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ELENA
My eyes blinked open. There was a heavy weight across my back, and…was that fingers sliding through my hair?
I turned my head, and the hand fell away from my hair.
“What time is it?” Last night came flooding back to me. I’d fallen asleep in Knox’s arms, and here I was, still, and he wasn’t kicking me out.
Yet.
“Around five thirty.” Knox’s voice was a soft, sleepy rumble. “Too early.”
I shifted on the bed. I was on my stomach, the side of my body pressed up against Knox, who was on his side. His arm lay across my back, his fingers now resting on my bare skin instead of stroking through my hair.
“Elena. Tell me why you changed your name.”
Here in his bed, in the early hours of the morning, cocooned in a blanket of darkness, it was easier to speak. And I was tired. Tired of pretending. Maybe here, we could have this tiny sliver of truth. Even if it wasn’t the whole story.
“My mum raised me as a single parent because my dad didn’t want to have anything to do with us. But she had help. Her sister and her husband—my aunt and uncle—supported us. You… Well, it’s hard to explain to someone who’s never been without money.” I held my breath, wishing I could take those words back as soon as I’d said them.
Surprisingly, he didn’t get angry. “Help me to understand.”
“Okay. Well, my aunt, um, she couldn’t have any children, and she looked after me so my mum could work. My uncle used his connections to get my mum a job, and he did so much else for us. Took us on holiday, paid for things I needed for school, everything that my mum couldn’t afford to pay for. It was…good.” For the most part. I didn’t mention my aunt’s dependence on a cocktail of pills just to make it through the day because Knox didn’t need to know that.
Turning my face into the pillow so that I was out of the direct line of his gaze, I continued. “Then one day, they were gone. We were…we were left with nothing. We had nothing, and we couldn’t bring them back.”
My voice cracked, and I felt Knox’s hand smooth down my spine. He remained silent, which I appreciated more than he’d ever know. I couldn’t talk about it, how my aunt had taken her own life and how my uncle had lost everything he’d ever loved. How they were both taken from us.
My tears soaked the pillow beneath me, and I sniffed, trying to get myself back under control. “We… My mum decided we needed a fresh start.” This was the point where I was going to have to lie to him because the truth would bring down hell on us. “It was…too painful. So she changed our surnames. It was…a way to disassociate, I think. It didn’t matter to me at the time. We were struggling to get by at that point, trying to prioritise bills, working out if we could afford to eat and heat the house at the same time, that kind of thing.”
I heard his sharp intake of breath, but he covered it quickly, clearing his throat. “Where did you live? Your birth certificate said you were born in Cirencester. Not too far from here, really. Maybe twenty-five or thirty miles.”
Fuck. He’d seen my real birth certificate? My heart rate picked up, and I wished I hadn’t started because the lies had to keep coming. I just hoped he’d believe them. The information my mother had made me memorise was thankfully fresh in my mind, and after taking a deep breath, I managed to reply with a mostly steady voice. “We moved to Bristol to be close to my aunt and uncle when I was born.”
Wehadlived in the city of Bristol, just not since I was born. Only for the past year.
He opened his mouth, and I spoke before he could ask me anything else. “How did you get my birth certificate?Whydid you get my birth certificate?”
“I’m not answering the how, but as for the why…” Shifting closer to me, he pressed a kiss just below my ear. “I don’t trust you, and I knew you were hiding something.”
Fuckfuckfuck. “Well, now you know my big secret. What are you going to do? Tell your parents? Make it look like we’ve been lying so my mum loses her job, and we end up back on the streets?” My voice shook.
There was a long, long silence, but eventually, he shook his head. “I’m satisfied with your mother’s employment record, and I’ve seen that despite my misgivings, she really is good with JoJo. But if either of you step out of line, I go straight to my dad.”
He was going to hold this over my head, wasn’t he? He’d have me at his mercy with the perfect blackmail material. It seemed like he didn’t know anything else, but if he went digging…if his dad went digging…
“I understand,” I said quietly. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I just want to finish this school year, and then I’ll get out of here, and you’ll never have to see me again.” Maybe it would be even sooner if I could convince my mother that her plan was pointless.
Another soft press of his lips against the side of my face. “Is that a promise?”
“That you’ll never have to see me again? Yes.”
“Good,” he said, but he didn’t sound satisfied. What did he want from me?
I needed to get out of here. I felt too exposed, laid bare for him both figuratively and in reality. “I’m…I need to go back to my bed.”
“Yeah. I’m not stopping you.” He shifted back, his hand falling away from me, and turned his head away. I slipped out of bed and pulled on last night’s dress, balling up my ruined underwear and grabbing my heels. The diamond choker was on his bedside table, next to his phone, and I hesitated, then rounded the bed, stopping at his side. Trailing my fingers over the diamonds, I looked down at him.
“Would you feel more comfortable giving this back to your mother yourself, or should I take it?”
