Page 135 of Hard Bargain

She shook her head, eyes on him. “Nah. Thought I’d stay a bit.”

He dropped back down beside her. Tara shifted, sliding a little closer. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she said.

“Work. Stuff,” Knox said, shrugging.

“Mhm.” She didn’t buy it. She never did.

“Missed you,” she said.

Knox exhaled, leaning his head back against the couch. “Missed you too.”

God. He had missed her.

Tara moved again, turning toward him fully, her leg sliding over his lap, fingers tracing up his arm. “C’mon,” she murmured. “Don’t act like you don’t know where this is going.”

Normally, he would’ve leaned in, been all over her before she even finished the sentence. That was how it worked with them. Tara had never been someone he hesitated with.

But his body didn’t move.

The longer it didn’t, the louder it got in his head. What are you doing? This is Tara. This is normal.

So why did it feel—

Wrong.

The word hit hard enough to turn his stomach.

Tara’s hand stilled on his arm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said too fast.

She didn’t move off him, but the energy changed. “Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I just… can’t.”

She pulled back. “Did I do something?”

That snapped his head toward her. “No. No, you didn’t do anything.”

“Then what is it?”

His mouth opened, but nothing came out. The truth was sitting there—loud and obvious and impossible to ignore—and he didn’t want to say it. Once he said it out loud he couldn’t avoid it anymore. It became real. It became a fact about him that existed in the world.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. “I’ve been sort of seeing someone.”

Tara blinked. “Seeing someone.”

“Yeah. It’s not… serious. We’re not exclusive or anything,” he added quickly.

“Then why’d you just shut me down?”

Knox closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”

Liar.

“Who is she?” Tara asked.

Knox hesitated. He could dodge it and keep it vague, but she was looking at him and he’d never been good at lying to her.