Chapter 17 A Fucking Tease
I hired a contractor to handle the necessary repairs and small renovations. New locks. Reinforced doors. Updated wiring. Security pre-installation for the system Knox’s team would later upgrade. I wanted the house solid before I ever slept there.
They estimated about a month before it would be ready.
In the evenings after work, I chose furniture online.
A neutral sofa. A solid dining table. A bed.
Bookshelves. Lamps. Curtains. Practical things first. Beautiful ones second.
I scheduled delivery for the week the house would be finished and arranged for everything to be assembled once the keys were in my hand.
On another front, the Leo situation slowly began to fade.
New scandals replaced it. A pop star’s divorce. A leaked contract. A politician caught lying. The internet moved on.
Leo made no further statements about me. No interviews. No public gestures. For a while his name still trended under old clips, but even that cooled.
I didn’t know if he had simply given up or if Knox had spoken to him. No one told me, and I didn’t ask.
All I knew was that my name stopped appearing next to his. And the internet was starting to lose interest in me.
Apple, meanwhile, had been out of the psychiatric hold for a week and had gone completely silent. No posts. No stories. No vague quotes, no victim monologues, no TikToks, no late-night lives. Nothing.
Which was worse.
Apple never went quiet unless she was planning something. I found myself checking her social accounts and her phone, waiting for the next explosion. Instead there was only stillness, the kind that settles before something ugly happens.
You don’t expect a dog not to bark.
And I knew Apple too well to trust the silence.
That afternoon I spoke with Detective Harris.
“Ms. Richards did not appear for her voluntary interview,” he told me.
“So she just didn’t show up?”
“That’s correct. Her attorney requested a new date.”
“And if she doesn’t show up again?”
“If she fails to appear again, we will proceed without her statement.”
“And that means?”
“If the evidence holds, charges will be filed. She will be detained.”
Apple had never been good at consequences. She always believed she could outtalk them, outcry them, out-victim them.
We ended the call shortly after, and I went back to work.
Knox had been short with me all day. He interrupted me twice before lunch. Once to ask for an analysis he had originally said he wanted next week, and again to question a projection model I had already sent him the night before.
“Redo it,” he said.
“I already ran three scenarios.”
“Run five. I want tighter margins.”
I stared at my screen after he walked away. I had no idea what I had done.
By late afternoon he asked for another report, one he had never mentioned before. Urgent. End of day. When I brought it to his office, he barely looked up.
“Leave it,” he said, already turning back to his laptop.
No thank you. No acknowledgment. Just tension.
By the end of the workday I felt like I was walking through a minefield, every interaction carrying an edge.
That evening Amy and I had our self-defense lesson with Liam. We met at the gym he rented once a week, a small private studio with padded floors and mirrors along one wall. Liam was already there when we arrived, hauling thick training mats out of the storage room.
“You look tired,” Amy said.
“Is that a nice way of saying I look like shit?” I countered.
She snorted. “It is.”
“Warm up,” Liam said. “I’ll be right back.”
The moment he disappeared into the hallway, Amy glanced at me. “What’s going on with you?”
I rolled my shoulders and started slow stretches. “I think Knox is mad at me.”
“Like regular mad or emotionally constipated billionaire mad?”
“The second one. He’s snapping, piling work on me, acting like I did something wrong.”
Amy frowned. “Did you?”
“No.”
She studied my face. “Did you maybe not do something?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted.
“Maybe he doesn’t know what to do with his feelings.”
Before I could reply, Liam came back. “Talking about me?”
“Always,” Amy said.
“Alright,” Liam said. “Tonight we’re working on ground escapes.”
Amy shot me a look as she moved into position. “We’ll dissect your emotionally repressed boss later. Right now, focus on not getting stabbed.”
For the next hour Liam made sure we were too busy falling onto mats to think about anything else.
It didn’t help.
Knox’s mood was no better the next day.
By lunch I desperately needed caffeine, so I escaped to the break room and started the coffee machine. The small container of cream slipped from my fingers and rolled under the table.
I bent down to retrieve it.
“Holy mother of God.”
The voice came out of nowhere.
I jerked upright too fast and cracked my head against the underside of the counter with a loud bang.
“Ow.”
“Shit! Are you okay?” someone said immediately. Hands reached for me, steadying my arm. “I am so sorry. I did not mean to scare you.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered, rubbing the top of my head. “You just startled me.”
Then I looked up.
Crystal-clear blue eyes. Blond hair falling onto his forehead. Smile lines creasing his face like he laughed often.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Jonah.”
He offered a hand to help me up.
I took it.
Before I could say anything else, a familiar voice cut in behind me.
“What the hell is going on here?”
I pulled my hand back and turned.
Knox stood in the doorway, hands on his hips. A muscle jumped in his jaw. The vein in his neck twitched.
Jonah straightened immediately. “My fault,” he said easily. “I walked in and surprised her. She knocked her head under the desk. I was just helping her up.”
He stepped past me and went right up to Knox, clapping him on the shoulder like they were old friends.
“I was actually coming to see if you wanted to grab lunch.”
Knox’s eyes flicked to me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked sharply.
“I was getting coffee,” I said, blinking at him.
Jonah frowned slightly. “Did I walk into something?”
Knox finally turned on him. “I don’t appreciate you coming down here and flirting with my employees.”
Jonah laughed. “Flirting? I was apologizing for nearly giving her a concussion.”
He looked at me and gave an exaggerated wink.
Knox’s expression darkened instantly.
“Come,” he growled to Jonah, already turning toward his office.
Jonah lifted both hands. “Alright, alright. Touchy today.”
He left about ten minutes later.
An hour after that, Knox appeared at my desk.
“I need a revised risk exposure model for the South Ridge deal. Today.”
I turned in my chair and crossed my legs, not missing the way his gaze dipped briefly before snapping back to my face.
I checked the time on my screen. Three hours left in the workday. Not nearly enough.
“I’ll have to stay late,” I said.
“Is that a problem?” he challenged.
My fingers tightened around the armrest of my chair as I looked up at him. “No,” I said evenly.
His mismatched eyes held mine a second longer than necessary. “Good.”
It was already nine in the evening when I finally sent him the South Ridge report.
The floor was silent. Everyone had left for the weekend hours ago. Even Titan had gone home at seven. The lights had dimmed to after-hours mode, the city glowing faintly through the windows.
Just Knox and me.
I had just shut down my computer and started packing my bag when his office door opened.
“I need to see you in my office. Now.”
He turned away immediately, not waiting for an answer.
“Fantastic,” I muttered, straightening my dress before walking in.
He was sitting behind his desk, arms crossed, eyes dark and unreadable.
“Come here,” he said. “Show me where your model accounts for the zoning shift.”
I walked around the desk and stopped beside his chair.
“It’s here,” I said, pointing at the screen.
“I don’t see it.”
I leaned closer to the screen. “There.”
“Show me.”
I braced one hand on the back of his chair and leaned forward to reach for the mouse. As I did, my breasts brushed his arm. I clicked into the chart.
“This variable compensates for—”
His hands tightened on the armrests.
The air shifted.
I felt the moment he noticed. The subtle change in his breathing. The way his body went still beneath me.
I adjusted my grip on the mouse and leaned a fraction closer, slow enough that it couldn’t be mistaken for clumsiness.
The space between us seemed to hum. I was suddenly aware of everything: the warmth of his shoulder, the faint scent of his cologne, the tension coiled in the line of his body.
“This adjustment reduces exposure if zoning approval is delayed,” I said, forcing my voice to stay professional even as my pulse picked up.
He turned his head slightly.
Our faces were only inches apart.
“You do this on purpose,” he said, his voice rough.
A small spark ran up my spine.
“Doing what?” I asked, tilting my head.
“You walk around here like a fucking tease.”
“You asked me to come here.”
His jaw flexed.
“Don’t play dumb. Every time I turn my back, there’s another man. Do you enjoy it? Do you need every man wanting to fuck you?”
“I don’t need anyone,” I said.
“You think you’re in control,” he continued. “Walking around like you don’t know exactly what you’re doing to me.”
My pulse slammed against my ribs.
“You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“Then stop pretending you don’t want to play,” I said quietly.
He stood so suddenly I barely had time to react. The movement trapped me between his body and the desk.
There was nothing polished about him now. No restraint. The man leaning over me felt stripped down to something raw. For a brief second I saw straight through the controlled exterior into something darker. Hungrier. Primitive.
“We both know this is what you want,” he said, his voice low with heat. “You’ve been pushing for it. So I’m going to take what you’re offering.”
My last clear thought was oh fuck before he grabbed me and crushed his mouth into mine.
The kiss was rough and immediate, weeks of tension breaking loose all at once. His hands moved without hesitation, pulling me closer as the edge of the desk pressed into the backs of my thighs and he crowded between them, leaving nowhere to go. Pinning me in place.
“I’m going to have you,” he murmured against my mouth. “Tell me you want it.”
“I want it.”