Page 44 of Reckless Dynasty (Knight's Ridge Empire 9)

She might be smiling at me, but I don’t miss the flicker of… guilt that flickers through her eyes.

Picking up my fork, I twist some of her spaghetti around it in the hope she’ll confess to what’s bothering her without me pushing.

“You’ve got an impressive gym downstairs,” she blurts after a few seconds.

“Been snooping, baby?” I tease, despite the way the words make my stomach knot. Even still, I force myself to eat.

The second the food hits my tongue, I can barely contain my moan of approval.

“Oh my God, this is good.”

She beams at my praise—or at least, I think it’s that and not the fact that I’ve just given her a potential out of our previous conversation.

It’s clearly not because she willingly picks it back up.

“I went down to the basement on Monday after I found the car key,” she admits.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” I ask, not wanting to even think about the real reason she’d have been hunting down there.

She shakes her head, dropping her eyes from mine in favour of her dinner.

“You only have to ask me if you want to go down there, baby. I told you, I won’t hide anything from you.”

“I-I know. I just… I’m… scared, I guess. I’m scared that if I see him it’ll change everything again.”

“Or it could confirm everything you already know,” I counter.

She nods, before she silently begins eating.

I let her lose herself in her thoughts, her fears for a few minutes before I finally say what I was desperate to when I first came in.

“I know things are… up in the air right now with Sara and that this probably isn’t the best time but…” She looks up, her eyes softening at my nervous rambling.

“What is it?” she asks softly.

“I want to take you away this weekend. I’ve got a place for us. It’s not far, we can come back immediately if anything happens and—”

“Yes,” she says with a wide smile.

“Yeah?”

“As long as there’s a phone signal and we can get back to the city.”

“There is. I swear.”

“Then yeah. I could do with a little… space.”

“Space with me?” I ask.

“Obviously.”

I stare at her for a beat, wondering just how I managed to end up here with her.

There are times, so many fucking times, where I wonder if it’s all a game. If she’s playing me for some reason like I was her to begin with. It’d fucking wreck me.

But then she looks at me with her huge, dark eyes, and all I see is love. She touches me, and it’s as if she’s just struck me with a million volts, and I remember that there’s no chance of this being fake. It’s too real.

Everything I feel for her, I see reflected back at me every single time we’re together.