Chapter 30 Harper
HARPER
My ex-boyfriend bruised my face, and I was about to see Knox.
I glanced at my reflection in the small mirror for the millionth time this morning, tilting my face toward the fluorescent light. The bruise sat high on my cheekbone, a shadow beneath three layers of concealer. Barely visible. Probably. Hopefully.
This was a good-news-bad-news situation.
The bad news? Despite filing a police report, my ex-boyfriend wasn’t rotting in a jail cell. Disappointing, but not surprising. Due process and all that.
But I had plenty to be grateful for.
First, I was safe. One hit. That was it. And as much as my brain tortured me, replaying that moment on an endless loop, I knew it could have been so much worse. A man obsessive enough to track me down from hundreds of miles away was capable of violence I didn’t want to imagine. I’d gotten lucky.
Second, the injury itself. The blow landed differently than his last one. This wasn’t a black eye. Not fully at least. It was a shadow, really. And after working my magic with concealer and setting powder, you could barely notice it.
Which brought me to the third thing I was grateful for: no one had noticed.
Not the guards at check-in. Not a single person in this building had looked at my face on my way in and seen anything wrong.
But Knox Blackwood wasn’t a normal person.
That man had memorized every pore on my face. Every freckle, every expression, every micro-shift in my mood. He’d notice the thicker layer of concealer. Or worse, he’d study me close enough to see the mark beneath it.
Which was why I had a plan.
I would not leave this to chance.
I took a deep breath and pushed through the infirmary doors.
Naturally, Knox was already there. Crouched beside the blood pressure monitor, calibrating it with a small screwdriver and a level of concentration that seemed excessive for the task.
His back was to me, broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his shirt, and for one blissful moment, I thought I might slip past unnoticed.
I angled my body toward the back room, keeping my injured cheek turned away. Ten steps. That’s all I needed. Ten steps, and I’d be safely hidden behind a door, surrounded by gauze and antiseptic and blissful, blissful solitude.
One step.
“Morning, Harper.”
Two.
“Morning. Busy day.”
Three. I kept moving, my sneakers silent against the linoleum.
Four.
Five.
“Harper.”
I pretended not to hear him.
Six.
“Harper.”
The screwdriver clattered against metal as he set it down.
Seven.
“You’re not even going to look at me?”
Something in his voice made my stomach flip. Not anger. Something worse.
Was that hurt?
I stopped walking, but didn’t turn around. “I really do have a lot of work to catch up on.”
Behind me, I heard him rise to his feet. The soft shuffle of prison-issued shoes against the floor.
His voice dropped low. “Is this about yesterday?”
Oh God.
He thought I was avoiding him because of the kiss. Because I regretted it. Because I’d changed my mind about him.
The kiss that had kept me awake for hours. The kiss I’d replayed a thousand times before Silas showed up and shattered everything.
“No,” I said quickly. Too quickly. “It’s not about that.”
“Then turn around.”
It wasn’t a request.
I took a breath. Straightened my spine. And turned.
But I kept my chin down, my hair strategically draped over my right cheek.
Knox stared at me. His head cocked slightly to the side, assessing. Those eyes tracked over my face like he was running diagnostics.
“You okay?”
I flicked a glance toward Dr. Mercer’s office. The door was closed, so we were essentially alone.
“I’m great.”
Knox arched one eyebrow. “Great?”
“I can’t be great?”
A small shrug rolled through his shoulders. “You’ve never said great before.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“You don’t seem great.”
“Don’t I?”
He took a step toward me. Carefully. Like approaching a startled animal.
“If it’s not about yesterday,” he said quietly, “then what is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
He was close now. Close enough that I could smell soap and something warmer beneath it. Close enough that when he reached out and brushed his knuckles against my arm, I felt the touch everywhere.
And despite everything, despite every screaming instinct telling me to pull away, to hide, to protect myself …
I leaned into it.
Just slightly. Just enough.
Knox’s attention dropped to where his hand rested against my arm, watching the way my body curved toward his touch instead of away from it.
“Okay,” he murmured. “So, it’s not the kiss.”
His thumb traced a slow circle against my sleeve.
“Which means something else happened.” His gaze lifted back to my face. “Something that made you tense. Something that made you lie to me. Something that made you hide your …”
He stopped.
His gaze locked on to the spot where Silas’s knuckles had connected with my cheekbone.
And stayed there.
I watched the realization hit him in slow motion. His eyebrows drew together. The muscle in his jaw clenched so hard, I could see the outline of bone. His hand, hanging at his side, slowly curled into a fist.
When he reached for me again, his thumb and forefinger found my chin, tilting my face up toward the light.
For a long moment, he didn’t speak. He just stared at the mark I’d tried so hard to hide, his attention tracing the edge of the bruise like he was memorizing its exact shape.
Then a sound came out of him.
Low. Guttural. Something between a growl and a snarl.
“Who the fuck did this to you?”
My gaze shot to Dr. Mercer’s closed office door. Then the security camera, thankfully too far for anyone to see or hear us.
“It was him.” Knox released my chin, his hand dropping to his side. The tendons in his forearm stood out like cables. “Your ex. Wasn’t it?”
I didn’t answer.
“He fucking hit you. Again.”
“Please keep your voice down.”
“That’s not a no, Princess.”
“Look, I have it handled, okay?”
“Handled?” The word came out like broken glass. “What the fuck does that mean?”
The office door opened. Dr. Mercer stepped out, a chart in her hands. She looked between us, taking in Knox’s posture, my defensive stance, the tension crackling in the air.
“Everything okay out here?”
Knox didn’t even glance at her. Every molecule of his attention was fixed on me.
But he took a step back. Put distance between us.
“Fine,” I said smoothly.
Dr. Mercer hesitated, but after a few seconds, she said, “I’ll be in exam room two if you need me.”
The second she was gone, Knox’s voice dropped to something dangerous. “Start. Talking.”
I let out a breath. “I told you, I have it handled.”
“Tell me exactly what that piece of shit did to you.”
I hesitated. But there was no point in lying now. He’d seen the bruise. He knew.
“He showed up unexpectedly. At my place.” I kept my voice steady. Clinical. “When I told him to leave, when I made it clear that I never wanted to see him again, he—”
“He hit you.”
I nodded.
Knox went perfectly still. Not tense. Not coiled. Just … still. A complete absence of movement, like a predator the instant before it strikes.
When he spoke again, his voice was terrifyingly calm. “Give me his full name.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Yeah, that’s absolutely not happening.”
“I know his first name is Silas.”
Thank God he didn’t know the last name was Whitmore. That might’ve been the only thing standing between Silas and a very creative death.
“I have it handled, Knox. I called the police. I filed a report. I’m going to the station tomorrow to file for a restraining order. It’s handled.”
He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. Thinking. Planning. Running through scenarios I probably didn’t want to know about.
“If I ever see that piece of shit,” he said slowly, “I will crush his fucking windpipe and then rip it out of his body.”
I blinked. “That was … incredibly specific.”
“I’ve had time to think about it.”
“Good thing you’ll never see him,” I said.
Famous.
Last.
Words.