Chapter 24 Harper #2
I opened my mouth to apologize, but to my shock, Knox chuckled. The sound was low and warm, and it caught me off guard.
“I do read people well,” he admitted. “But you’re different.” His voice softened, his body tilting slightly, lowering himself so he wasn’t towering over me as much. “And I’d like to know what else is upsetting you.”
You. Us. These feelings that aren’t going away, no matter how much I’ve commanded them to.
“Nothing. We’re all entitled to a bad day.” I moved back to the desk and shuffled papers, needing something to do with my hands. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
He watched me fidget, silent, his eyes lingering on my face, as if trying to decode the secret message behind my mood.
“It’s because I touched your hand.” Still not a question.
I opened my mouth to lie, but what was the point? Whether I liked it or not, he knew me better than I wanted him to.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “It’s really hard not to cross this line with you.”
The words settled between us like a confession. My heart did something traitorous in my chest.
After all Knox had done for me—hurting himself, getting a job here just to make sure I was safe, and now apologizing for touching my hand …
It made the thing growing inside my chest harder to fight. And I was fighting it. Hard.
But how could I develop feelings for a man who had ended someone’s life? My God, that went against everything I believed in as a human being.
And for reasons I couldn’t fully explain, I needed to know why he’d done it.
I looked at the clock, calculating how much time we had before Dr. Mercer returned.
“You’ve learned things about my life,” I said carefully. “Now it’s your turn. And I want you to be honest with me.”
Knox went still. His full attention locked on me.
“Tell me right here, right now. The truth.” I met his gaze head-on. “Did you really intend to kill that man? And don’t lie to me. The truth always comes out, and if I find out you lied, I’ll know you’re just another manipulative bastard. I’ve had enough of those in my life.”
Knox raised his eyebrows. “The only person I’ve ever told this to is my lawyer. But even he doesn’t know all the details.”
“Why? Is it that bad?” I narrowed my eyes. “Are you, like, some serial killer who collects fingertips in jars or something?”
Knox’s head fell back, and he laughed. The sound echoed through the sterile infirmary, and it made fireflies dance in my chest.
“No,” he answered, still grinning. “I’m not a serial killer.”
“Well, that’s reassuring. I’ll add it to your file. Patient denies jar of fingertips.”
His grin widened before fading into something more serious. “I could tell you everything, but why would you believe a word I said?”
Great question. The truth was, I sensed he was always being honest with me. No manipulation. No spin. Just Knox.
“I’ll tell you this much, Harper.” His tone was velvet and steel, sincerity threaded with something deeper, something that made my pulse skip.
“I didn’t randomly end the life of a man.
The man I killed …” He paused. “Police didn’t stop him.
And while I hadn’t set out to become some vigilante hunting him down …
” His voice cracked. “When I found him attacking someone I love …”
Knox cleared his throat and shifted.
“Who?” I asked quietly.
“My daughter.”
“You have a daughter?”
“That surprise you?”
“Well, yes.”
He smirked. “Guess I don’t give off dad vibes.”
“Not really, no.”
“Need to get some khaki pants and an energy-efficient lawn mower. That’s major dad vibes.”
I chuckled despite myself. “Don’t forget the World’s Best Dad mug.”
“That goes without saying.” He tilted his head. “Maybe a fanny pack for weekend trips to Home Depot.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ll work on my dad jokes too.”
“Please don’t.”
“Why did the scarecrow win an award?”
“Knox.”
“Because he was outstanding in his field.”
I groaned, but I was smiling. Actually smiling. “That was terrible.”
“You laughed.”
“I did not laugh.”
“Your eyes laughed.”
I studied him, the moment of levity fading into something genuine. Warm. I realized I’d moved closer without meaning to. Close enough to touch if either of us reached out.
“You don’t look old enough to have a daughter,” I said.
“Lots of thirty-five-year-olds have kids.”
“I mean … you’ve spent, what, fourteen years in here? That would mean you had a kid …”
“In high school.”
“Yikes.”
He chuckled. “Tell me about it. Missed the safe sex section of health class. One night, my girlfriend said yes, and—boom—I became a father.”
“How often do you get to see her?”
The shift was immediate. Something detonated behind his features. A quiet devastation that made my chest ache.
“I haven’t seen her in over a decade.”
God. The pain in his eyes. His daughter was his kryptonite, I realized. The thing that could bring this massive, intimidating man to his knees.
I couldn’t imagine being trapped in a cage with no way to see the people you loved.
“You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to,” I said gently. “But why haven’t you seen her?”
“They used to come visit me once a week. But after a while, my ex thought prison visiting rooms were no place for a little girl.”
My stomach dropped.
“She was right,” Knox added quietly.
“Yeah, but every daughter needs her father.” The words came out fiercer than I intended. “Trust me, I would know.”
Knox looked at me then, waiting for me to elaborate, but I shook my head.
“I didn’t say that to change the subject to myself.”
“She deserves a real father,” he said. “Not a caged one.”
“Knox …”
He sighed, and right then, I saw the weight of what this separation had done to him. His shoulders curved inward, his posture aging him a decade in a single exhale. The confident, dangerous man I’d come to know looked suddenly hollowed out.
Without thinking, I reached out and placed my hand over his.
Knox went completely still.
Neither of us moved. Neither of us breathed. My palm rested against the back of his hand, and I felt the rough warmth of his skin, the ridges of old scars, the steady pulse beneath.
His fingers shifted. Slowly. Carefully. Like he was afraid any sudden movement might spook me. And then his hand turned beneath mine, palm facing up, and his fingers threaded gently through the spaces between mine.
We both looked down at our joined hands.
The contact sent heat radiating up my arm, pooling somewhere behind my heart. It wasn’t just physical. It was something more profound. Something that felt like recognition. Like his hand had been waiting for mine all along.
When I lifted my gaze, his attention was already on me. Softer than I’d ever seen. Vulnerable in a way that made my throat tighten.
I should pull away.
I didn’t.
“Do you at least get to talk to her?” I asked softly.
“Her mother didn’t think that was a good idea either.”
Anger swelled through me on his behalf. “You know, I had an absentee father. He was physically present, but that was about it. I would’ve given anything for a father who cared enough to want to see me. And if I’d found out my mom was the one stopping it?” I shook my head. “I would’ve been furious.”
“I’m a convicted killer, Harper.”
Okay. I had more serious questions about that topic. But first, the kid conversation.
“Do you want to see your daughter? Talk to her?”
I could have sworn I caught a tremble in his lower lip. “More than you can imagine.”
I rubbed my thumb along his skin. “How old is she?”
“She just turned eighteen.”
“Then everything has changed,” I said firmly.
He paused. “How do you figure?”
“She’s legally an adult now. Your ex can’t gatekeep anymore.”
Knox chewed on his lip, as if he hadn’t considered this before. I watched hope take flight across his face, fragile and uncertain, like a bird testing its wings for the first time.
“I do have her address,” he admitted.
“There you go.” I pulled my hand away from his. Not because I wanted to, but because it was the smart thing to do with the threat of Dr. Mercer returning any second. “Write to her. Even if you never hear back. Trust me, a daughter needs to know her father loves her.”
Knox considered this, then shook his head slowly. “I do write to her. But I never mail them.”
“Really? Why?”
He paused. “For years, I thought I was doing the right thing by leaving her alone. I didn’t want to infect her life with the burden of some father in prison.
I didn’t want her to feel obligated to carry on a relationship with me or have to explain to her friends that her dad is locked up.
” His voice grew rough. “But letting her go hurt like hell. I think about her every single day of my life. And I miss her so much, it guts me.” His voice cracked on the last word.
I swallowed hard, the intimacy of the moment wrapping around us like something tangible. “Can I ask a super-personal question?”
Knox’s attention fixed on me so intensely, it felt like a physical weight.
“Harper, you can ask me anything.”
Warmth flooded my system. Simple words, and yet they cracked something open inside me.
“You can ask me anything.”
This man, who kept his secrets locked behind steel doors, who revealed nothing to anyone, who had survived fourteen years in this hellhole by keeping his walls fortified … he would tear them down for me.
He would make himself vulnerable. Exposed. For me.
The realization wrapped around my chest and squeezed.
“Why did you confess to the murder?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Come again?”
I shrugged. “I watch a lot of murder mysteries. Plenty of people get away with it. So, why confess?”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Harper, are you implying I should have run from the law?”
“Not at all. I’d never respect a guy who leaves a dead body and doesn’t own up to it.”
Jesus. What kind of banter was I engaged in?
The kind that made Knox’s head fall back in another chuckle.
“Well, believe it or not, my parents raised me right. I know it doesn’t seem that way, what with me being a convicted murderer, but there’s right, and there’s wrong. And I did kill him.”
Harper, repeat that phrase in your head: I did kill him. Knox is a killer.
Why weren’t all the red flags stabbing through the affection wrapping itself around my heart?
“Here’s the thing about murder,” Knox continued, his voice sobering.
“There’s no statute of limitations. You can’t run from it long enough to put it behind you.
Even if you could somehow get past it psychologically, legally, it will haunt you for the rest of your life.
They build cases decades after the crime.
You could be a middle-aged man, happily married with kids and a career, and they could come knocking on your door one day.
” He met my eyes. “So, when they found me, I knew immediately I wasn’t going to fight it.
I was going to accept the consequences, whatever they were, and put that part of my life behind me. ”
I studied him. “Why do I feel like there’s more to the story?”
From what I’d gathered from everything he’d said, some man must have attacked his daughter, and Knox had killed him.
But if that was the case, it would be self-defense.
At least partially. So, why was Knox in prison for murder?
And why did I feel like there was something more he was keeping from me?
The infirmary door buzzed open. Dr. Mercer’s voice floated in from the hallway, and Knox straightened immediately, putting distance between us.