Not entirely the victim.
I’ve spent two years watching my father grieve his reputation like a man wronged. Two years cleaning up the wreckage, covering the accounts, holding this family together with both hands while he poured himself into a glass and fucked Helen Thorne. Leaving us with no choice but to partner with Moretti. The man with a reputation worse than a whole prison full of embezzlers.
I left school for this. Whored myself out to his daughter for this. Gave up everything for this. Because I believed we were the ones who got burned.
And now Moretti is sitting here, in my father’s office, telling me with bored certainty that it was never that simple.
I don’t look at my father again. I can’t. If I look at him right now, I’m going to say something that gets us both killed in this room. Instead, I take a long sip of whiskey and focus on the burn.
What did he do? How much of it was him? Was David Thorne a criminal, or was he made into one?
Sawyer’s face flashes through my mind and I shove it down hard.
Not now.
“Why an engagement at all?” The question comes out before I can stop it. “Why not keep things as they are?”
Moretti looks at me like I’ve said something amusing.
“Because a partnership means more when it’s family. And right now, son, your family needs friends it can trust.” He pauses. “I need to know the Aldrichs are committed. A marriage is a commitment.”
What the fuck am I supposed to say?
Moretti must see my resignation, because he stands from the chair. “Dinner tonight. I expect the whole family there for the blessed news. Ashford Inn. I have an associate staying there that I need to pay a visit to. 6:00 sharp.”
I hold his gaze for three seconds. Waiting for my father to step in….waiting for something to change.
It doesn’t.
“Fine.”
His guy leads the way, watching me as he walks out the door. Moretti turns one more time before he leaves. “Oh, and Knox? Make sure you bring a ring.”
Chapter 27
Sawyer
The hotel lobby’s quiet right now, and I hate it. Every small sound feels too loud but my thoughts are even louder. I’ve been staring at the same reservation on my screen for five minutes, listening to a couple bicker across the room.
I keep replaying my night with Knox. And not just the obvious parts, but the small things he did. They’ll be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.
And the promises he made. God, I want to believe him. That’s the problem. I want it so badly it feels like pressure behind my sternum, this desperate, humiliating need for it to be real. For the version of Knox I had last night to be the one that exists in the daylight too.
For the simple things like dinners together and kisses in the dark. For summers at the lake, quietly reading side by side. For giving each other shit and taking it as much as we give, laughing always, because we know we’re never serious.
But I’ve known Knox Aldrich my entire life, and he’s never made anything easy.
The bickering couple finally disappears behind the elevator doors and it’s back to suffocating quiet.
I pull up the next reservation, searching the notes for the check-in time, but my eyes keep scanning past the words on the screen.
The thing I can’t stop circling back to, the thing that scared me more than it probably should have, was his face when I showed him the texts between Owen and Ella. I figured he’d be confused like me, maybe even suspicious. But I never expected that kind of anger. He went somewhere else inside his head, blocking me out entirely. It was jarring as hell.
What does he know that I don’t?
I push the thought away for the hundredth time today, but it slides right back. I’m so fucking tired. Tomorrow, I’m going to go to Ella myself. No more games, no more beating around the bush. I’ll call her in the morning to set up a coffee date. Face to face, she won’t be able to lie to me. Or at least, I hope.
The lobby phone rings, and I answer it with my practiced customer service voice. Someone on the third floor needs a restaurant recommendation, which pulls me out of my head long enough to rattle off three places within walking distance and wish them a pleasant evening. I’m good at that part. The seamless pivot, the warm voice, the ability to make a stranger feel like the only person in the room while my brain is somewhere else entirely. I should have stayed in theater classes.
