14. Take a Hike
Take a Hike
Knox
I chuckled when Victoria’s eyes bulged from her head in shock.
“I’m sorry… what?”
I snatched off her bonnet that I was wearing just to fuck with her and motioned for her to join me on the other side of the fire. Seconds later, I held my island wife in my arms and buried my face in her neck.
“Her name was Naomi Lereaux.”
“Damn, Knox. She had one of those soap opera names. That should’ve told you everything you needed to know,” she said, pushing my face away.
“It should’ve,” I muttered. “But as you said, I was young, dumb, and in love.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirty-four.”
Victoria snorted. “You were old enough to know better.”
I shrugged. “I heard that men’s brains don’t fully develop until age 35.”
“It’s 25, and you know it.”
“I tried.”
“You did,” she replied, patting me sympathetically on the back of the hand.
“Her real name was Lucy McGill, and she originally hailed from some butt fuck town in Louisiana but claimed she was from New Orleans.”
“How did you two meet?”
I sighed. “My mother.”
“Oops. That explains why you keep your mother at arm’s length. It’s not her fault, Knox. Or was it? Was she in on the plan?”
I shook my head. “No, she wasn’t in on Naomi’s plan.” I sighed again.
“You don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to,” Victoria said reassuringly, picking up on how difficult it was for me to get the words out.
“No, I’m fine. Naomi targeted me specifically. I was a young, rich bachelor making a splash in the industry at the time. I was on the cover of Forbes and Entrepreneur for the successful launch of our company. I was giving interview after interview on various talk shows—my face was everywhere.”
“Oh, my God,” Victoria moaned, covering her face with her hands.
“What?”
“I was nine then, and now I remember seeing you on the news.”
“Fate is so fickle. You were a child and didn’t know you were watching your future husband on TV.”
“I don’t care what you say, Naomi’s innocent. You set her up.”
I laughed. “Would it kill you to be on my side for just once?”
“I’m always on your side, Knox. I’ve done shit for you that you don’t even know about.”
“Like what?” I pressed.
“Hmmmm. Do you recall that board meeting when Mr. Forsythe was chewing your ass out and had to call an end to the meeting early?”
“I had a migraine for two days because of that spiteful bastard,” I hissed.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t like how he was disrespecting you, so I doused his coffee with laxatives every time I fixed it.”
“That is the kind of commitment that gets you raises.”
“I also didn’t like how he called me ‘gal,’ so Mr. Forsythe was getting got regardless.”
“Victoria, I want you to know that you always held me down, and we were always meant to—stop hitting me!” I laughed when she stormed away to our home away from home. I doused the fire and followed after her. “You have to admit it was a little funny,” I teased, crawling into the hut with her.
“It was hilarious, Knox Desmond Ramsey,” she drawled. I couldn’t see it, but I knew she rolled her eyes. “Hurry up and tell me how this woman almost killed your ass so I can go to bed.”
“Death by stapler.”
“Really?” she asked skeptically.
“No, she hired a professional hitman.”
“For real?” she asked, yawning that time around. I only had five minutes until she passed out. I had to make this quick.
“Long story short, Naomi Lereaux was a black widow. I would’ve been her fourth husband that she killed.”
“That’s wild,” Victoria whispered, snuggling closer to me.
“Indeed. With each victim, she had a new identity with a different backstory. She stalked her victims extensively.”
“How extensively?”
“She stalked me and my mother for a little over a year before she initiated her plan.”
“A year? She was committed.”
“And meticulous. She had my mother’s schedule memorized and knew everything about her and her hobbies.
She knew my mother’s favorite cafe, which she frequented and visited every Thursday for a coffee and a chocolate croissant.
She knew that my mother enjoyed volunteering at the local animal shelter on the weekends and that she played bridge at the country club on Tuesdays with her friends.
It was easy for her to “randomly” meet my mother and strike up a conversation with her.
“My mother believed they had so much in common and that she’d made a new friend.
I’d have Sunday dinner with my mother, and she’d be so chatty about her new friend Naomi, who was around my age, single, and into traveling.
I was dismissive because my mother had a nasty habit of always trying to hook me up with someone.
She decided to take matters into her own hands and invited Naomi for Sunday night dinner one evening.
And I was a fucking goner as soon as I met her.
She was gorgeous, brilliant, humorous, and I loved watching her interact with my mother and how happy she made her. ”
“Get to the good part where she tried to kill you,” Victoria mumbled sleepily.
“Be patient. I’m getting there,” I replied, covering us with a blanket.
“Six months later, I was engaged to my at-the-time love of my life and looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together. I came home early one day, hoping to surprise her with flowers and her favorite chocolates from a downtown chocolatier. I stopped outside the bedroom when I heard her on the phone. I wasn’t one to eavesdrop—”
“You’re a damn lie about that eavesdropping, but please continue.”
“As I was saying, I wasn’t one to eavesdrop, but she sounded distressed—enraged.
She spoke in a tone I’d never heard her use before—a tone I never thought she was capable of.
It was dark and sinister—a far cry from her soft, wispy voice.
Then I overheard her finalizing her plans with the hitman for my demise. ”
“How did she plan on having you taken out?”
“She knew I was a fan of hiking, and that was one of the only hobbies we didn’t share.”
“Let me guess. For the honeymoon, she wanted to go somewhere where you could hike while she stayed behind at your hotel or residence. The hitman would push you off a cliff, and later, she’d be frantically calling the authorities to report that her husband went hiking and never returned.
They’d find your mangled body at the bottom, and Mrs. Naomi Ramsey would be a very wealthy woman. ”
“It’s almost as if you planned my expiration with her.”
“I’m not that creative or patient.”
“I know. Your PowerPoints aren’t the most eye-catching.”
“Fuck you. My PowerPoints are the shit.”
“I agree. They’re shit.” I continued my story before she could argue.
“I contacted the authorities, informed them of what I overheard, and hired a private investigator. A few weeks later, Naomi was arrested, and I was heavily abusing alcohol to try to mend a broken heart. Despite what you may believe, I don’t have mommy issues.
My mother took the news harshly. She blamed herself for introducing me to Naomi.
I tried to explain to her that Naomi would’ve found a way to get near me whether she introduced her to me or not, but…
my mother had always been the self-deprecating type.
Naomi’s betrayal spiraled her into a deep depression.
Eventually, she snapped out of it, but I know she still feels guilty for being unable to see through Naomi’s carefully constructed plot.
After all these years, she still won’t let the shit go. ”
“Did you swear off love after Naomi?”
“For a long time, I did. I knew my situation wasn’t typical, but I was all in, you know?”
“Did you change your stance on love?”
“I did. Last year, I interviewed a young woman for the executive assistant position. I told myself, this woman will stab me in the face instead of the back.”
“I don’t even have anything to say to that. Goodnight, Knox.”
I chuckled and pulled her closer to me. “Goodnight, Victoria.”
A few minutes had passed of me rubbing her hip and ass when I felt the need to address something with her.
“Victoria?”
“What’s good, Knox?”
“I-I can give you the house on the hill, the luxury cars, and the trips around the world,” I said softly as we lay beside each other.
“I don’t want those things anymore,” she whispered in the dark. “Why would I want that when I have a condo with a million-dollar view?”