Page 62 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Forty-One

ROS

The storm rolled in just after midnight.

Low thunder. A flicker of lightning behind the curtains. The kind of quiet, intimate weather that made everything feel more private. Like the world outside had been muted just for us.

Knox was getting ready to hop in the shower.

I was supposed to be uploading press materials for the book — a behind-the-scenes bonus bundle for early digital orders. I’d forgotten it was due until the last minute, and he’d offered his laptop since mine was still packed.

“You’ll find the assets folder on the external drive,” he’d said, sweats hanging low on his hips, that lazy wedding-night glow still painted across his face. “Just don’t go poking around in my drafts folder. You’ll start questioning your life choices.”

I’d rolled my eyes. Laughed. Kissed his jaw and shooed him into the bathroom.

And now I was curled on our new bed in Knox’s room at Stonewood Manor, one hand wrapped around a mug of tea, the other navigating a sea of carefully labeled folders on Knox’s laptop.

The external hard drive mounted easily. But the folders? There were hundreds. Organized by year. Then month. Then content type.

Press. Legal. Security. Personal.

And one — tucked near the bottom — simply marked: Drafts.

I hesitated.

He’d said not to look, but in that teasing way that made it sound kind of like a joke.

And I didn’t mean to open it. I really didn’t.

But my cursor slipped. Just once. And that’s when I saw them. Video thumbnails.

Hundreds of them.

Black backgrounds. Neon purple glow. The mask. Nox Obscura’s unposted drafts.

I knew the aesthetic well. Knew the lighting. The editing style. The smooth, dangerous grace of the man behind the mask.

But these… These were different.

Unpolished. Unfiltered. Not curated for a public thirst trap feed. Not made for the algorithm.

These were raw. Some were just test clips — camera angles, lighting tweaks, sound checks.

But others?

Others made my breath catch.

File: 2019_07_NextDoor.mov

File: 2020_01_CurtainsOpen.mov

File: 2021_09_StudyLight.mov

I clicked the first without thinking, and what I saw on the screen made my stomach drop.

The camera was pointed through a bedroom window next door to Knox’s modest house on the other side of town. The camera was pointed at Gran’s house… at my bedroom. The blinds were open. I was sitting on my bed, reading. Fully dressed. Nothing suggestive.

But the way the camera lingered… zoomed in on my face, the curve of my smile when I laughed at something on the page?

He had filmed me. Years ago. Before the haunted house. Before the kitchen kiss. Before the hospital, the book, the wedding, the vows.

Before everything.

Another click.

CurtainsOpen.mov

I was in Gran’s kitchen this time. Dancing. Barefoot in pajama shorts and a tank top. Stirring something on the stove, singing into a wooden spoon.

I remembered that night. It had been raining. Gran had been alive. And I’d felt… watched. Just for a second.

I’d written it off as anxiety. But he’d been there. Recording. Not for the internet. Not for anyone else. For himself.

Because he was already obsessed.

My hands shook as I clicked the third video.

StudyLight.mov

It was grainy. Low-lit. A timestamp from four years ago.

I was crying. Sitting at my desk, head in my hands, shaking shoulders. A failed assignment? A fight with Gran? I couldn’t even remember. But the video didn’t zoom in this time. It just… watched. Waited.

The sound of his breath came through the mic. Steady. Deep. And then, in the faintest whisper, almost lost to the static, he spoke.

“You’re not allowed to give up, sweetheart.”

I slammed the laptop shut. My heart was racing. My skin flushed hot, then cold. He had watched me. For years.

Before I knew him as anything other than Thayer’s friend and my new neighbor. Before I let myself see him. Before I ever told him that I wanted him.

He’d already decided I was his. And he’d been documenting it. A history of want. A film reel of obsession.

Not staged. Not scripted and perfectly curated like his MaskTok thirst traps.

Real.

I stood, my knees weak, my thoughts spinning. The door opened behind me. Steam rolled in.

Knox stepped into the room, towel around his waist, hair wet, body still dripping. He stopped short when he saw me, when he saw the look on my face.

“Ros?”

I didn’t move.

His gaze dropped to the laptop. To the drive. And I saw it — the flicker of understanding. Of guilt. Of something deeper.

“You looked.”

It wasn’t accusatory, just a fact.

I nodded.

He closed the door behind him slowly and padded toward me. Barefoot. Careful. When he was close enough, he reached out and took my hand.

“Say something.”

My voice was hoarse.

“How long have you been filming me?”

He didn’t lie to me.

“Since I was eighteen.”

My stomach twisted.

“I didn’t post them,” he said. “Not the ones like that. Not the real ones.”

“Why?”

His jaw flexed.

“Because they were mine. ”

That’s what he said. And he didn’t flinch when he said it. He didn’t backpedal or soften or try to explain it away.

He just stood there — barefoot, wet from the shower, towel low on his hips, steam still clinging to his skin — and admitted the truth like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I watched you,” he said again. “Because I couldn’t not do it.”

I didn’t speak. I wasn’t sure I could. My whole body felt hollowed out. Not angry. Not scared. Just… stripped bare.

“You knew I was with Thayer,” I whispered. “Back then.”

His jaw ticked.

“I did.”

“And you still?—”

“Yes.”

He stepped closer. Slow. Measured. Still dangerous. But not because I thought he’d hurt me. Because I finally understood how far he’d go not to lose me.

“I knew what I was doing was fucked up,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t fair. That you were with him. That you had no idea I was next door cataloging every moment you smiled when you thought no one was looking.”

He paused. Swallowed.

“But I also knew I couldn’t stop.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked, voice hoarse.

“Because you loved him.”

“I didn’t—” I stopped myself. Swallowed hard. “I only thought I did.”

“I know,” he said, voice low. “And I told myself that was enough. That I could be near you, watch you live, take whatever scraps of proximity I could get. I thought it would be enough just to witness you.”

His eyes locked on mine.

“But it wasn’t.”

A sharp, burning ache crawled up my spine. He stepped even closer. Lifted a hand. Rested it lightly against my cheek.

“I bought that house next door to your Gran’s when we were eighteen expressly so I could be close to you…

not because it was close to the Stonewood University campus.

You never knew, but I did. And every time I saw you through that window…

every time I heard your laugh drift through the open screen in summer… it broke me a little more.”

“Knox…”

“I recorded those videos because I couldn’t fucking stand the idea of forgetting you,” he said. “In case you stayed with him forever. In case I never got the chance to tell you. I kept them because you were the only thing that made the silence in my life bearable.”

Silence. Grief. Survival.

His family had died while he was out of town. A change in plans. A robbery gone wrong.

And I remembered now — how I’d seen the shadows in his eyes back then. The weight he carried. The way he looked at me, like I was sunlight bleeding through storm clouds.

I just hadn’t known how deep it went.

“You said you felt guilty,” I murmured. “When I told you I wanted you, even when I was still with him.”

“I did.”

“But you were already…”

“Already watching?” he said, smiling without humor. “Yeah. I was. But I didn’t touch you. I didn’t speak it. I waited until you were ready. Until you were mine.”

“And if I never had been?”

His expression turned cold.

“I would’ve kept watching forever.”

It should have terrified me, but it didn’t.

Because somewhere, buried deep under the shock and heat and shame, a broken little part of me exhaled. Because I had felt it. All those years. I had felt his eyes on me. I had wanted them there. Even when I hadn’t known what that meant.

I reached up and raked my fingers through his damp hair.

“Why keep them?” I asked. “Why never delete them?”

His voice dropped.

“Because they’re proof.”

“Of what?”

“That it was always you for me,” he said. “Not the version of you from the haunted house. Not the one I hunted through the trees. Not the one who moaned under my mask and begged me not to stop.”

“Oh?”

He kissed my forehead.

“They’re proof that I loved every part of you before you ever let me dream of touching you.”

My knees buckled. He caught me, his arms strong and sure, pulling me against his chest, wrapping around me like armor. I buried my face in his skin, breathing him in — soap and citrus and something darker. Something one hundred percent him .

“I didn’t mean to find them,” I whispered.

“I know.”

“I wasn’t trying to?—”

“I know.”

He held me tighter.

“I just wanted to upload the press pack.”

His chest rumbled with a low, broken laugh.

“Figures the thing that outs me as a long-time stalker is your fucking work ethic.”

I pulled back, eyes wet, lips trembling.

“You’re not a stalker.”

His brow arched.

“Don’t lie to yourself, princess. I am absolutely, one hundred percent a stalker. I’ve been stalking you for seven years now, and you fucking like it.”

And maybe I should’ve been afraid then. Maybe I should’ve flinched at the confirmation of every twisted suspicion I’d ever had about him. But I didn’t.

Because I knew what it looked like when someone watched you just to hurt you. That had been Thayer.

This? This was something else.

“I don’t want you to delete them,” I said.

His brows lifted.

“No?”

I shook my head.

“They’re ours now. All of it. Even the fucked-up parts.”

He was still for a moment. Then nodded once.

“Okay,” he said. “They’re yours too.”

I pulled him into a kiss, and it wasn’t desperate or frantic or frenzied. It was acceptance.

We lay down together on the bed, his arm around my waist, my head on his chest.

Thunder rolled again outside, the rain still whispering against the windows, and I said the words I hadn’t planned to say out loud yet:

“I think I love you more because of the darkness. Because you let me see it… you let me in.”

His breath caught.

“I’m not normal, Ros,” he whispered.

“I don’t want normal, ” I whispered back.

He exhaled slowly and tangled our fingers together. He held me like a secret he didn’t have to keep anymore.

And for the first time, I saw him — not just as Knox. Not just as my husband.

But as the man who had always loved me. Even in silence. Even in sin.

Especially in sin.