Page 27 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Nineteen

KNOX

She touched my drawings like they were something sacred.

Her finger trembled when it brushed across a laugh I’d captured in graphite.

She didn’t notice the smudge it left behind, but I did.

I noticed every twitch of her mouth, every uneven breath.

I’d seen her body betray her earlier tonight — straddling my thigh against the door of my bedroom back at Stonewood Manor — and now it was happening again, here, in my kitchen.

I stayed quiet. Silence had always been my best weapon with Ros. If I gave her room, she tended to reveal herself.

I waited, and she did. Not with tears or thanks. No, that wasn’t her way. She steadied her breathing, squared her shoulders, and said the last thing I expected to hear from her mouth tonight.

“I’ll do the true crime book about your family’s unsolved murder, and I’ll do it your way.”

The words hit me like a lightning strike to the chest. It wasn’t a romantic opportunity, but it was almost as good.

It was trust, and she was submitting to handling my family’s story the way I wanted her to.

After everything that had happened tonight — the hunt, Ros coming for my masked alter ego like she was made to surrender to me, her avoiding my eyes as if she could wash me off with cold water and rationality — she’d just handed me this gift.

“My way,” I echoed, testing the feel of it in the air between us.

She nodded without looking up, not allowing me to see her gorgeous blue-green eyes.

“I’ll cut Nina out and self-publish just like you said.”

She was more and more mine with every second she spent under my roof, and she didn’t even know it.

I stepped closer, close enough that the sketches rustled in the draft of my movement, but not close enough to spook her.

“I’ll back you like I promised, Ros. If you want an advance on royalties — today, tomorrow, whenever — you have it. No strings attached.”

Her mouth twisted, and I knew what her answer would be before she even spoke.

“You already spent a grand on me for my birthday,” she said, her voice tight. “And besides that, you’re not letting me pay rent. I cannot take any more money from you… my conscience won’t allow it.”

That declaration knocked the air out of my lungs.

The ticket to The Hollowing... she must have looked up the price the second I gave it to her.

She’d carried that number like a stone in her pocket all week, but she’d still shown up.

Still walked into Stonewood Manor, into my hunt, into my hands.

And she’d climaxed for me in the house where my family died.

And afterward, she’d whispered, “ I wish it had been you, Knox.”

She could tell herself this was about money all she wanted, but I knew better.

“Ros—”

“I mean it.” She squared her shoulders and tipped her head back to glare up at me, stubbornness written all over her gorgeous face. “You’ve done enough for me.”

I could’ve told her she was wrong. I could’ve told her money meant nothing to me, that I wanted to shoulder all her problems. That I’d like nothing more than to keep building floors under her until she stopped worrying about falling through the cracks.

But I doubted she’d let me go there tonight, so I smoothed it over instead.

“You’ll always have a safe place to land with me. I’m not keeping score.”

Something fragile flickered across her face, too quick for anyone else to notice, but I wasn’t anyone else. I saw it.

“You’re too good to me,” she murmured. “Better than I deserve.”

Heat climbed up the back of my neck, the angry kind. I thought of the way she’d smirked at those girls in line tonight—claiming me with nothing more than a curl of her lips and a sharp glance over her shoulder.

Wouldn’t you just love to know, sweetheart?

She never imagined I’d see it, hadn’t suspected I might hear her voice on the feed when she said she knew me intimately. But I witnessed all of it, and now she was standing here, trying to tell me she didn’t deserve my care?

Bullshit .

Out loud, I kept my voice calm.

“You’re wrong. You’re hard on yourself because it gives you a sense of control. It’s a false sense of security, though. You wanna know what it really is? It’s self-flagellation in disguise.”

She looked away first, lashes lowering, hand twitching as she stacked the sketches into a neat pile like she could organize her way out of what had just passed between us.

“When can I interview you?” she asked, her voice sharper than it needed to be.

She was trying to pivot. Of course she was. It was a classic Ros move.

“Not tonight,” I said.

Her brows furrowed.

“Knox—”

“It’s your birthday,” I cut in. “We’re not talking work on your birthday.”

She exhaled, a long, begrudging sound, like conceding the point cost her. But I saw the flicker of relief in her shoulders when she finally dropped it.

“And what do you suggest we do instead?” she asked, arching a brow at me, trying for nonchalance.

I almost smiled. I knew exactly what I wanted us to do instead.

Her question hung in the air between us like bait.

I didn’t answer right away. I crossed to the liquor cabinet, the motion deliberate, giving her time to watch the muscles in my back shift while I opened the door. Her eyes tracked every move I made. I could feel her gaze like a caress on my skin.

The bottle waited where I’d put it two weeks ago: Screwball peanut butter whiskey… her favorite. I bought it the day she moved in, even though she hadn’t asked, even though she hadn’t breathed a word. Ros never asked for anything, but I always knew what she wanted.

I set the bottle on the counter with two glasses and leaned my hip against the island, letting the silence go taut between us until she finally arched a brow.

“What?” she asked, her voice dry but a shade too thin.

“It’s still your birthday.” I unscrewed the cap on the bottle and poured a neat shot into each glass. “And birthdays deserve a game.”

Her suspicion sharpened right along with her gaze.

“What kind of game?”

“Truth or dare.”

The look she gave me could have curdled milk. Then she huffed out a laugh, shaking her head like I’d just pulled the rug out from under her.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Dead serious.” I slid one of the glasses toward her. “You start.”

She lifted it, clinking the rim against mine without looking away.

“Fine. Truth or dare?”

She expected me to say dare. I saw it in the faint twitch at the corners of her mouth, the challenge in her eyes. Ros wanted to dare me into something reckless, something that would give her back the illusion of control.

But I wasn’t about to hand her that.

“Truth,” I said.

Her brows jumped up toward her hairline. Then her mouth curved into a slow, dangerous smile. She was going to use this.

Good. I wanted her to.

She didn’t hesitate.

“If you wanted me back when I was dating Thayer… why’d you cover for him?

At the frat party, when I asked you if you knew he was cheating, you refused to answer me, which obviously meant you did know.

You didn’t warn me. You didn’t give me a heads-up.

You didn’t breathe a single word about what he was doing behind my back. Why?”

The words hit like a knife to my chest, but not because they surprised me. I’d been waiting for them for years.

I lifted my glass and downed my shot of whiskey in a single swallow, letting the burn drag down my throat before I set my glass back on the counter with a sharp click.

Her gaze didn’t waver. She didn’t even blink.

Good girl.

“You want the truth?” My voice came out rough, lower than I intended.

“Fine. I didn’t answer you at that frat party because I already suspected he was cheating weeks before the party.

I drove down to Gulf Shores and stalked the girl I thought he was fucking, trying to get proof of what he was doing.

If I was going to blow your relationship up, I needed something concrete, Ros, something you couldn’t brush off as me being jealous or trying to sabotage my best friend. ”

Her brows pinched, her eyes locked on me like she wanted to peel me open and see all the dark secrets hiding underneath my skin, but she didn’t interrupt me, so I continued.

“But while I was wasting time chasing that proof, my whole life detonated. My family was supposed to be in Atlanta that weekend, but they canceled the trip at the last minute and stayed home.” My jaw locked, teeth grinding together.

“I didn’t know until the next morning. Alyssa Allen called me.

She was just a rookie cop back then, and too green to hide how wrecked she was by what she found when she arrived at Stonewood Manor.

She said she’d done a welfare check and found something I needed to see for myself.

That’s how I found out my mom, my dad, and my little sister had been slaughtered while I was stalking Thayer’s side piece, trying to get proof he was cheating on you.

I guess she spotted me and warned him, though, because he never showed up in Gulf Shores that weekend. ”

The kitchen went dead quiet except for the sound of her breathing, sharp and uneven.

“Oh God, Knox. I’m so fucking sorry. You lost your entire family while you were trying to prove Thayer was cheating on me?”

I dragged a hand over my jaw, pushing through the gravel in my throat.

“After that, I didn’t have the luxury of playing detective anymore.

I had funerals to plan. Graves to stand over.

Lawyers breathing down my neck. An estate, an inheritance, every scrap of responsibility of being the only living member of the Knox family dumped on me when I was just twenty-one years old.

I was barely keeping myself upright, and the rest of my family was already in the ground. ”

Her fingers tightened around her glass. She didn’t speak. She didn’t meet my gaze, either. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and she was trying to hide them from me with lowered lashes.

“So by the time that frat party rolled around, you looked me in the eye and asked if I knew. And yeah, I did. But I hadn’t gotten the proof I thought you deserved.

I hadn’t had the chance to put it in your hands before you walked in on him yourself.

And as much as it gutted me to watch you find out that way, at least you saw it with your own eyes.

You had the truth, the irrefutable proof right in front of your eyes.

And I hadn’t interfered without just cause and concrete proof. ”

I leaned forward, holding her stare, making sure she couldn’t mistake what I was about to say.

“That’s why I stayed quiet, Ros. Not because I didn’t care. Because I cared too fucking much. And the last time I acted on suspicion without proof, I came home to a house full of corpses. I wasn’t willing to risk being wrong again. Not with you.”

Her mouth tightened. She finally raised her gaze to meet mine and didn’t look away, didn’t flinch.

“I get why you didn’t say anything,” she said finally, her voice low and rough. “But I hate that it feels like we let Thayer play us both. He used the fact that you didn’t want to be the asshole who stole your best friend’s girlfriend against you, and he used my naivety against me.”

I leaned back against the counter and nodded. She wasn’t wrong.

“We were young,” I said with a shrug. “And Thayer was a bigger asshole than either of us suspected. There’s nothing we can do to change it now.”

I let the silence sit between us for a beat longer, then poured another shot for each of us, slid her glass in front of her, and leaned in.

“My turn,” I said, voice low. “Truth or dare?”

Ros eyed me over the rim of her glass like she was calculating a minefield.

“Truth.”

My grin stretched wide, slow and deliberate.

“What happened at the haunted house attraction at Stonewood Manor tonight that has you so flustered and jumpy?”

Her breath caught. She shifted in her seat, squirming like I’d just laid a hand on her bare skin even though we were a good foot apart.

“I—” She swallowed hard. “I changed my mind. I pick dare instead.”

I leaned back, letting my grin sharpen. She wasn’t getting out of this… not tonight.

“Fine,” I said, voice low and satisfied. “I dare you to kiss me.”

Her eyes snapped to mine. That stubborn chin tilted up like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. We both knew she was caught.

Slowly, she set her glass aside and stepped into my space.

Her small hands slid up my chest, warm against my bare skin, tracing over muscle and my light smattering of chest hair until she reached my shoulders.

She rose onto her toes and pressed the softest brush of lips against mine, quick as a breath, like she could satisfy the dare without giving me anything real.

Not a chance in hell, baby girl.

My hand shot up, threading into her hair, tugging her closer.

I angled her mouth under mine and kissed her slow, deep, and deliberate — claiming every sound she tried to swallow.

She gasped against me, her lips parting, and I plundered her mouth like I’d been starving for it.

Her knees went weak; I felt the tremor in them.

I slowed only when I wanted to, resting my forehead against hers, my breath still rough, her taste still on my tongue.

“Your turn, sweetheart.”

Her lashes fluttered, her lips swollen, her breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps. For one heartbeat, I thought she’d stay, thought she’d give me the next truth or dare and we’d finally burn the rest of the distance down between us.

Instead, she bolted.

She tore herself out of my arms and retreated fast, her hoodie brushing my chest as she spun and disappeared down the hall toward the guest room. The click of her door shutting echoed louder than it should’ve in the quiet house.

I stood there, jaw tight, hands flexing at my sides. She’d claimed me when she thought I couldn’t hear her. Claimed me in front of strangers, smiling like the devil herself while she said she knew me intimately. But when I gave her the chance to cross the line for real, she ran away.

Frustration burned hot in my chest. I poured another shot, swallowed it down hard, and stared at the dark hallway where she’d vanished.

“Run while you can, Ros,” I muttered under my breath. “But sooner or later, you’re going to have to admit you’re mine.”