23. Knox #2
Weeks have gone by and all I’ve been able to think about is that moment in his room.
Her moan has followed me into board meetings.
The feel of her hips in my palms runs through my mind when I’m sitting at my father’s dinner table, nodding along to conversations I’ve stopped caring about.
In the shower, or in bed, even half asleep, it’s the memory of her cunt dripping for me when I fuck my fist.
I’ve been shrugging Ella off all week, avoiding her calls, telling her I’m backed up at work, which isn’t a lie, but I can’t fucking look at her when all I can think about is Sawyer.
Screw Moretti and his demands. Sawyer’s been on my mind for years, but now, since the funeral, the floodgate has opened and there’s no pushing the water back inside.
Problem is, I can’t avoid Ella altogether. This deal with the Moretti’s and my father needs to get locked in. Once that shit’s settled, then I can let her down easy. That can’t come soon enough.
Every day it’s in the air is another day I’m lying to two women instead of just one. I may be a grade-A piece of shit, but this is wearing on me.
“Well?” she presses. I guess I’ve been quiet for longer than I realized.
“Sorry, what?”
“You could have texted me. It’s not that complicated…Just pick up the phone, click my name, type a simple message.”
God, she’s such a smart ass.
I tilt my chin toward her left hand. “I see you took it off.”
“Your vision clearly works. Can’t use that excuse for not texting.”
“My vision works just fine.” I hold eye contact with her for a few breaths, ignoring how it makes my chest ache and cock twitch. Then I glance back down to her bare finger, not even an indent from the ring, and smirk. “Just making an observation.”
“Well, go observe something else.”
“When did you take it off?”
She picks up her drink. “That’s none of your business.”
I move to the stool directly beside her, and speak low. “Humor me, Thorne.”
She swallows hard, setting her glass down with more force than necessary. “The night of the funeral…after the texts.”
I take a long sip of my beer so I don’t say something that’ll get me into trouble, but I can’t help the satisfied smirk that breaks out across my face.
“Don’t,” she grumbles.
“What? I didn’t say shit.”
“You were about to.”
“You don’t know what I was about to say.”
“I know that expression. You were going to make it mean something and it doesn’t. I just…It felt wrong to keep wearing it. That’s all.”
“Okay.”
“That’s all it was.”
“Okay, Sawyer.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Stop saying okay like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re so fucking smart.”
“I don’t know anything.” I drain the last of my beer and set it down, leaning in so only she can hear me. “I just think it’s interesting that the night you took it off is the same night you let me finger fuck you in my brother’s bed.”
That beautiful pink flush travels down to her chest. I can’t help it, I reach out and run my thumb from her earlobe, down the slope of her neck, until I skim over the thin strap on her shoulder.
Her sharp intake of breath is my own personal opus.
“And I think,” I continue, holding her gaze, “that it doesn’t mean nothing…
but whatever you need to tell yourself.”
She opens her mouth to reply, then closes it, and looks back at the bar.
“Buy me another drink.”
That’s something I can handle. I flag the bartender down. “Whatever she wants is on me.”
She holds up her nearly empty glass. “I’ll take another vodka cranberry.”
“Going with the hard shit,” I say. “Not like you.”
“Yeah, well.” She pauses, clearly waffling on whether to open up or not. I stay quiet, waiting as patiently as I can, and finally she continues. “I went back to work and it’s been…not great.”
The bartender replaces her empty glass with a full one and gives me another beer, which I didn’t ask for, but fuck it.
“Who do I have to kill?”
She shakes her head. “No one and I stand by my claim that you’re fucking nuts.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened, it was just...” She wraps both hands around her fresh glass, staring into it.
“Everyone has been so nice. And I know this sounds insane, but it’s worse somehow.
Every shift someone new pulls me aside, squeezing my shoulder, looking at me with these sad eyes like I’m made of porcelain.
Like I’ll lose my shit at the drop of a hat.
Melissa from reservations cried when she saw me. Cried. I had to comfort her.”
“Jesus.”
“And then this regional manager came in, someone I’d never even met.
He sat me down before I clocked in and said I could take more time, as much as I needed, and I could tell he meant it.
Like the actual care in his voice, and…” She stops and takes a sip.
“I don’t know. I kind of wanted to scream.
I don’t want more time. I want to come in, do my job, go home, and not think about the accident for eight consecutive hours. Is that so much to ask?”
“Apparently it is,” I say, gripping my beer bottle to stop my hands from pulling her into me.
“Then on Wednesday, a reporter showed up at the hotel. He asked the front desk to let me know he was there and waited around all morning. Thankfully, I had an afternoon shift, but like what does he think? I’d just come out and do an interview between check-ins?”
“Was he gone when you got there?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I’ve been going in and out through the back exits just in case, though. It has to die down soon, right?”
“I’d think, but not much happens in Ashford, so who knows?”
Her shoulders slump and she downs half her glass. “Yeah. Or in Lake Mercer. Their top stories over the years have been racoon family steals beach towels or man wins pie eating contest.”
She lets out a low laugh at her joke but I don’t, this isn’t a matter to be shrugged off.
“You should have called me.” Her eyes say everything her lips don’t—what the hell for? “I’m serious. They’re harassing you.”
“It’s fine, Knox. He left and I haven’t seen him again.
He’s not even the worst of it. The lawyers are.
I’ve had four different firms contact me this week.
Personal injury, wrongful death, one guy who apparently specializes in theme park litigation, which I didn’t even know was a thing.
They all want to represent me against Wonder World.
They’re…persistant. Convinced I’m sitting on a goldmine. ”
“I mean, they’re not wrong.”
She taps her fingers on the bar. “I don’t want their money. I don’t want any of it. I just want it to go back to how it was. Before all of it.”
“Before the accident?” I ask.