One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(63)
Her face went white. “You’re over the line.”
“I know.” He was over the line, in too deep, and out of control in every way when it came to her.
“Don’t do this to me,” she said so quietly that he might have doubted she’d spoken at all if he hadn’t watched her lips move. Her gaze shifted to the gym. Specifically, to Murph.
Knox stepped to the side, blocking her line of sight. “I’m not going to do anything with that information. You can trust me on that. But I have questions.” He had so many questions crowding his mind, and he couldn’t seem to articulate any of them. He wanted to know if Emily was her given name, how she’d come up with the last name ‘Ford,’ where she’d grown up, why she didn’t live somewhere nicer, closer, than above the gym. But those were mere details, immaterial compared to the most important question of all. “Actually, I only have one question. Are you safe?”
She blinked at him as though stunned. In the moment before she wrenched her face away, he caught a glimpse of pain, as though he’d wounded her with his concern. It took her a long moment to infuse her features with her indomitable strength again. Knox caught himself holding his breath awaiting her reply, praying she hadn’t been in some unseen danger the whole time he’d known her, something that he could have protected her from sooner.
“Keep my secret,” she finally said.
“Yes. Forever.”
“The discrepancies in the information about me that you found online, was it an easy puzzle to piece together?”
The dread in her voice made his ribs tighten. He wished he had a better answer for her. “For anyone mildly interested and with access to the internet, it would be simple.”
Closing her eyes, she muttered a curse under her breath.
The gym rat’s words came back to him. Emily warned us this might happen someday.
Who was after her? A man, but who? She’d been eighteen when she forged a new identity. A violent ex? Her father?
“I’m sorry. For everything. I took advantage of you. And I put your job in jeopardy by invading your privacy. What can I do to make things right? What do you need? You have the keys to my house. Stay as often as you’d like, for as long as you like. If you need a new identity, if you need to go underground again, I can help with that, too. I can—”
She placed a finger over his lips. Her expression softened. “Thank you for being worried about me. Would you like to come upstairs, see my place?”
That was a terrible idea. He’d already crossed too many lines tonight, and together they’d crossed even more. Their relationship didn’t need any more complications. The only correct answer would be for him to decline politely, then get in his truck and see if it’d start, then drive away and put her in his rearview mirror. And he should give her the restaurant straightaway so he could be done with the out of control feeling he had when he was around her. But his mind and heart weren’t seeing eye-to-eye at the moment. “Yes. I’d love to see your apartment.”
Chapter Fifteen
Knox followed Emily through the gym doors and past a silently snarling Murph. The glares of dozens of meatheads followed them up the stairs at the back of the room. The second-floor fitness rooms opened in front of them and to the right, but they went left, down a hall to a door labeled with a bronze plaque that read Employees Only.
The door opened to a clean, white-walled studio, sparsely decorated and with a tiny kitchen. She led him to a two-seat table near the kitchen and sat him down, then walked to the fridge. It looked as empty as his had been before she’d filled it. From the door, she took out a mason jar of jam and a glass carafe of milk. While she busied herself on the counter with her back to him, he took the opportunity to study the apartment closer.
A corner of the space was devoted to metal garment racks stuffed with clothes and framed by sheer curtain panels. A light blue folding screen separated a king-sized bed with a fluffy white duvet from the living room area. His attention landed on the beige, overstuffed sofa that dominated the living room, his thoughts drifting back to the night before and to the stop by Emily’s office on Haylie’s tour of the resort. “Do you sleep on the bed or the sofa?”
Jesus H. Christ. Everything he said to her was inappropriate, over the line. Since the day they’d first met, he hadn’t been able to stem the tide of dumb shit coming out of his mouth when he was around her. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. Would you forget I asked that?”
The shadow of a smile appeared on her lips. “No, it’s okay. Where I sleep depends on my mood. When I’m stressed or feeling out of sorts, I like to tuck into a sofa and burrow under a heavy quilt. Otherwise, I sleep right in the middle of the bed and take up all the space.”
She appeared at his side and set a plate in front of him. Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread with the crusts off, both cut into triangles. She reached towards his face. He froze, unbreathing, bracing for her touch. Her fingers did not settle on his face, but his tie. She worked the knot loose, then popped open the top button of his shirt. “You and these suits. Always so constrained.” She stroked a hand lightly over his hair, sending chills over his skin.
He was milliseconds away from lifting his hand to cup her hip and drag her up against him when she stepped away. She returned a moment later with two tall glasses of milk, then assumed the seat across from him.