22. Knight
Chapter Twenty-Two
KNIGHT
Ikept her busy for almost two weeks of bedrest. It wasn’t difficult because her interests were written on the walls of my apartment.
I’d expected Charles to put up a few prints instead of originals, but instead I got the apartment pulled from her deepest psyche.
It wasn’t playing fair, but I hadn’t asked Charles to seduce her through décor.
And now I had her in my house. Curled up by the fireplace in her socks with a cup of tea specially blended for pregnant women.
My wife. Not my wife, but it was so fun playing house with her.
Besides the fact that she was my eternal obsession, she was the best roommate anyone could ever ask for.
She kept trying to cook and clean things, and I’d have to scoop her up and carry her to the couch where she could relax with her engine or a crossword puzzle.
We played scrabble every night after work, and she’d ask me about the team, and I’d tell her, and I’d ask her about the talks she was in with the engine manufacturer, and she’d tell me, like he hadn’t given me an in-depth report from his side.
It was my company and they would create whatever she wanted. She didn’t know the power she had.
It made being ridiculously wealthy almost useful.
Of course, she didn’t know what she wanted was law.
She was just having interesting discussions with engineers who could debate the minutiae of engines for days.
And then we’d talk about it, and I’d have intelligent things to say because I’d already read the reports.
On the first day in my apartment, she had Ron from Nix’s team bring an engine she was going to overhaul. Most of it was on the large steel kitchen table, the one that was made for rebuilding, and the rest of it was in the living room.
My real job was to keep putting her feet up on the chair, because she liked to wrestle engines with her whole body. It took serious discipline to remind her to put her feet up instead of just staring at her and basking in her gloriousness.
In the last week, she’d accepted that I was going to put up her feet, so she’d started telling me what to do, watching me so closely and in a way that felt not entirely indifferent.
She liked watching me wrestle engines, and maybe she liked me a little too.
Not the real me, obviously, and I tried to keep the real Horse to a minimum, only asking her to go maternity shopping with me every other day, and never buying her every tire she eyed for longer than two seconds.
I didn’t stay in the apartment all day every day staring at her, but I went in to work, doing my business, and running the crew, training harder than usual because I needed to keep my mind off my wife. Not my wife.
I was in the ring with Jerome, focused, hitting hard, because otherwise, I’d be running back to my apartment to put up my wife’s feet and wrestle her engines for her.
Not my wife. Maybe rub her calves. Sometimes they cramped, and she had to rub them.
At some point, it would be difficult with her cute baby belly in the way, and so I’d have no choice but to do it for her. Tough life.
Jerome almost hit me, but I ducked and pounded his side too hard before I fell back, mitts up.
“Sorry.”
He glowered at me. Did he actually eat people’s fingers? That was probably just gossip. “You’re spoiling for a fight. Is it an ex? Do you need me to pick someone up for you? I could rough him up first. Soften him up before you have your fun.”
I slapped his shoulder and ducked under the ropes.
“No, but thanks for the offer. It’s the maternity clothes thing.
She thinks I’m joking. Have you seen the new maternity styles?
They’re so cute! Like those crop tops that show the belly.
They would look so adorable on Trixie. And then there’s that whole leather and lace babydoll thing, which she would pull off so hard, but is it really her style?
She won’t even let me talk her into it because she thinks I’m joking.
” I sighed heavily and grinned at him. “It’s a rough situation. ”
He grunted and almost smiled. He knew that I was unhinged, but it didn’t bother him any more than it bothered me.
When I checked my phone, I saw that Charles had left a message.
Trevor and Roger are terrorizing the guests in your gentlemen’s club.
I’d said that I owed them a favor. This was probably them calling me out on it.
I showered, put on a suit I hadn’t worn in almost two weeks and headed for the hotel.
I’d get changed in my office into normal brawler clothes, jeans and t-shirts that weren’t uptight before I headed upstairs to my wife.
Not my wife. Housemate. Mate. Roomie. Not that we shared a room.
Her room was blue, from pale to dusky sea, and the art she had on the walls was all sunset photography prints done by a friend of hers, or Minx’s, or someone she knew who could use the cash. Of course, they were.
I liked the orange sunsets above the blue bed, Trixie curled up under the blanket nibbling on crackers while her riotous curls fell over her face, shoulders bare except for straps of her tank top. She looked so undone. At home. Mine.
But two weeks had gone by too quickly, and I hadn’t made any progress on The Bone or Carmichael. The family had been quiet; the son, Richard, who needed at least a broken arm, was working in his father’s office, surrounded by bodyguards, not doing anything interesting.
I needed to find something I could pin on him—his father, his company—but so far everything looked squeaky clean except for that one payment to The Bone.
I straightened my tie and then climbed into my car, a deep blue Ferrari with buttery seats and an engine that would make my wife’s eyes glow.
Not my wife. I should text my not-wife and see what she wanted for dinner.
I’d pick something up on the way home. Or have someone deliver something while I was dealing with the unstable duo.
Roger was sadistic, and Trevor was incoherent.
But somehow they were still amazingly competent.
I found them alone in the gentlemen’s club, at the bar, throwing knives at the wall. Of course they were. And now I’d have to get the wall patched. Or Pensky would. He would sneer. Then again, he loved sneering.
I threw my arms over each of their shoulders, pulling them close. “You’re putting holes in my walls. Shall I put holes in you?”
“My brother thanks you for the Turner. It looks magnificent above the fireplace,” Roger said, flashing me a diabolical smile that was still absolutely beatific. He was the prettiest man alive, and the most sadistic. By far.
I took a moment to consider. “So I traded the painting for…”
“Trevor’s redecoration. It’s good, right? He pulled it out of your wife’s psyche.”
Trevor laughed and squeezed my waist. “Did you see the twisted engine? She loves that thing. I mean, in the future. Or maybe it’s the past. Or maybe it’s an alternate reality.
” He slipped away from me and rolled over the bar, landing awkwardly, then proceeded to find a fine bottle of brandy and poured drinks for all of us.
I took the glass and swirled it without looking directly at Trevor.
He was delicate, always had been, but after his fiancé committed suicide, he was shattered.
He was lucky to have a friend like Roger who liked shattered people and wouldn’t ever abandon you, even if you wished he would because he was so sadistic.
“What did you do with the rest of my furniture?”
Roger sipped his brandy and studied me with his aqua eyes beneath the sweep of perfectly black hair.
“It doesn’t matter. I left your bedroom alone.
For the record, that is one weird room. Now it matches the rest of the place.
I particularly liked the dining room after we were done with it.
Why did you have that particular photo on your favorites?
Never mind. I know why.” He wiggled his perfectly sculpted brows at me.
I growled at him. “Yes, everyone knows why.” Because the photo showed the most beautiful woman in the world looking at me.
“She doesn’t. She thinks it has something to do with fighting technique,” Trevor said, pouring more brandy.
His hair was dirty blonde, neither light nor dark, like his eyes, like the rest of him, born to blend in while his friend was born to stand out.
“But it’s one of the few photos where she’s looking at you like she’s hungry. ”
He didn’t mean hungry for me. I absolutely could not think that she wanted me. Except that the kiss in the elevator… I cleared my throat. “She’s hungry a lot. Because she’s pregnant. Anyway, I make it a point not to have photos of her.” But it was a favorite because she was in it.
“How are you doing finding the kidnapper?” Roger said, ignoring my blatant manipulation of ethics. He didn’t care if I stalked her, if I had a million photos of her toes and made Christmas decorations out of those pics. He cared about not being bored. He was here because he was bored.
Well, I could use their help to find a weakness in the Carmichael family.
I wanted to deal with it personally, but I had to make sure Trix kept her feet up.
Maybe I hadn’t been pursuing the Carmichael thing as vigorously as I could because if I didn’t take care of the threat, she’d stay with me.
I was almost certain that it wouldn’t be ethical to lie about it, to leave her in a state of fear and anxiety when the threat had been taken care of.
She was secure where she was, and I didn’t want her to leave.
But I needed to do something about Carmichael. She trusted me to do something.
“Richard Carmichael the Fourth,” I finally said, picking up my brandy and giving Trevor a smile. “You chose my most expensive liquor. You have a gift.”