Page 41 of The Knight (Endgame 2)
“Well, because—” His eyes narrow. “How do you know what I e-mailed her? I can’t imagine she would tell you the details of our private correspondence.”
“Correspondence.” I let out a breath. “That’s a pretty fancy term for sabotage. Betrayal. Need I go on?”
“I’d prefer that you didn’t.”
“And for your information, Charlotte didn’t show me the e-mails. I looked at her laptop when she left the room. Yes, I was devious and underhanded. I learned from the best, after all.”
Anger flashes across his golden eyes. “That information is confidential.”
“My body is confidential, you asshole.”
He cocks his head. “The pictures. You saw them.”
It takes everything in me not to launch myself at him, to use my broken nails like claws, to bite him. He makes me savage, like the wild animal that he is. “Yes, the pictures. The pictures you took. The pictures you shared. Did that make you feel better about what my father did? Ruining him wasn’t enough? Deflowering me wasn’t enough?”
“Stop,” he says roughly. “I didn’t share any pictures of you.”
“I saw them!”
“Then you know they don’t match the photos we took in this room. You never took off your panties, your bra. Your face was hidden by your hair.”
My teeth clench so hard I hear grinding. “I know what pictures we took.”
“And I sure as hell didn’t share them, even though I had a right to. Damon gave me hell for not passing them on, but I wasn’t letting anyone see what was mine.”
“Yours? Oh no, I don’t belong to you. Not then, not now.”
“I have a winning bid on an auction that says otherwise. The thirty days aren’t up yet.”
“That can’t come fast enough,” I say, challenging him. I’ve never been this fearless confronting him, facing anyone, but he’s pushed me to the edge. “And I already know those pictures didn’t come from this room, but you could have taken them anytime I was in your house.”
An electric silence fills the space around us, setting the colored light in the room on edge. Blue and yellow dust motes dance around us, energized.
“You think—” His nostrils flare. “You think I took pictures of you while you were in my house, without you knowing?”
“How else does someone have them?”
He continues as if I didn’t speak, working it through with slow, pained deliberation. “And you think I shared those pictures with the world out of spite, out of revenge on a girl who’s done nothing wrong.”
Doubt flickers inside me. “Didn’t you?”
I expect him to admit it—he’s never shied away from what he’s done. If anything he seems to take perverse pleasure in threatening me, in using me, in pointing out all the ways he hurts me.
Or maybe he’ll deny it, after all. He’ll defend his honor with the same vigor and violence with which he went after my father. He’ll come after me, and when we clash, it will be so satisfying.
He does neither of those things. Instead he stalks to the window, large hands cradling the window frame, large body canting forward. Over his shoulder I can see the city’s skyline rising high and swerving sideways, like looking through a fun-house mirror.
“You have good reason to suspect me,” he says softly.
I take a step closer. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry, Avery.” But it’s not the kind of apology that comes with an admission. It’s soft and thoughtful, the kind that would come from a man who gives a shit about me.
“Don’t pull this reverse psychology bullshit on me. I know what you did.”
A short laugh, without any humor. “And what are you going to do about it, little virgin? You’re powerless. No money. No one to help you. Living one step up from a cardboard box.”
It stings to hear him lay it out so plainly, but I have the feeling it hurts him too.
“I can fight back,” I warn him. I’m still pumped enough to do it, finally pushed beyond all sanity. I could hit him, kick him. Bite him. Even with the unspooling thread of doubt that he did this to me, I’d be able to hurt someone for the first time in my life.
“Like you did in the attic?” He turns to face me. “I won’t stop you this time.”
And I realize this is my own personal Rubicon, the line I’m going to cross. There will be two versions of Avery St. James, the one who was a victim and the one who’s a warrior. The one who refused to do harm and the one who slaps a man who won’t defend himself. I’m not sure which version of me is better, but I’m hurting enough to do it anyway. All I have to do is remember the grainy black-and-white pictures of me, taken when I didn’t know it. Shared to humiliate and shame me. All I have to do is remember Justin saying he forgives me for something I didn’t even do.
