Page 28 of No Knight (My Kind of Hero #3)

Ryan

It’s not a ploy, cunning or otherwise, to avoid a scene, as the soles of my shoes feel suddenly slick against the industrial carpeting. Palm pressed to my mouth, I move toward the door while my brain belatedly lodges the minutiae of Matt’s reaction.

Confusion. Doubt. The jolt of his body like he’d stuck a fork in a toaster. Doubt. Then maybe delight?

At the door, I yank on the chrome handle that’s almost as tall as me, the stupidly heavy glass door too slow to open for my liking.

I sprint from the meeting room, knowing I’m going to be so pissed.

I’ll have an awful lot of words to say, and some of them very unpleasant, but right now, I have more pressing matters to deal with.

“Ryan?”

I register Martine’s frown, but don’t stop. I will not demean myself—I will not barf in an office made of glass.

I make it to the bathroom not a moment too soon and seem to be in the stall for the longest time, given the meager contents of my stomach.

“You okay in here?”

The door tentatively opens, Martine appearing around the edge of it.

“All over but the dry heaving.” I swipe toilet paper from the dispenser and pat my sweaty head, feeling all kinds of sorry for myself. “That was ...” It couldn’t have been him. No way. Vomiting and hallucinating. What vile ailment are those symptoms of?

“Food poisoning?” Martine offers. “Maybe a bug?”

I press my lips together because I just don’t know.

“Try not to die, anyway.” She opens the door wider.

“Can I choose to?” I lean back against the sleek stall wall.

“I can think of better places to haunt.”

I try to smile, at least until she reaches for my wrist.

“Come on, out you get,” she says as though talking to a little kid.

“I don’t want to,” I answer, sounding like one.

“No need to be embarrassed. Unless your reluctance is something to do with a certain dark-haired stud.”

Deny, deny, deny.

“He shot out of the meeting room hot on your heels, sweets.”

I huff out an unhappy-sounding laugh as I pull my wrist from hers. Stud , she called him. She doesn’t know how close she is to the truth. To my truth. To his lie?

Motherfucker. I tip back my head and stare at the marbled ceiling as my anger flares. Anger I can deal with. Anger is better than shock. Better than feeling sorry for myself.

“Did you say he had a wife?” I demand, my gaze slicing her way.

“No wife.”

My stomach swoops at the sound of Matt’s voice. That melodic accent. He comes to a stop behind Martine, his smile tentative and sort of beautiful. But they say even the devil was an angel once. Not that he’s the devil. He’s just another man. Another man who’s no good.

“Though you did meet my niece on Saturday.”

“What?” My frown is reflected back at me in the mirror above the washbasins.

“Blond hair. Yellow dress. We were at the Palladium? Never mind.” His shoulders move with a deep inhale.

“I’ll just ...” Martine begins to move toward the door.

“Don’t,” I say quickly. She stills, and gives a quick nod that feels like relief. “I can’t do this,” I say, still looking at her. I can’t look at him. I can’t be here. I can barely think. Martine nods and turns her body sideways as though to shield me from Matt. Head down, I move toward the door.

“Ryan.” My name seems to bleed with regrets as his fingers settle around my upper arm.

I glance pointedly down at the same knotted cuff links peeking out from under his jacket sleeve. “Let go.” If my voice sounds calm, it’s because I’m now icy cold inside. He lied to me—about everything. He isn’t who he said he was, what he said he was.

Oh, my God. My entire skin suddenly prickles as I realize exactly what—exactly who he is.

He’s fucking Midas! There was no sugar mama paying for the suite in the Pier because he’s absolutely loaded.

How mortifying. The things I said, talking up my job, my personal wealth, when my salary, my net worth, is probably his spare change.

“Were you laughing at me the whole time?”

“What?” His brow furrows like he can’t make sense of what I’m saying. “No. Ryan. I never ... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. For everything. But most of all, I’m sorry you weren’t there in the morning.”

“You think that would’ve made things okay?” I demand, incredulous.

“I was gonna tell you.”

“Nice. Tell me after the fact but before now, right?” My voice increases in volume with each word spoken. At least, until I come back to my senses. “Let go of me.”

“You told me you didn’t want to know.” But at least his fingers loosen.

And there’s that unhappy laugh bubbling up inside me again. “I can’t do this,” I mutter, breaking for the door. I didn’t want to know this—any of this.

Like a good soldier, Martine falls in behind me. She murmurs that I should leave, that she’ll tell management I’m ill. I turn right out of the bathroom, so grateful for her help when she even shoves my purse at me, pulled from under my desk as we pass.

“Ryan, please,” Matt calls.

“Not now,” I hear Martine say, her voice calm.

“But I need to speak to her.”

“She doesn’t want to speak to you.” There’s no malice in her reply, only an evenness.

“You don’t understand,” he retorts stridently.

I pull on the stairwell door.

“If you make a scene, she’ll never forgive ...”

I don’t hear the rest as the door creaks closed behind me.

But she’s right, I won’t forgive him. Ever.

“ Starbucks is all that’s wrong in the world. ”

Why would he think that? Because it’s readily available? Made for the masses?

Asshole, I think as I stir my second coffee of the day, this one in the ’Bucks in the Westfield shopping mall. A coffee I can’t seem to stomach.

Maybe Starbucks is beneath him. Maybe a wealthy man like him refuses to drink out of anything but a gold-plated Hermès espresso cup.

Maybe there’s nothing but Black Ivory beans in his office—the stuff that’s fermented in an elephant’s stomach before it’s shit out at a thousand dollars a pound.

Or something like that. It strikes me that it’s a pretty apt analogy for how I feel right now.

Shit out, though without the gold dust price tag.

I hope I never set eyes on him again. I don’t need to hear his bullshit excuses. It’s wildly apparent why he didn’t tell me the truth. Because he never thought he’d see me again.

He was probably laughing at me the whole time.

He’s no better than the rest of them—no better than Brandon. Than Pete. Well, fuck him. Once you’ve broken my trust, that’s it.

I pull the sides of my jacket closer, my shoulders rolling agitatedly.

It’s not that the jacket is ill fitting.

More that my skin feels too tight right now .

I’ve had enough therapy to know why. The past. Isn’t it always?

A childhood like mine doesn’t come without scars.

And right now, I feel like my skin is transparent, like my whole sordid history is on show.

And boy, does that make me feel inadequate.

Poverty and neglect can do that to a soul. Poor little white trash girl.

The jacket I’m wearing is new. I just picked it up from a store called Whistles, thanks to mine still being in the office and the weather being god awful.

The office. Shit. I hope they bought Martine’s excuses.

Her earlier text said that the meeting looked to carry on without me.

And, apparently, without Matt. Not that I asked. Not that I care.

I’ve also emailed HR, apologized, and said that I’m sick.

It’s not a lie. I’m sick of being lied to.

Sick of feeling like I’m not enough. It’s the reason I ended up at Whistles.

Then the next clothes shop ... and the next.

I glance at the multiple bags at my feet.

It’s just a temporary tumble into old habits, I tell myself.

It’s what I have done, since I could afford to, to make myself feel better. Can’t say it’s cheered me up any today.

Fuck it. The chair legs protest as I stand abruptly, the squeak drawing attention in the busy coffee shop. Whatever. I’m not going to sit here marinating in self-pity a moment longer. Liar or not, it was only one night. It’s not about to change the course of my life.

I am young, free, single, solvent, and successful, I remind myself as I loop the numerous bags over my wrists and fingers. I don’t need a man to fix me or make me feel good. I pay my own bills, and I take care of myself. Me. Nobody else. And I am not going to sit here and wallow one moment longer.

Straightening, I throw back my hair and pick up my cup and take it to the counter, because I’m not a sociopath.

I’m going home. To the serviced apartment, at least. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to work, force everything to return to normal, and by the end of the week, I’ll move into my own place.

London is big enough for us both. He’s bound to want to continue the conversation.

I expect he wants to deliver his apology to ease his conscience and make himself feel better.

I also expect I’ll hear him out, for no other reason than to make my own feelings clear.

Then I’ll never need to set eyes on him ever again.

I take an Uber home and, at the last minute, call into the nearby Little Waitrose, which is like a bodega and Trader Joe’s had a cute store baby together.

I mindlessly grab something for dinner, along with a bottle of organic sauvignon blanc, which I almost put immediately back.

But the bags hanging from my wrists remind me my vice is my own, and not my mother’s.

“Looks like a good night,” the cashier says as I heft the wire basket to the checkout counter.

“Er, yeah. I guess,” I agree as he begins to pull out the items to scan.

It seems dinner consists of a sharing-sized bag of tortilla chips, a small tub of labneh , and another of spicy muhammara . Plus a jar of dill pickles, a packet of Haribo Tangfastics, and a pint of vanilla H?agen-Dazs, the latter three of which I seem to have planned on eating together.

That’s as weird as hell.

I guess tonight’s food choices are thanks to whatever made me ill earlier. Or maybe my body is just craving the familiar, thanks to food in London not tasting quite right to my foreign taste buds. I’m sure it’ll just take time.

The cashier scans the final item—the wine . “You know what they say. A little of what you fancy does you good.”

“ Turn that frown upside down before people begin to think you don’t fancy me. ”

I find myself grabbing the countertop at the phantom of Matt’s voice. The things he said that night in October and the way he looked at me.

Immediately, my mind begins to whir, snapshots of my day flittering through my brain.

My bad-tasting coffee. The awful fruit. Vomiting.

The bra that I thought must’ve shrunk in the dryer.

There was the bar of chocolate I couldn’t eat last night and the weird metallic taste I’ve had in my mouth for days.

When was the last time I had my ...

But I’ve been busy. Stressed! Moving to the other side of the planet can do that to a girl. My argument is silent, my denials adamant. But it’s all there, even if my brain is trying to convince me otherwise.

No, that can’t be right, because then it would mean—

“You okay?” Concern etches itself in the cashier’s face.

I realize I’m clutching the counter and breathing heavily.

“Am I ...” I give myself an internal shake to scatter those frightening thoughts.

“Let me get back to you on that,” I say, my words sounding so very far away as I lift my hand and point to the shelves of medication behind him. “Could I get one of those too?”

I swallow and tell myself it’s just a precaution. There’s no way I can be ...

“A pregnancy test? No worries. So do you want the generic or the branded?”