Page 15 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

I moved into the living room, needing to put space between myself and the need to touch her, and that’s when I saw one of my goddamn sketchbooks.

Fuck.

It was still on the coffee table, right where I’d left it, half-open with charcoal smudged across the edge. A dozen pages deep into my obsession. Her hands. Her mouth. The curve of her fucking collarbone.

I didn’t think, just lunged and grabbed it, shoving it under the nearest couch cushion. A second later, the bathroom door creaked open. I scrambled back into the kitchen, just in time to hear her bare feet hitting the tile floor.

The laptop was still glowing. The email chain was still open on the screen. She was about to walk right into the perfect trap, and I was going to let her.

She padded into the kitchen wearing one of my hoodies.

It was gray and soft, the sleeves too long on her arms and pushed up to her elbows.

Her damp hair curled around her shoulders, flushed skin still warm from the shower.

She looked… fuck, she looked so soft and tired.

But she was clean. More importantly, she was mine.

And then her eyes caught on the open laptop. She froze. The air went taut between us.

I didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there, leaning one hip against the counter, arms crossed, watching her realize exactly what she was looking at.

The blood drained out of her face, and she swallowed hard, her gaze darting back and forth between me and the screen like she was trying to gauge how much I’d seen.

Then I nodded toward the laptop.

“What the fuck is this, Rosalind?”

Her lips parted. Her gaze jerked from the email back to me.

“I — it’s not what it looks like, Knox, I swear.”

“You sure?” I pushed off the counter, slow and deliberate. “Because it looks like someone tried to pimp my family’s story out, and you didn’t think I needed to know about it.”

She blinked, stunned.

“I wasn’t… Knox, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even consider it.”

“You didn’t tell me,” I said, my voice low and tight. “You didn’t even fucking mention it.”

“Because I knew how you’d react.”

“Damn right you did.”

Her mouth opened like she wanted to fight me, but I cut her off.

“You were broke, Rosalind. Dead broke. No food. No power. You couldn’t even charge your goddamn phone. And still, you said no .”

She swallowed hard and looked away, not meeting my gaze.

I closed the space between us and tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet my gaze as I questioned her.

“Why?”

She hesitated, then shook her head like it was obvious.

“Because you’re my friend. Besides that, it would’ve been wrong.”

My jaw clenched. Wrong. Fuck.

“You would’ve solved everything in one move,” I said. “All your problems would have been solved, and you still didn’t use me.”

“I couldn’t,” she said softly.

I stepped closer, close enough to feel her breath hitch.

“The next time you’re drowning? You come to me.”

Ros just stared up at me, her blue-green eyes wide and disbelieving.

“Got it?” My tone left no room for argument.

“Got it.” She nodded. It wasn’t proud or scared. No, it was just quiet and mine.

She didn’t move when I stepped close enough that her chest brushed against mine. She just stood there, wet hair curling against her neck, my hoodie swallowing her up, eyes puffy from tears and exhaustion.

“Let’s talk about why you didn’t use your key to my place,” I said, low and rough. “You have one. You could’ve been here.”

She looked away.

“I didn’t think about it.”

My jaw clenched.

“How the fuck do you forget you have a place to go?”

She hesitated.

“I’d just gotten back from the interview I had this afternoon. The guy interviewing me got… inappropriate with me. It was bad. I wasn’t thinking straight when I got home.”

Something in her voice flickered. It was too flat, too distant.

I stepped closer.

“Where?”

She bit her lip, refusing to answer me.

“Rosalind,” I snapped. “ Where was the interview ?”

She sighed, defeated.

“Stonewood Living.”

The name hit me like a sucker punch. Stonewood fucking Living. My mother’s magazine. I hadn’t thought about it in years. Not since the estate was finalized. Not since I became majority owner by default, even though I never touched it.

“And who interviewed you?” I asked.

She paused.

“Sam Myers.”

My vision went red.

“What exactly did he say to you?”

“Knox—”

“ Tell me. ”

She looked like she wanted to disappear into the floor.

“He said I could have the job if I changed my voice and wrote fluff. And… if I blew him once in a while.”

White-hot rage slammed through me.

“Oh,” I said, too calmly. “ Oh. ”

“Knox,” she said, her voice urgent now, trying to backpedal. “Don’t make a big deal about this. It’s not worth it?—”

“ Not worth it? ” I turned, incredulous. “He sexually harassed you. You’re lucky I’m not already out the door hunting him down and beating the shit out of him. ”

“Jesus Christ, no,” she breathed. “You cannot go to jail over me?—”

“ Watch me. ”

“Knox, please, don’t do something that could get you locked up just because some insignificant asshole upset me.”

Her eyes went wide. I could see it — the panic, the plea, the need to make me stop.

But I wasn’t going to just sit here and do nothing. If she didn’t want me handling things with my fists, I had other ways to make that asshole pay.

“Effective immediately, that asshole is fired. You know why? Because I own that fucking magazine.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Surprise,” I bit out. “My mother founded it. I inherited controlling shares. I’ve let it run itself for years, but that ends first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Knox,” she whispered, “please?—”

“ He violated you. It doesn’t matter that it was just words. That’s all it takes for me.”

She opened her mouth again — maybe to argue, maybe to beg — but I wasn’t finished.

“You need a job, right?”

Ros nodded but didn’t meet my gaze.

“Yeah. I always hoped Nina would pick up one of my books and make my dream of becoming an author come true, but… I don’t guess that’s ever going to happen. If I don’t write the book she wants me to write, she’s never going to help me get published.”

“You want to write a book?” I said. “You do it my way. You write the story Nina suggested you write, but you do it without her. No agent. No deals. You self-publish. I’ll fund it.

I’ll back it. I’ll give you a place to live and a goddamn advance on royalties if you make me one promise: you write the truth about what happened to my family. ”

She blinked, stunned.

“You’d really let me?”

The room went still, and in the silence, I realized something brutal. Rosalind Cooper was the one and only thing in Stonewood that had the power to destroy me at least a hundred different ways… and I’d just demanded that she move in with me.

I cleared my throat.

“I’d give you my trauma on a silver fucking platter,” I said, voice guttural, “if it meant no one ever gets to back you into a corner again.”