Page 60 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Thirty-Nine

KNOX

She was sitting on the living room floor when I found her the next morning.

Dressed in one of my old Stonewood University crewnecks and black shorts, laptop open, legs crossed, shoulders tense. Her hair was still damp from the shower. Her blue light blocking glasses slid low on her nose, eyes wide behind the lenses, scrolling like the world was on fire.

And in a way, it was. The book had detonated.

What We Buried in Stonewood was already trending.

#1 in True Crime.

#5 overall in Kindle ebooks.

On track to hit the New York Times bestseller list, just one day after launch.

She looked up as I crossed the room, her voice barely a whisper.

“It’s happening.”

She turned the screen toward me.

A flood of tagged posts. Quotes from the book. Photos of people clutching their Kindles with captions like this destroyed me and I’ll never forget the Knox name again.

I read the top line of a review from The Atlantic:

This book will haunt you. It demands that you remember the dead — and it refuses to let you forget the ones who failed them.

Ros swallowed hard.

“This is what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, dropping to my knees beside her. “Exactly this.”

Still, I could see the panic hiding in her pulse. The weight of it. The fear that somehow she’d gone too far. That this would come back to hurt someone.

Me.

She reached for another tab. The sales tracker. The inbox. A spreadsheet of media requests. But I closed the laptop before she could drown in it again.

“You did everything right,” I said. “You told the truth. You gave them back their names.”

Her mouth trembled.

“I still feel like I betrayed someone.”

I cupped her cheek.

“You didn’t betray anyone, baby. Especially not me. ”

She nodded once, but I could tell it was still sitting heavy on her chest.

Then the knocking came out of nowhere. Three sharp bangs. Too loud. Too fast.

Ros flinched like she’d been struck.

I stood, already cold inside.

I knew the tone of that knock, and I had a pretty good guess at who was probably fuming on our front porch.

The second burst of knocks came before I reached the door.

I opened it to find Nina Frost seething and practically foaming at the mouth.

Glossy lips. Designer sunglasses shoved into her hair. Tan trench coat that looked like it belonged on a Vogue cover, not at the front door of a man who’d buried his entire family on the same day, and convinced his next-door neighbor to resurrect their legacy by writing their story.

“What the fuck , Rosalind?” she snapped, pushing past me without a shred of shame, heading straight for Ros, storming into the living room like she owned the goddamn place.

“You think you can cut me out, write the book I told you to write, and not even warn me that it was launching? You stabbed me in the back, self-published it, and you’re keeping all the profits for yourself.

I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so goddamn pissed. ”

My jaw ticked.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Ros stood just behind the couch, wide-eyed, already bracing herself.

Nina pointed a manicured finger at her.

“You selfish little bitch. You really thought you could hijack the entire story, self-publish, and just erase me? You greedy little ungrateful cunt?—”

“She didn’t choose to erase you from the equation,” I said, stepping between them. “ I did.”

Nina’s jaw dropped.

I didn’t blink.

“You want to be mad about getting cut out?” I asked, voice low. “Be mad at me. I’m the one who told her to walk away from you. I’m the one who refused to let my family’s story be tainted by your greed.”

“You—” she sputtered. “You made her cut me out?”

“She wasn’t yours to manipulate, Nina,” I said. “You don’t own her. You never did.”

She turned on Ros again.

“And you agreed to his terms? After everything I did for you?”

“She didn’t have a choice,” I said flatly. “I made it a condition.”

Nina blinked, stunned.

“I wasn’t going to let your name anywhere near my parents’ legacy. Or my sister’s. You would’ve pitched it to Netflix before their fucking bodies were even cold if you had your way. I haven’t forgotten the way you came sniffing around four years ago, right after they died, you know.”

Her mouth twisted.

“So she’s your little puppet now? Is that it?”

“No,” I said, my voice turning razor-sharp. “She’s my wife .”

Nina’s eyes snapped wide.

Ros sucked in a breath behind me.

“Wife?” Nina laughed. “Oh my God . She played you. You really think she’s in this for love? She saw an opening, Philip. An angle. She used you.”

I stepped forward, looming over her. Her laugh died in her throat.

“She took a knife to the chest to protect me,” I said. “She put herself between a murderer and the only evidence that could close my family’s case. And she didn’t do it for profit, Nina. She did it for me. ”

“She used me,” Nina snarled. “That book was my fucking idea.”

“No,” I said. “She survived you.”

Nina flushed.

“You want credit for making introductions? For answering a few emails? You think that means you deserve a cut of this ?”

She crossed her arms, lips curling.

“She’d still be flailing if it weren’t for me.”

“She’d be safe ,” I said. “And maybe a little less tired.”

Ros’s hand landed on my back — just a soft, grounding touch. But I wasn’t done.

“You’re not entitled to anything she built. You sure as hell aren’t entitled to a seat at her table just because you helped fold the napkins two years ago.”

Her voice dropped to a venomous hiss.

“She’s not that special, Mr. Knox. You’re just too obsessed to see it.”

And that? That made me smile. That quiet, dangerous smile that only shows up when someone is two seconds from regretting their life choices.

“You’re wrong,” I said. “She’s exactly that special. And I’ve been watching her prove it every single day since she was eighteen goddamn years old.”

Nina went quiet, and I delivered the last blow.

“You want relevance?” I asked. “Write your own book. But you don’t get to ride her coattails.”

Then I stalked across the room and opened the door.

“Get the fuck out of our house.”

She left, not because she wanted to, but because she knew better than to try me. And when the door clicked shut behind her, the house went silent again.

Ros let out a slow breath.

“You called me your wife,” she said, voice trembling.

I turned and met her gaze as I stalked across the room toward her, closing the distance between us, and slid my hand around the back of her neck, pulling her in slow.

“I meant it. Just because we haven’t had a wedding ceremony yet doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

Her eyes filled with something I couldn’t name. Something holy.

And I said it again, soft and sure and unshakable:

“You’re my wife.”

And Ros?

She just stood there, looking at me like she’d never seen me before. Like everything I’d just said cracked something open in her that she didn’t know was still locked shut.

I kept one hand on the back of her neck, the other brushing her hip, grounding her.

“You okay?” I asked.

She nodded.

Then she said, “You meant it.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Every word,” I told her. “I wasn’t going to let her make you feel small in our home. You did something impossible, Ros. You told the truth when everyone else ran from it. And I’ll burn down anyone who tries to take that from you.”

She stared at me for a long moment.

“You told me to cut her out.”

“I did.”

“And I didn’t fight you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Her voice softened.

“You were right. I just didn’t realize how much until today.”

I stepped closer. Slid my fingers under the hem of the sweatshirt, against the warm skin of her waist.

“You were always going to do it right, baby. With or without her. But I wasn’t letting a snake like Nina Frost profit off my family’s death, or my family’s future, for that matter. That wasn’t negotiable.”

Her breath caught at the word family.

“Do you know,” she whispered, “that I didn’t believe I’d ever get to be part of something like that again? After Gran died… I thought that was it. That I was done.”

“You’re not done,” I said. “You’re just getting started.”

Her chin tilted up.

“With you?”

I smiled.

“With me . ”

She leaned into me like she was falling into something bottomless and safe at the same time. My hand slid into her hair. She rested her cheek against my chest.

“This is happening fast,” she murmured. “People are going to say I’m crazy.”

“They already say worse,” I said, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“I don’t care.”

“Neither do I.”

A beat of silence stretched between us.

Then she said, so quietly it was almost a thought instead of a sentence?—

“Take me there.”

My pulse stuttered.

“To Stonewood Manor,” she added, lifting her eyes to mine. “Let’s go.”

I blinked.

“Right now?”

She nodded.

“Today.”

“Ros—”

“I want to go home, Knox. I love this little house next to Gran’s, but you deserve to reclaim your family’s home for yourself, for your family, for our future children.

You started reclaiming it the night of The Hollowing, when you hunted me through the halls.

Now let’s go and finish it… make it ours. ”

I studied her for a long moment, letting the weight of her words settle in my chest.

There was no hesitation in her eyes. No fear. Just her. Brave as hell. Raw and real and mine.

“You sure?”

She smiled, slow and certain.

“I’ve never been more sure about anything.”

I pulled her into a kiss so deep it hurt, my arms wrapped tight around her body like I could fuse us together with willpower alone. She melted into it, fingers twisting in my shirt, lips parting with a soft sound that made my vision go black for half a second.

When I pulled back, I rested my forehead against hers.

“Let’s go, then.”

The sun was just starting to burn through the clouds as we loaded the last box into the trunk.

We didn’t pack much. Just what we needed to stay overnight. The rest would come later.

This wasn’t a move-in day. This was something more. Claiming the space. Setting our ghosts to rest.

We were silent on the drive across town. Not out of discomfort, but reverence. She reached across the console and held my hand the whole way. My thumb traced lazy circles against the back of hers.

When the gates came into view, her breath caught. Stonewood Manor loomed in the distance — still massive, still scarred, still standing. But not untouched. Not anymore.

Ros whispered, “We’re really doing this.”

“Yeah,” I said, parking the car. “We are.”

I helped her out of the passenger seat, wrapped my arm around her waist, and we walked up the stone path together.

The keys felt heavier than usual in my hand. I unlocked the door, pushed it open, and let her step inside first.

She didn’t freeze, didn’t flinch. No, she walked into the grand foyer like she belonged there.

And maybe, for the first time in four years, it felt like someone finally did.