Worth It (Forbidden Men #6)(64)

But once I was alone in the hallway with the stranger claiming to be Knox, my anger died.

The uncertainty grew.

He’d changed so much. His hair was shaved close; it made his head appear to be shaped different. The beard scruff he sported hid a lot, but I could still tell he’d grown some harder angles to his jaw and cheekbones.

Though his face had lost some baby fat and grown lean, his body mass had practically doubled. And it was all muscle, pure, steel bulging muscle. They were so freaking big, they seemed to obstruct his mobility until he didn’t move quite as smoothly as he used to.

Nothing, absolutely nothing looked the same, except maybe the eyes. I hadn’t gotten a very good look at them in the darkness of the bar last night, but what I’d seen of them then had made them appear black.

Now, in the full light, they were brown again and I could finally recognize some of my Knox, except only the color and shape were the same. They kind of had a dead expression to them now, or maybe severely broken, like something in him was damaged beyond repair.

Pain deep in my stomach knotted my guts into tight bundles.

What the hell had he been through?

My gaze moved back up to his face. “I didn’t recognize you last night,” was all I could think to say.

It felt like the stupidest comment in the world, but what else was I supposed to say? Hey, long time no see? I missed you like crazy? I still think about you every day? I can’t seem to stop loving you, no matter how hard I try?

Yeah, so not going to happen.

“I noticed,” he said, and God, even his voice was all wrong. There were little hoarse gaps, making it gravelly and deep.

I swallowed, unable to read him at all. He didn’t sound rude...or sweet, for that matter. He was just...indifferent.

Which killed me.

There was nothing inside me indifferent about seeing him. I was a disaster. My heart thumped with all kinds of crazy, my palms sweated with nerves, and my arms ached to reach for him, to just...hug him.

It’d been six years since he’d hugged me, and no one hugged the way Knox Parker hugged.

This was just freaking unbelievable. Knox was standing in front of me, in the flesh, and I couldn’t hug him.

“So, I hear you’ve been out since Wednesday.”

He glanced away, as if he were disinterested in our conversation.

His response devastated me in multiple ways. But at least he wasn’t running off and hiding anymore. He was still here, letting me look at him, and talk to him.

The last time I’d seen him—excluding last night, which didn’t count because I hadn’t realized who he was—he’d held me desperately close and whispered his love to me.

I’d been fully ready to wait his four-year sentence for him. Except that sentence had been extended another thirty.

Which led to another reason I was crushed.

“How are you free this soon?” He wasn’t supposed to be free this soon.

His gaze finally lifted to mine, his dark brown eyes bruised with pain. “I don’t know. They let me out on parole, I guess.”

I laughed, but the sound morphed into a sob. But Parole? Parole was causing all this? Why hadn’t I thought of parole?

Slapping my hand over my mouth, I bit my lip as hard as I could to quell the tears I could feel forming. When I was able to finally control some of my emotions, I dropped my hand.

“So, I, uh...” I let out a shaky laugh and brushed the hair out of my face. “I have so many questions.” When he looked away again, my nerves went haywire. “You want to get out of here? Go somewhere to talk?”

He took a sudden interest in his feet and mumbled something that sounded a lot like, “No.”

My jaw dropped. “Excuse me? Did you just say no?”

He shrugged. “I just don’t see the point.”

I shook my head, my mind utterly blown.

“The point in what? In talking? But...what?” Was he insane? “It’s been six years. There’s like a million things to catch up on. We need to talk.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, the one and only sign I’d gotten so far that this encounter might in any way be difficult for him. But then he hitched up one shoulder. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“How could you not...but what about...oh my God! Of course we have shit to say. We never even officially broke up.”

“We’re broken up,” he told his feet.

I almost clutched my heart because it felt as if he’d just stabbed it. Gaping, I shook my head. “Can you look me in the eye when you tell me that?”

He lifted his tortured brown eyes. “I don’t want to talk,” he said softly.

I wanted to pull my hair and scream. I wanted to hit him in the chest with both of my fists.

No, I just wanted to grab him hard and yank him against me and kiss him, hug him, force him to admit he missed me just as hard as I’d missed him and that he was happy to see me.

But he only looked away.

The bastard couldn’t even watch as he broke my heart.

My pain snapped into rage. “Well, I do! You might not have anything to say, but I have plenty. The last time I saw you, you swore you didn’t blame me for what happened.”

He still refused to look at me, but his dark eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I don’t.”

“Then why are you treating me like this?”