Chapter Eleven

Knox

Watching Rina walk away was confusing for me. There was this woman who I’d once known so well, but now barely knew at all.

She was definitely not the same girl I knew once upon a time.

It wasn’t just her name or her hair that had changed, either. It was everything.

Beside me, Bianca looked up expectantly. “Well?”

“I don’t know that woman,” I declared decidedly.

Snaking her arm through mine, she pointed her handbag ahead. “So do we stay for drinks or dinner?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Nah. I think I’m ready to turn in.”

“Then I’ll walk with you,” she responded and fell in step with me as we walked out of the restaurant.

It was funny—on the one hand there was Rina, a woman who’d changed drastically, who I didn’t even feel like I knew. She was my past, and yet I was drawn to her in the present. It was like I was a child and she was a hot stove, I just had to get close to see what it was all about. I blamed our shared history.

On the other hand, there was Bianca. Bianca was. . . she was forbidden fruit of the worst kind, that was what she was. So while she could be everything, she was also nothing.

Bianca’s purse vibrated. “Um, you’re vibrating,” I said, looking at it pointedly.

Laughing, she dropped my arm and pulled her phone out. “I swear, there’s a joke in there somewhere.” Then she answered it. “Hi, Daddy,” she said, and I felt my gut clench again.

My chest was rising and falling at a rapid pace and my heart was beating so fast I thought it could outrun the hare in a race with the tortoise.

Does Angelo know? I shook my head. How would that even be possible? I didn’t watch horror movies, but if I did, I was pretty sure this was a plot idea for one of them. “I’m always watching you. I have eyes and ears everywhere. Even when you think you’re alone, you never really are.”

“No, you caught me at just the right time. I just left the dinner I had arranged with Rina Levana. By the way, do you know who that is?” Bianca asked, and I let the rest of the conversation fade into background noise as we walked.

All I could see was Angelo’s face playing on loop in my mind’s eye as he forbade me from seeing Bianca again, from having contact of any kind with her. Angelo making me feel like an idiot, a user.

If none of that ever happened, where we would be right now?

Then I heard my name. “Yes, I’m with Knox.” Oh, God, don’t say my name. In fact, forget it when it comes to your father. “You remember him, don’t you? Could you imagine what a small world it is?” she asked her father over the phone and I knew then I’d just struck out.

It was officially game over.

“Yeah, I heard about that,” she said, and I expected he’d said something about us not being allowed to see each other. Then, as if confirming my suspicions, she responded to him, “You can’t forbid me from anything, Daddy. I’m a big girl.” She angled her head to look at me. Meanwhile, it looked like she had a dozen questions on the tip of her tongue, but voiced none of them. I had a question, too: why did having a relationship (of any kind) with Bianca mean I had to have one with her father? Because Bianca is a daddy’s girl and her father means everything to her, dumbass.

I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “Don’t fight with him,” I whispered, wanting to remind her of what she’d said earlier about forgiving and forgetting.

Outside my door now, I knew it would be so much easier if we parted ways here, but Bianca followed me in and made herself at home on my bed, still talking to Angelo. I thought about having Bianca on my bed a lot (hey, don’t judge, we were friends, but I wasn’t a blind monk), but never did I think this would be how it’d be—with her talking on the phone to her father. Yeah, just shoot me.

“No, I’m sorry. I’ll check back in for work soon, but my personal life is not your concern. Frankly, I’m a little annoyed that you got involved in it two years ago.” She was adamant. Respectful. But adamant as she said her piece.

I could only imagine what Angelo was saying on the other end of the line. Likely all the same stuff I’d heard in his office that day.

Keeping her composure, Bianca spoke with grace as she explained, “The fact that you think so little of me upsets me. I’m not the na?ve girl you think I am. It’s insulting, actually.”

Another pause.

She stood. “I don’t know. I didn’t know where you were coming from, Knox left that part out, but now that I do know, I think I need some time. This is a lot to process, and I’d rather not say anything I’ll regret later, so I’m going to hang up. I’ll email you anything you need to know from the rest of my time in Europe, but unless it’s work-related I don’t want to speak to you right now. Goodbye.”

Putting her phone down on my bed, she turned to me and licked her lips. Man, how I wondered what they tasted like.

Wrong time, buddy!

“Why didn’t you tell me? He thought I’d be so foolish to not see if someone was taking advantage of me. That you would take advantage of me.” She was pacing now, and I knew I had to tread lightly.

“Bianca, I—”

She brushed her hair back and exhaled. “How stupid do people think I am? Do you think I’m stupid? Because clearly my father does.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think you’re stupid, far from it, actually.” Then I sighed. “But earlier it didn’t feel right telling you why your father did what he did, that he thought I’d use you and you’d be gullible enough to fall for it.” I hated every word that was coming out of my mouth. But I wasn’t the one that had caused this, and as much as I didn’t want Bianca to be hurt, it seemed she already was, so there was no longer a good reason to hold back. “I couldn’t be the one to say those things to you. Honestly, I was hoping you’d never find out exactly what he said.”

Her eyes thin slits, she shot back, “Real nice, Knox. You wanted to keep me in the dark, too, like my dad.” She was speaking with her hands now, which she always did whenever she was fired up about something. “Why do the men in my life think they need to make decisions for me?”

This was spiraling out of control. I grabbed the back of my neck and hoped the words would come out right. “You have to understand, things were different back then. Two years ago I feared he might be right,” I told her, but it lingered in the air between us, almost as if it was a question instead of a statement. “What if I could’ve been that horrible?”

She shook her head as she kept moving, wearing out the carpet in my room. “I don’t think you have that in you. But you said you didn’t want me to know what he said to you. Why?”

“You and your dad have always been close, and you already lost your mom.” I paused to search for the best way to say it. “I didn’t want you to argue with your dad. That’s not you, Bianca. Remember, forgive and forget?”

She widened her eyes and pointed a finger at my chest, looking like she was ready for an all-out war. “This is different. I can forgive and forget a lot. But this, this. . . I mean, he doesn’t trust my judgment. That’s what this is all about.”

“He worries about you. You were right before—it came from a good place. He was trying to protect you. If I was in his shoes, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

Her facial expression softened, and she licked her lips, turning vulnerable for the first time through this whole exchange. “I hate that I’m always seen as the flighty one, the one who’s irresponsible with bad judgment.”

I put my hands on her shoulders to stop her from pacing. She relaxed almost immediately under my touch and I felt like a champion, like I just won big, knowing I could do that for her. My eyes met hers and for the first time since we connected again, it was like we were actually connecting , actually seeing each other. “I don’t see you that way. I see you as bold and passionate and smart.”

She rolled her eyes. “Try telling my dad that. He still sees me as this little girl who needs saving because she can’t help herself.”

I hated that. I hated that he couldn’t see the strong, tough as nails woman she had always been. My jaw felt so tense, it felt like it was made of stone. “Don’t let what people think, your father included, hold so much weight. You’re you and you shouldn’t want to be anyone else. I’ve always liked you for exactly who you are. And I’ve never thought you needed saving. If anything, you’d be the one to save everyone around you.”

Her eyes flashed and I knew she felt understood, like someone was taking the time to really see her. She should only know I had always seen her. It just wasn’t our time.

Bianca spoke up, saying, “Well, I see you as strong and determined and fierce for turning your whole life around. You’re an inspiration, Knox, not a villain.”

I zeroed in on her and dropped my hands from her, running a hand down my face, a humorless chuckle escaping me. “I left you. Walked away from you because of your father. That makes me the very definition of a villain.”

She blinked. “I disagree strongly.” She sighed and sat down on the bed, kicking her heels off before dropping her feet down to the plush carpet and standing again.

She had fire in her eyes, but this fire was aflame for something else. I begged this wasn’t just in my head and that she really wanted something else. Because, man, that was all I wanted. As she took a step closer, I knew we wanted the same thing.

I couldn’t deny it. Not anymore.

I mean, I felt like a ticking time bomb when I was around her. I couldn’t stop this wild need to be wrapped up in her.

I stepped closer, unable to escape the magnetism between us.

Closing the gap, she brought her hand to my cheek and stared into my eyes.

I turned my gaze to the floor and shook my head. This couldn’t happen. It didn’t matter how badly we wanted it. Angelo would never get over it and it would only hurt Bianca. And I’d rather slit my own wrist than see Bianca hurt in any way.

“Bianca,” I started, ready to make sure she really wanted to do this, but she shushed me with a finger on my lips like she knew what I was about to say and didn’t want to hear it. Well, guess what, I didn’t want to say it and my self-control when it came to Bianca was like a rubber band—bound to snap—so to hell with the consequences. To hell with it all. What Angelo didn’t know wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?

“Knox,” she breathed softly.

Her hot breath on me sent all the blood in my body south. I dropped my head and brought my hands to her face as my eyes traced her lips greedily, hungrily. I angled her head. I needed a taste of her, just one taste. I couldn’t keep resisting her. It was too hard.

Without those shoes of hers, she was short, and I found it impossibly cute. I could have stood here with her like this forever. My lips, a hair’s breadth away from hers, I could smell her sweetness. I moved to press my lips down on hers carefully, intending on taking it slow at first, driving her crazy with a brush of my lips over hers before taking her with more intensity. A rapping distracted me, though, and I froze.

Shaking it off, I blamed Angelo. It had to have been him—he was in my head.

Then Bianca’s hands found my shoulders and she pushed me back. Under a thick set of lashes, she looked up at me and said, “The door.”

“What?” I shook my head, not sure I was following her.

“Someone’s at the door.”

I turned around and Bianca stood up straighter and slipped her heels on again while I opened it.

For the second time today, I was completely shocked. Standing on the other side of the door was Rina.

“Knox, I had to see you. I got almost all the way to my hotel and I made the driver turn around.” She walked in like she owned the place. “I hope you—” Rina stopped abruptly when she came face to face with Bianca.

Could I be honest? I wasn’t sure whether these two were going to hug or throw it down right here in my hotel room. There was definitely something in the air between them.

When I saw Bianca’s face, though, I knew exactly what it was and it wasn’t good. I also knew Bianca was done, and I wanted to curse Rina for her terrible timing. “I should probably be going,” Bianca told me, then collected her stuff.

“Yeah.” I followed her to the door, my hand on the side of it.

“Call me in the morning. We can have breakfast.”

I nodded and with a final wink from her, Bianca left for her room.

As I closed the door, a certain redhead started talking again—“I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything; the front desk gave me your room number.”

I wonder what she had to say for them to do that.

“What do you want, Rina?” I asked, fearing what she’d say next.

Walking toward me, her hands out, she explained, “I had to see you again. If I’m being honest, Knox, I’ve missed you. Then for you to show up to my debut, it feels almost like you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“How much I’ve missed you. How much I’ve sacrificed. But don’t you see, I’ve made it! The media is going nuts for my designs. Tomorrow morning my designs will be everywhere, and I’ll be the talk of LFW.”

I shook my head and backed up, needing space between us again. “What about me, Rina?” I asked, anticipating that she was trying to suck me into her web again.

Furrowing her brows, a deep-V formed between her eyes. “I don’t understand. You’ve made it yourself. Look at you. You’re not desperate for work anymore, you have a job, a great job, you’re on your way to a promotion. You said so yourself,” she explained.

And that was all well and good and I remembered what I’d said, but I couldn’t understand her point. “So what?”

“You and I can be together, the way we always should’ve been. You’ve made it. I’ve made it.”

So she’d said—a few times. “I don’t know, Rina, a lot has changed.” Like two years worth.

“You’re seeing someone, if not Bianca?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Then we owe it to ourselves, don’t you think?” Then she walked up to me and did that thing she used to do, playing with the hair behind my ear, her lips finding my earlobe.

It would’ve been so easy to forget about the past, to pick up where we left off. But we hadn’t left off. Rina incinerated us. I had to keep that in mind.

I shook my head and pushed her off me. “Rina, stop. Today has been a lot for both of us.”

Backing up, she didn’t take her eyes off me. “I don’t care. I’m going to fight for you, Knox,” she said pointedly, and I wasn’t sure if I was terrified or touched.