Page 42 of The Knight (Endgame 2)
“Go ahead,” he murmurs. “I didn’t take those pictures, but I’m not going to pretend I’m innocent. If I hadn’t ruined your father, he wouldn’t have turned on his partners. They wouldn’t have attacked him. You’d have a protector in the world instead of being alone.”
My hands clench into fists. “Keep going.”
His eyes flash with something—maybe regret. Maybe relief. “And that business deal where your father cheated me? Even before that it wasn’t completely legal. He was desperate enough to sell his business for more than it was worth. Desperate enough to include you in the package.”
“No,” I whisper. What does that even mean—include you? Like I’m an object, a little yellow price tag stamped on my breast. “You’re lying.”
“One month.”
“He would never have asked me that.”
“Of course not. He would have arranged for you to find out about his debts. Maybe your credit card would get declined when you tried to buy notebooks and pencils. And then he’d break down and confess how dire the situation was, how horrible I am. If only there was something he could do to please me, something he could give me—”
“No.” My voice rises to a shout. “No. No.”
“I already bought your virginity, Avery. You’ve always been mine.”
Grief and rage collide in a toxic miasma, blurring my vision. A keening sound fills the air, and I realize it’s me. And then I’m doing it; I’m hitting him, again and again, his cheek red with the blows. I’m using all my strength and it barely moves him, the smack ugly and loud. It’s the sound of someone breaking—but not him. It’s me.
When he finally catches me in his arms, I’m sobbing, incoherent.
“Shh,” he says. “You have to stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”
When he says it, I realize that my hand is throbbing. That’s how strong he is, how impenetrable. Like beating myself against a brick wall. He’ll still be standing in a hundred years.
“No,” I say, voice thick with tears. “You’re lying. You’re lying.”
Except he’s not. I know because he promised to tell me the truth. And he’s kept his word time and time again. It feels like losing a part of me, a limb torn off, to hear what Daddy did. How could he do it? Some truths you’d rather not hear.
His hands move over me, soothing, tender. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”
“She didn’t love him,” I say, voice still broken by tears.
“I know.”
I don’t ask how he does, but that’s true too. There are secrets in my family. Secrets so dark I’m beginning to wonder if they buried my mother deeper than the drunk driver ever did. There’s only been one constant. Gabriel Miller. That he’s wanted me. He’s taken me. You’ve always been mine.
His hands frame my face. I must look terrible with my eyes red from crying, grief staining my face, but the reverence in his gaze leaves no doubt what he sees. Someone beautiful.
“Listen to me,” he says softly. “Your mother lived in a time when women didn’t have many choices. She did the best she could for her family. She was strong—damn near invincible.”
I never doubted my mother. “Why are you telling me this?”
His thumbs sweep away my tears. “Because that’s what you did. That’s what you are.”
“I don’t live in her time.”
“Don’t you? Your father wanted to keep you his little girl. He would let you out of your room for parties to impress the other grownups with how smart you are. Justin wanted a trophy, something to parade around and lord over the other frat boys.”
“And you?”
“I’m the worst of them,” he says softly. “I want to own every inch of your skin, to be the only man who touches you, who tastes you. You think I wouldn’t bid on a woman? That I shouldn’t bid on you, of all people? I’ll spend every cent I have, break every goddamn law to keep you.”
A shiver runs through me. “You wanted the auction.”
“Wanted it? No. Those were the worst hours of my life, knowing that other men would see you. That they might touch you. I wanted to smash their faces in, every single one of them.”
“Then why did you suggest it?”
“Would you have sold yourself to me if I had suggested it at the Den?”
“No.”
“And what about if your father had come to you, told you to sleep with me in order to pay his debts?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, I think you would have. I think you’d have done anything for your precious daddy, but he got cold feet. After the ink dried, when he went home and looked into your eyes, he didn’t want to go through with it.”
It’s hard to take comfort in that, knowing he agreed to the deal in the first place. “And no one backs out of a deal with you.”
