Page 42 of Twin Babies for the Silver Fox (Happy Ever Alpha Daddies #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Knox

The carrots never stood a damn chance.

They’re too symmetrical, too smug in their perfect little slices, and the way Wes is chopping them, it’s methodical, tight, wrong.

“You’re slicing those carrots like she broke my heart!” I snap, voice sharper than the knife in his hand.

Silence.

Every head in the kitchen lifts like I just announced a fire or committed a murder. Wes’s knife hovers mid-air. Gracie chokes on a laugh and quickly pretends to cough. Nova is standing by the oven with a sheet pan of gougères, staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. Or lost the one I had.

Which, fair.

Because I have lost it.

I know it. They know it. The walk-in knows it.

Her scent is still in there. Vanilla and citrus, and that wild sweetness that doesn’t come from any bottle, just from her. I walked in to grab herbs this morning and nearly dropped to my knees beside the citrus crate like some grieving widower in a tragic play.

Now I’m yelling at vegetables.

Nova sidles up beside me, gently prying my knife from my hand like I’m a toddler who found something sharp.

“Maybe take five?” she says, carefully.

I nod like I’m going to. Then grab a bottle of bourbon from the shelf and stalk toward the back office instead.

The chair creaks when I drop into it. I don’t turn on the light. I sit in the dim hum of the service hallway, staring at the glowing screen of my phone.

Voicemail again.

Fuck.

I scroll through the list.

Josie 3:17 p.m., Josie 11:09 a.m., Josie 12:42 p.m., and every one of them is a damn echo chamber. Me, talking to silence.

I hit redial.

The line rings, and for a half second I hope she’ll answer, that I’ll hear her voice, even if it’s to tell me to fuck off.

But no.

Her voicemail picks up, soft and cheery and absolutely gutting.

“Hey, it’s Josie! Leave a message and I’ll get back to you, unless you’re a telemarketer or my mom trying to FaceTime during dinner. In which case, no.”

Beep.

“Josie, it’s me. Again.” My voice is low, rough. I sound like I’ve been chain-smoking in an alley, but it’s just the weight of too many unsaid things crushing my windpipe. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I should’ve said that first. I’m sorry.”

I rub my eyes.

“I didn’t mean what I said. About any of it.

I was scared. I am scared. You showed up and turned my whole damn world upside down, and then you told me I’m going to be a dad, and I panicked.

Not because I didn’t want it, don’t want you, but because I wanted it too much.

And I don’t know how to be the guy who gets to keep good things. I’ve never been that guy.”

Silence stretches.

In the background, someone drops a tray in the kitchen. A clang, a muttered curse. I don’t move.

“I miss you,” I whisper. “I miss the way you hum when you’re stirring something. I miss your smart ass comments. I miss you taking up all the oxygen in this place like you were born to breathe life into it. Into me.”

I don’t mention Savannah showing up at The Marrow last night, all smug smiles and mascara and unresolved bullshit, acting like she still had a claim on anything. On me.

She doesn’t.

Only Josie ever did.

“Please call me,” I say, voice cracking. “Just... yell at me. Tell me to get lost. Tell me you’re leaving Silver Peak, and I’m an idiot. I am. But say something. Anything.”

I hang up before I say more. Before I confess the part that’s chewing me alive from the inside.

That I love her.

That I think I have for a while.

That I feel like I’m bleeding out in the middle of my own kitchen because she’s not here.

Somewhere down the hall, Nova is probably rallying the staff, covering for me again. I owe her a raise. Or a vacation. Or a new car. Maybe all three.

But all I can do is sit here in the dark, listening to my own breath, surrounded by the scent of spices and ghosts.

And the echo of a woman who walked away.

It’s after midnight when I step out the back door of The Marrow, sleeves rolled to the elbows, shirt clinging with the heat of a long night on the line. The mountain air cuts cold against my sweat-damp skin, but it’s a relief. A slap to the face I probably deserve.

I don’t expect to see her.

Savannah’s leaning against my truck like she owns the damn thing. Leather jacket, tight jeans, perfectly tousled blonde hair, and that familiar smile I used to think was seductive. Now it just looks like trouble.

“Been waiting long?” I ask, voice flat.

She gives a dramatic sigh, like I’ve wounded her. “Knox. Come on. You don’t have to be like this.”

I walk past her, not stopping. “I do, actually.”

She follows.

“You’ve been dodging my calls,” she says.

“And I’m gonna keep doing that.”

“You’re making a mistake,” she hisses. “You think that girl in her little apron is going to stick around once she realizes who you really are? Once she sees how dark you can get?”

I whirl on her. “You don’t get to talk about her.”

She looks stunned for a beat. Then something shifts. Her smile turns sharper. “You’ll regret this.”

I don’t respond. Just get in the truck and slam the door.

I don’t see her again that night.

But by morning, the bomb has detonated.

Nova bursts into the office just after seven, eyes wide, holding her phone like it might explode. “You need to see this.”

I take the phone, frowning.

And there it is.

A gossip headline screaming across the screen in bold, unforgiving font.

EXCLUSIVE: NFL STAR TURNED CHEF KNOX KNIGHTLY ABANDONS PREGNANT ONE-NIGHT STAND. SOURCES CLAIM HE’S ‘UNSTABLE, UNFIT TO BE A FATHER.’

My stomach drops.

There’s a blurry photo of me outside The Marrow from weeks ago. Another one of Josie. One I know she didn’t consent to. She’s in her apron, smiling at a tray of pastries like she’s a damn angel, and the caption beneath it makes me want to throw the phone through a wall.

“The woman, 25, reportedly met Knightly during a brief stint working at his restaurant in Silver Peak. According to insider sources, she is pregnant, and Knightly has ‘completely shut down,’ according to one source close to the chef. “He’s spiraling,” the source claims. “He doesn’t want the responsibility. ”

I shove the phone back into Nova’s hands.

“How the hell did she find out?” I growl. “This wasn’t public. Josie didn’t, she wouldn’t.”

Nova’s already shaking her head. “She didn’t. But this town? It’s a sieve, Knox. And Savannah’s always had a way of turning whispers into headlines.”

I run both hands through my hair, heart hammering like I’ve just taken a hit on the field.

“I need to call Josie,” I say, already reaching for my phone. “I need to… fuck. She’s going to think I did this. She’s going to think I used her.”

Nova steps in front of me.

“She’s not answering you. You’ve left, what, ten voicemails? She’s probably still figuring out where she stands in all of this. And now this? You need to think before you call her again.”

I grip the edge of the desk so hard my knuckles go white.

“Then what the hell do I do?”

Nova softens, just a little. “You fix it. Publicly. Honestly. You show her, and everyone else, that you’re not running.”

My throat is dry. My thoughts are a storm.

Because Savannah might’ve lit the match, but I poured the gasoline. I gave her every reason to think I was the villain in this story.

And now I have to prove I’m not.

Even if I don’t know how.

Yet.

I don’t hear the front door slam. Don’t hear the footsteps pounding through the restaurant.

But I do hear Dee.

“Where the hell is he?”

Her voice cuts through the hallway like a whipcrack, furious and shaking with fury. Nova doesn’t even try to intercept her.

By the time Dee storms into my office, I’m already halfway out of my chair.

She doesn’t give me a chance to speak.

“You absolute coward,” she spits, slamming the door behind her so hard the wall shudders. “You think you get to hide now? After what you did?”

“Dee—”

“No. Shut your mouth. You don’t get to talk.”

She’s shaking, fists clenched at her sides, fury radiating off her in waves.

“She trusted you,” she says, voice lower now, deadly. “She loved you. You think I don’t know what you two were doing all those late nights in the kitchen, those soft looks across the prep line? You think I didn’t see how she glowed around you?”

I swallow hard. My throat’s on fire.

“I didn’t ask for this to happen.”

“Neither did she!” Dee explodes. “She didn’t plan to fall for some emotionally stunted ex-quarterback with more walls than the Pentagon! But she did. And when she told you about the pregnancy, she didn’t need perfect. She needed you to stay.”

I rub a hand over my face, but she’s not finished.

“And then this?” She gestures wildly toward the door, toward the noise outside, the headlines, the whispers. “You let Savannah destroy her from the sidelines while you sit here licking your wounds?”

My voice is raw when I speak. “I’m not trying to hurt her. I just?—”

“Just what?” Dee snaps. “Too scared to admit you still love her? Or too selfish to deserve her?”

That one lands like a punch to the gut.

“You don’t,” she finishes, voice cold now, cutting. “You don’t deserve her.”

And with that, she walks out.

The silence she leaves behind is worse than the yelling.

I stare at the wall, heart pounding, ears ringing. My hands are fists at my sides. That ache in my chest, tight and gnawing, rips open into rage.

And I snap.

I shove everything off my desk. Papers fly. A framed photo of the restaurant's opening crashes to the floor. My chair goes next, slamming into the wall with a sharp crack. I punch a dent into the filing cabinet so hard my knuckles split open.

It’s not enough.

It’ll never be enough.

She’s gone. I drove her away. And now the whole damn world knows it.

Nova still stands off to the side, face as tight as the knot in my chest.

She takes one look at the chaos, my bleeding hand, the wrecked office, and doesn’t even flinch.

“Feel better?” she asks, folding her arms.

I press the heel of my palm to my eyes. “No.”

“Good. Because you don’t get to wallow. Not now.”

“Nova—”

“No.” Her voice slices through the room. “You think you’re the only one hurting? You think Josie’s off in Denver sipping chai lattes and laughing about this? You broke her, Knox. And you don’t get to sit in here playing the tortured martyr while she rebuilds alone.”

I stare at her, jaw tight.

She’s in Denver?

Why?

“She loved you,” she says, softer now. “She still might. But none of that matters if you don’t show up. You either fight for her, or you lose her. That’s it.”

I look down at my bleeding hand. At the mess I made.

I’ve been running. Blaming. Screaming at ghosts.

And she’s right.

None of that means anything if I don’t fight.