Page 59 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

“How bad is it?”

I didn’t lie.

“It’s… all of it. Everything I could prove. The break-in. The missing timeline. The dead ends. The breakthrough when you showed me that fragment of security footage. Thayer’s confession, and… after.” I paused, swallowing. “I did my best to tell the truth and honor your family’s memory.”

He didn’t flinch.

“Did you tell them how you got the confession?”

I nodded.

“Yes. I told the whole truth, the whole story.”

He didn’t speak. Just stared at the screen. Then at me. Then, without a word, he sat down, pulled the laptop toward him, pulled up the formatted manuscript file on my desktop, and started to read.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t glance up. Didn’t ask questions. Just scrolled.

His hand was steady on the trackpad, eyes dark and unreadable, mouth set in a hard line. Page after page flickered across the screen. I watched his shoulders shift as he leaned forward, forearms braced against the edge of the island like the words were dragging him in by the throat.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

I stood barefoot in the kitchen, wrapped in a blanket and last night’s wreckage, my heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to claw its way out of my chest.

I’d imagined this moment a hundred times. Thought of a thousand ways it could go wrong.

Screaming. Silence. A slammed door. A promise broken.

But this? This was worse. Because Knox was quiet . Still. Deadly calm in that way he only got when something mattered. The kind of calm that came before a storm.

He paused, and then he looked up at me.

“Leave me here, while I read it all.”

I swallowed – he read fast, really fast, I knew that, but still… it was fifty thousand words! But what else could I do but obey that demand?

I went and got myself a coffee, and settled near him, trying to be patience, even while my mind churned, and every fear I’d ever had about how he’d react replayed itself in my head.

Two hours later, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I didn’t write it to exploit you,” I said, voice soft, cracking at the edges. “I know it looks like… like I’m capitalizing on your trauma. But I didn’t write it for them.”

He didn’t respond.

I swallowed.

“I wrote it for you.”

Nothing. No nod. No flicker of acknowledgment.

Just another page turned.

“I tried to be careful with the details,” I went on, stomach twisting.

Still nothing.

“But I couldn’t stay silent. Not after what I found. Not after what Thayer admitted — what he did. I couldn’t let your family be just another cold case with a wrong label and no justice. I couldn’t let you keep carrying it alone.”

Another page. His hand flexed once. Just barely.

“I know you thought you wanted me to do this, even if only to stop Nina from getting someone else to do it,” I whispered. “And I know I should’ve told you when it went to print, but?—”

“You’re wrong.”

His voice was low. Rough. Final.

I froze. What the fuck did that mean?

He didn’t look at me. Just clicked to the next page, the next paragraph, and said again — quieter this time:

“You’re wrong. I didn’t ask you to write it just to stop Nina from getting someone else to do it.”

He let the words hang there for a beat, heavy as gravity.

“You’re the only one I ever wanted to write this story, Ros, because you’re the right person to tell it.”

My breath caught.

His finger hovered over the trackpad.

“I’ve known since the first time I saw your work. Since I watched you write circles around reporters twice your age. Since you dug up the truth about Coach Randal’s abuse case back in college, even after the entire district tried to bury it.”

Finally — finally — he looked at me, and his eyes were on fire.

“You don’t just tell stories. You exhume them. You dig until there’s nothing left but bones, and blood, and truth. And that’s what they deserved. That’s what my family deserved.”

My throat locked up.

He kept going.

“You think I’ve been sleeping easy all these years? That I didn’t lie awake every night wondering what really happened? Why the cops stopped calling? Why the case went cold? Why no one but you gave a fuck after the funeral flowers died?”

He turned the laptop slightly toward me.

“They matter now. Because you made them matter again.”

Tears burned hot behind my eyes.

“I just wanted the world to see what you survived,” I whispered. “What you lost . I wanted them to understand who they were. What was taken from you.”

He stared at me. Then reached out and gently closed the laptop.

“I read every word,” he said. “And the only thing I’m pissed about…”

I braced myself.

“…is that I didn’t get to dedicate anything to you in return for this gift you’ve given me . ”

That broke me.

Tears slipped hot and silent down my cheeks. My knees gave a little under me, but he caught me before I could drop. Pulled me into his lap, my blanket falling away as he wrapped his arms around me like he was afraid the world would try to steal me again.

He kissed my temple.

“My mother would’ve loved you,” he murmured. “She would’ve read your book in one sitting, then bought ten more copies to shove at anyone who’d listen. She’d be proud of you.”

A sob cracked through me.

“And my sister?” His voice cracked. “She’d be obsessed with you. She’d tell everyone her brother’s girlfriend was a badass author who wrote the real version of her story.”

I clung to him, my hands in his hair, my face pressed to his neck.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” I whispered. “For everything. For waiting. For doing it alone. For not letting you in.”

He didn’t scold me. Didn’t ask for more. Just held me tighter.

“I want you to move forward,” I said into his skin. “I want you to stop carrying this weight alone.”

He pulled back, just enough to look at me. His jaw was tight. His eyes glassy.

“You think I’m ever letting you go after this?”

I didn’t answer. Because we both knew he would never let me out of his sight again.

Then he whispered, softly, so low I barely heard it, “I have a ring.”

My breath stopped.

He reached up and cupped my cheek.

“I bought it before you left for the writing retreat. After the hospital. After you almost fucking died and I realized I never wanted to waste another second not calling you mine.”

Tears welled again.

“You were going to wait?”

He nodded.

“Until the book came out. Until you knew the whole truth about me. Until you were ready. Until I could look you in the eye and ask you without any shadows left between us. I just didn’t expect we’d get all that done in one day.”

I choked on a laugh-sob, burying my face in his chest again.

And he just kissed the top of my head, then whispered, “We’re getting married, Ros. It’s not a question.”

I nodded into him.

“Okay.”

“Not later,” he said. “Not next year. Not when the press dies down. We’re doing this soon. Quiet. Just us. The second it feels right.”

“Okay,” I whispered again.

Because there was nothing else to say.

We stayed like that a long time. Curled up in the wreckage of the morning, wrapped in love and grief and the story that had nearly killed us both.

But now? Now it was out in the world. And I was in his arms.

And that was all that mattered.