Page 52 of Ruthless Edge

"You'll want a second opinion on the space."

"I have a checklist."

"I like long drives. Plus, I am the co-chair. It’s sort of my duty to be there. Right?" He's smiling now, like he knows this decision is already made, and it’s in his favor. "I'll pick you up at ten."

"That's not—" I try to find the piece of this I can push back on and he has an answer for all of them, which is the Knox Carter problem in its purest form. "You don't have to do this."

"I know." Still smiling. "Ten o'clock."

I open my mouth.

"Emma," he says. "I'll drive."

I close my mouth.

Somehow, between one moment and the next, Knox has converted a solo venue appointment into four hours alone in a car together, and I cannot identify the exact moment I lost that negotiation.

We keep talking.

This is the part I can't explain away easily. Knox asks about the sponsorship numbers and actually listens to the answer. He remembers that I'd been worried about the catering timeline two weeks ago and asks how it was resolved. He makes a comment about one of the hockey players trying to back out of being a table host that is accurate and funny and makes me laugh before I've decided to. The conversation is easy and fun, and at some point I realize I've stopped checking the room for Paige.

I've stopped thinking about Owen.

I'm just sitting at a party talking to Knox Carter, which is something I swore I wouldn't do, except I'm doing it, and the reason I'm doing it is that it feels like the most natural thing that's happened to me all week.

That's the frightening part. Owen makes sense. Owen is a logical choice in every way I know how to evaluate choices. Knox has never made sense, hasn't made sense since he dropped into a seat beside me freshman year and said but I'm here, aren't I, and here I am three years later and he still has this specific effect on everything around me when he's paying attention.

"I think Jace is going to bid every dollar he has," Knox is saying, about the auction. "Just to make Rory feel like he went through some kind of experience for her."

Right, because the event this year is open to SAB members, donors, and anyone connected to the hockey team, so Rory and the other girlfriends will definitely get their chances to bid on their men. It’s nice for them, but it’s also nice that I’ll have my best friend as company through this.

"Jace and Rory are so⁠—"

"They're something," Knox says. "Everyone can see it."

"She hasn't said anything," I lie, because Rory’s feelings aren’t for him to know.

"She doesn't have to." He glances around the room and then back at me. "Some things are just obvious."

I look at him. He's looking at me, and there's something in it that I am not going to examine right now, in this room, with this much noise and people around us.

Laura appears.

She comes from the kitchen side, drink in hand, and she finds Knox with the accuracy of a missile, and she slides in beside him like she belongs there.

"Knox." Her voice is warm. She glances at me. "Emma, hi. I love your dress."

"Thank you," I say.

"It's such a fun choice." She tips her head slightly, studying me. "I could never wear something like that, honestly. It takes a certain confidence to go that bold. But it's so you."

It sounds like a compliment.

Knox, beside her, nods like it sounds like a compliment.

It isn't a compliment.

It's such a fun choice. It takes a certain confidence. So you. Each piece of it innocuous, but meant to hurt. Meant to remind me that I’m not the girl who belongs here. Not the woman Knox crossed a crowded room to talk to. The girl who makes bold choices because she doesn't know better, standing next to someone like Laura who would never.