Chapter Four

Knox

a few months later

“Do you want to order takeout?” I asked as I walked into the apartment, expecting Rina to say yes and offer to place the order while I showered since she’d already been home for a while (she texted and told me—we were cool like that and kept tabs on one another).

It was true that I no longer smelled like raw meat when I came home from work. I mean, I worked a desk job at Bellissima , so I need say no more. But I found that taking a shower when I came from a long day at work—meat smell or not—would stick with me regardless of the job.

Before I could get any further, though, I found Rina sitting on the edge of the small, orange, thrifted couch we picked when we moved in, suitcases beside her.

She opened her mouth to speak, but then shut it. She looked around and then back at me again. What was she having trouble spitting out? It wasn’t brain surgery to realize that she was leaving, but to go where and why?

“What’s going on?” I asked, fully comprehending what people meant when they said they wished they could pull the words out of someone.

This was almost as bad as sitting in a hospital waiting room, anticipating what the doctor was going to tell you.

Except this time I already knew the prognosis and couldn’t make sense of it.

Rina was leaving, but besides that I was filled with questions.

Wringing her hands, she looked at me nervously, the corners of her lips curling up and then down. She swallowed and went to speak again, and I was all ears.

* * *

Rina

I don’t want you to come with me.

I don’t want you to come with me.

The words were fine playing on repeat in my head, but when it came to actually getting them out, I couldn’t seem to. It was like my tongue was tied and I physically couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t like I could have prepared myself, either. How could I have? It turned out, it wasn’t easy telling the one person who had stood by you from the very beginning when your life was a shit show, hey, I’m leaving, and I don’t want you to come with me, so please don’t even ask.

I guessed there was really no easy way to say it, so I’d just do it.

* * *

Knox

“Knox,” she started and stood, “I’m sorry, but I’m breaking up with you and I’m leaving.”

Way to state the obvious.

Shaking my head, I tried to read between the lines, but I couldn’t even find the lines. She hadn’t really said anything, just stated the obvious. “Wh—”

Bringing her fingers to my lips, she held them there and searched my eyes. “I need to leave. I have a real chance thanks to Regina. There’s a designer I’ve been talking to.” I knew that. What did that have to do with breaking up with me? “He wants me to go to Barcelona to work with him. I’m going to be his protégé, he says. Do you know what kind of opportunity this is?” Yeah, but still not following on the whole us splitting up thing. She let her finger glide down my lips, then my chin before she let it fall off completely and she stepped back and swept her hair to one side.

“I don’t, because all you told me was that you were talking to a designer. That doesn’t mean shit to me. You never told me to what extent.” If it was harsh, oh well, because it was the truth. I ran a hand over my face, trying to absorb this. Rina was breaking up with me to go to Barcelona.

“It’s new, but I promised myself I’d do whatever I had to do. So there’s really no thinking about it. I’m sorry, I hope you understand.”

Understand? No, I understood that Mondays came around eventually. I understood that I should get a flu vaccine annually. I understood that I had to pay taxes. I understood a lot of things, but this, this was not one of those things.

Silence was all that was left between us.

I had no words left to say. Nothing left to give.

I was done. I moved to New York, got a job at a butcher shop, lived in a cramped apartment all for her. For her. For Rina Blum. For the woman I was in love with and would do anything for.

But this woman standing before me was not that woman. Not anymore. She didn’t show a bit of emotion about ending things. Anyone else would have shed tears, but Rina didn’t shed one single tear. She didn’t even look sad about it.

So no, I didn’t understand this. Frankly, it felt a little callous, a little cruel, a little selfish, and a lot unnecessary.

Rina knew me and she knew I would have gone anywhere with her. And if she didn’t want me to go, I would have done the long distance thing.

Long distance—did she even think about that?

* * *

Rina

Ugh, he was staring at me like I was some villain. I was not a villain. I was a woman with ambitions and wasn’t going to let some man get in my way.

This was the whole reason I was in New York, the reason I left Minnesota, so I could give myself a fresh start and a real shot at becoming the person I wanted to be.

I was sick and tired of seeing everyone else live out their dreams while I was stuck, quite literally, in a disgusting apartment with little to no money and no way out.

I had been given a way out.

And no way was I not taking it.

But I couldn’t take my past with me. Knox was like deadweight and I needed him off my back.

I needed to do this on my own and make a fresh start for myself, which meant Knox needed to stay in my past.

Knowing all of this, though, didn’t make it any easier to end things with him. Knox had to know that. I did still love him, I just couldn’t let my love for him stop me from what was really important—moving forward. And sometimes that meant moving on.

* * *

Knox

“Rina, we could do long distance,” I tried. Maybe it was stupid, but I had to. I had a history with this woman; we dated all through high school and college; we moved out here together. If I didn’t at least bring it up, I knew I’d regret it. And if she was going to leave like this and I was going to let her, then I didn’t want any regrets. I wanted to be able to move on the same way she so clearly was.

But as expected, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. I’m about to start a whole new life, Knox, the life I’ve always dreamed of having. I want to start it without any baggage, completely fresh. I owe it to myself.”

I’m baggage? This conversation just kept getting better and better. Was this how all breakups went or was mine the worst one yet? They could always make a sitcom out of our relationship and then our breakup from the pits of hell. It would make a killing, what with all the people who would pay to watch this train wreck, so at least that was something, right?

They could sell it to the public with the tagline: The Idiot Boyfriend Who Moved Out to New York to Watch His Girlfriend Soar Was Dumped Because He’s Baggage .

“What about me?” I asked out of curiosity. Did she even think about me in any of this?

She shrugged, out of answers, and picked up the handle of her large suitcase. “I’m sorry, I really am.” Then she had the gall to ask, “Don’t you want this for me?”

Of course I wanted this for her. I wanted to see her happy. She couldn’t have been serious when she asked me that question.

It just so happened that, in this moment, I also wanted to put my fist through a wall to stop myself from breaking down completely. But I wasn’t going to show any emotion. I was going to be just as dead as she was.

It killed me that she looked stone-cold, like she felt no remorse. After all this time.

I knew becoming a fashion designer was the most important thing in the world to her, but I’d never expected it could possibly come at the expense of us .

* * *

Rina

I wasn’t going to keep apologizing for seeing to it that my dreams came true.

And shedding tears, getting emotional was pointless. Did you cry over the past? No, because it was in the past. It didn’t matter that Knox was standing in front of me. For all intents and purposes he was in my rearview mirror.

Knox would get over it; he would get over me.

And, in time, I would fall out of love with him, too.

We’d be nothing more than a distant memory to one another.

Some people were meant to be, and others were meant to be nothing more than someone they once knew on their way to happily ever after.

It turned out Knox was the latter for me.

I needed to look at the big picture, which was that I could be someone.

Not just Rina Blum from Minnesota, but a famous designer.

Dreams didn’t just come true—people worked hard to make them happen, and that was what I was doing.

He may have seen me as the bad guy, but that was something I’d have to live with, because I knew I was doing the right thing for me.

* * *

Knox

Unfortunately, something told me this moment would be forever emblazoned in my memory, so I didn’t need it to last longer than it needed to. Rina was physically here, but emotionally she was gone. I saw no point in prolonging the inevitable. She wanted to leave, had her bags packed and was ready to go, so she should do that. She should go.

“Bye, Rina,” I said, taking a page out of my mother’s book and setting her free. Those were the only words she’d wanted to hear from me anyway.

I picked up my keys from the fishbowl where I’d dropped them when I walked in and put my hand on the doorknob. She was leaving and we were over, but that didn’t mean I needed to stick around to watch her walk out on me.

“I transferred the lease into your name. If you need to reach me, call my parents. They’ll be able to get in touch with me in Spain.”

Nodding, I opened the door. “Have a nice life,” I said and walked out, expecting to never see or hear from Rina Blum again.

* * *

a few months later

Bianca laughed, tossing her head back as she did, her loose brown waves cascading down her back. Her tongue darted out to wet her top lip and there went my ability to function properly, all coherent thoughts escaping my mind. What would it be like if that was my tongue wetting her lip?

Woah, where’d that thought come from, Knox?

As we walked back to the office, coffee cups in hand from our usual morning run, she elbowed me lightly and I felt a jolt at the touch. All right, what is wrong with me?

“That granny!” she shouted, a little too loudly, because a man in a suit that looked like it cost more than my rent gave us a snarl. “Good for her,” she added in a lower volume.

I chuckled and shook my head. “You just ruined that man’s whole morning. And he probably can’t imagine why a woman dressed as professionally as you is yelling loud enough to be heard over the myriad of city sounds.” Like the construction crew working on the sidewalk.

She pointed a finger at me, a smile tugging at her lips. “People need to get over themselves.”

“Hey, I have no problem with you being loud.” I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I actually prefer when the women I’m with get loud.”

And something told me Bianca would be really, really loud.

“Shut up!” she admonished, swatting my arm. “You wish we were together. Then you could have all of this.” She enunciated the last word and waved a hand over her side, allowing it to dip along her curves.

Boy, if she’d only known how badly I’d wished that were true; that we were together.

And I could tell she was attracted to me, too, by the way her eyes widened whenever my hand grazed hers as we walked side by side, or the way she played with her hair whenever we got close to each other. And I was talking really close, like neither of us knew the definition of personal space and were a hair’s breadth away from the other’s lips.

But neither of us acted on our mutual attraction for one another. Yet.

Plus, Bianca wasn’t the type you got inside, got what you needed, and got out. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to do the first part—over and over again—because I already knew it would be my favorite place to be, but she deserved to be taken out on a date first. If not lots of dates.

I didn’t want to be her next great lay. I wanted to be her boyfriend.

I was getting ahead of myself, though. We hadn’t even kissed—not even an accidental oops, we tripped and our lips broke our fall if you knew what I meant. Zip. Nada.

I cleared my throat when I noticed her glaring at me. “Sorry, I can’t shake the image of that old lady—um, Granny, as you put it—wearing a sports bra and leggings.”

Bianca let out an uncontrolled laugh and switched the hand she was holding her coffee cup in. “That’s going to be me.”

“Oh, yeah?” I cocked a brow. “I don’t think so.”

“What makes you say that?” She frowned. “I’m serious. I give her kudos for that level of confidence. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her.” Then she shook her head. “I have a long ways to go, but I think, in time, I can get there.”

I didn’t think I’d ever understand why Bianca was so hard on herself. Frankly, I’d never met anyone as critical of themselves as she was.

“No, you’re misunderstanding. I don’t think that will be you because she wasn’t wearing sky-high heels.”

We both laughed as I opened the door to enter the building.

Bianca walked in first and looked back at me. “Next time I’m getting the chocolate chip muffin.”

In step again, I decided to mess with her. “Are you sure you don’t want the banana nut?”

Since Rina, Bianca had been my best friend in the city. She had really been there for me like no one else in my life ever had.

Did I know Rina was going to break up with me? No.

Did I notice our relationship had changed? Of course. I wasn’t an idiot, but I also thought that it just meant we’d grown and developed individually. I didn’t think it meant we were growing apart. That had caught me off guard.

So I did what anyone in my situation would have done—I buried myself in work. I was at the Bellissima office more than I cared to admit, and when I wasn’t there, I was working from home. I had saved enough money to get myself a decent-sized apartment that didn’t smell or remind me of Rina.

In all that time, Bianca and I had fallen into an easy routine, first as coworkers and then as friends. And that routine primarily consisted of meeting up at her favorite coffee shop, Bean.

So, yeah, we’d been doing this whole muffin thing long enough that I knew she was no longer sure she wanted chocolate chip.

“Ugh,” she groaned, proving my point. “Why’d you have to go and bring up the banana nut? I was so sure this time.”

See, that routine I was telling you about consisted in part of Bianca and I meeting at Bean where she would deliberate over whether she should get the chocolate chip or banana nut muffin. By the time we got to the front of the line, she’d have decided not to get anything, insisting that she wasn’t sure and didn’t want to make us late. It was a cute addition to our daily routine, if you asked me.

Stepping off the elevator on our floor, an unsettling voice interrupted us. “I’m glad I ran into you.”

Bianca and I both turned, and she immediately smiled at the sight of her father. I, on the other hand, didn’t think I needed to remind you about my insides. But yeah, they still shriveled up, and practically every time I heard his voice, I clenched my butt cheeks. What, don’t judge. You hadn’t met Angelo Morelli. He had a gravely terrifying presence—trust me.

“Good morning, Daddy.”

“Morning, Bianca.” Then he looked at me. Death by intense stare. “Knox.”

I gave him a head nod. “Mr. Morelli.” I was his employee, no longer a guest in his house, so I stuck to formalities whenever I saw him, which was as infrequently as possible.

“I can meet you in your office in five, if you want. I just want to put my purse down,” Bianca said.

But judging by Angelo’s expression, I knew it wasn’t her he wanted to see. He turned to me and I couldn’t help but straighten my back. “Actually, I was talking about Knox, baby girl.”

“Oh,” Bianca said.

Yeah. Oh.

Well, it was nice knowing you all, see you on the other side.

“Meet me in my office,” he commanded and walked away, getting on the elevator to go to his floor.

I nodded and waited to release the breath I was holding until he was out of sight.

“What do you think it’s about?” Bianca inquired. “We have more advertisers in this next issue than we’ve had in a while. I call that a win!”

“I’m not sure. I thought maybe it was about some advertiser I was talking to last week who wanted out of his contract. But I dealt with it.”

She scrunched her nose. She looks so adorable when she does that. If there was ever a time not to have thoughts like that about Angelo’s daughter it was now. You know, when I was minutes away from walking the plank to my doom. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Maybe Daddy’s giving you a raise or something.”

Why did I sincerely doubt that? “Maybe.”

I walked the rest of my coffee to the nearest receptacle and called the elevator again.

“We’re still on for lunch, right?” Bianca asked, nearing the corner where she’d go to get work done while I confronted the one man who put me on edge.

I tilted my head. Lunch? Sure, if I’m still alive. “I wouldn’t miss it. It’s my turn to pick the place.”

She smiled before walking away. That was another thing I liked about her—her smile. It was quite literally blinding. And again, not the time.

When I finally got to Angelo’s office, I walked up to his receptionist, who told me he was waiting for me.

I knocked on the door anyway to announce myself and he ushered me in, stacking the papers he had in front of him and placing them to the side. “Close the door.”

Being called into the boss’s office was rarely ever a good thing, and judging by the way his eyes were narrowed and he leaned forward to address me, I would have said my Spidey senses were right.

Without preamble, he said, “It’s time for you to go.”

Not please, sit down, let’s talk , but instead it was time for me to go.

He held his hands together on the top of the desk, probably waiting for me to speak. But I was in shock. “What?” was about all I could come up with.

“You came here to gain experience, and I think you’ve done that. I told you this wasn’t permanent.”

“Sure,” I treaded lightly, “but I didn’t know it’d end now.”

He gave me a pointed look. “All good things must come to an end.”

“So you’re firing me? Just like that?”

With a shake of his head, he explained, “I’m not firing you. I’m telling you I’ll accept your resignation. In fact, I’m even going to do you another favor.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to give you the name of another publication that’s hiring. With Bellissima on your resume, you’ll have no trouble getting an interview. What you do with it from there is up to you.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you as long as you agree to leave Bianca alone.”

“Leave her alone?” I wasn’t following him.

He shook his head again. “I wasn’t born yesterday. Do you think I can’t see the way you look at my daughter?” He squared his shoulders and flared his nostrils. “If you agree to leave her alone, then I’ll tell you.”

Not sure I liked this, I dropped my gaze to my shoes, considering my options. “I won’t do that to her. She’s too good to me. She’s my friend. I won’t sell her out for a job I can find online.”

“Then you’re fired, and happy hunting because the job I’m referring to is not being posted online. That’s not how these things work. The sooner you understand the way of this world, the better off you’ll be.”

I had to take a stand. “We’re friends,” I reminded him, unsure what else to say.

“You may be friends now, but you two have been getting closer and I know how these things go. Men like you are all the same. You think you can worm your way into her bed and then into everything my family has built. I won’t have that. I’ve done enough for you.” He raised his hand and slapped it on the desk, a stern look in his eyes. “ Capisce ?”

Dumbfounded. I was dumbfounded. Could the man be this jaded? Could he actually believe his words?

“Looks like you’re a little perplexed, so let me spell it out for you: you’re a user. Have been since the moment you and that girlfriend of yours stepped foot into my house. You saw an opportunity and took it when my wife and daughter all but handed it over on a silver platter, no questions asked. And I’ve seen your kind—it won’t end there. You came from nothing, and you don’t want to go back there, so you’ll want more and more until my daughter is nothing but collateral damage.”

I swallowed hard. It felt like I’d just been gut-punched. Angelo was so far off base, it was crazy. But he had hit the nail on the head as far as my biggest fear was concerned—ending up right back where I started. Barely rubbing two pennies together to make ends meet. Like my parents.

I didn’t think I could do that again.

But did I really have it in me to cause the kind of damage that Angelo was suggesting?

I genuinely didn’t believe I could do that to Bianca.

But I supposed, on some level, he was right. I never saw it that way, never saw it from his perspective.

Maybe I couldn’t be trusted.

Not with Bianca.

Maybe the right thing to do was leave, never look back. That way I could guarantee she’d be okay—remain unhurt by me.

Then he rose from his chair and pointed a finger in my face, obviously not finished yet. “If you don’t agree to this, then your career will be over before it even starts. I will make sure the experience you gained here was for naught.”

I closed my eyes and quickly said the two words that I knew I’d forever question: “All right.” I hated myself almost as soon as the words left my lips. “When do you want my resignation?”