung to her like a barnacle after her parents died and she was left a vast sum of money.
To not have seen that, until then, they hadn’t been a couple as such, but had only ever been out together with a group of friends.
The same friends Andrew had distanced her from once they left university and set up in an apartment and business together.
Linus had been very diligent in his inquiries into Andrew, both in the past and now. To the extent he had a comprehensive list of the different casinos and agencies Andrew had gambled at and lost at and still owed money to.
Linus also had a list of the women Andrew had been involved with from the time they’d first moved into an apartment together eight years ago.
“For the past six months, since the two of you separated,” Linus continued in a heavy voice, “Day has had an accomplice who has assisted him in breaking into your offices and apartment.”
Ellie was totally taken aback. “An accomplice?”
Linus nodded. “This someone has been instrumental in helping Day to make your personal and business life a misery.” His frown darkened. “And enabling him to cause you physical harm.”
Ellie felt the color drain from her cheeks. It was one thing for Knox to have told her Linus had given him the hospital reports listing the reason and injuries she had sustained, quite another to have to actually look the man in the face knowing he knew that.
Linus reached out to briefly place his hand on hers before removing it again when Knox gave a low growl. “I’m offering her familial support,” he assured Knox.
“Familial…?” Ellie echoed uncertainly.
“A friend of one member of our family becomes a friend to all of us. Knox is family, so that automatically means that you are too,” Linus dismissed lightly.
Ellie wasn’t quite sure she saw the logic in that statement, but it wasn’t important right now that she did. There was something else she badly needed to know.
She gave Knox a sharp glance. “Do you know who Linus is talking about?”
He grimaced. “I believe I can take an educated guess.”
Ellie studied each man in turn, but they only stared back at her, neither of them seeming to want to be the one to say the name of Andrew’s accomplice. “Tell me,” she pressed impatiently. “Tell me now!”