He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t touch her back. But he doesn’t get up and leave either.
Every time she leans in with that syrupy sweet, “Knoxie,” something inside me snaps a little more. A wire pulled too tight. A hairline fracture turning into a fault line.
I stab a beet with a little more force than necessary.
Toni notices.
“You good?” she murmurs, sliding up beside me at the prep counter.
“Peachy,” I mutter, slicing through a carrot like it personally offended me.
She gives me a long look. The kind that sees everything without saying a word. Then she moves on, and I’m grateful.
Because if she asks the wrong question, if anyone asks the wrong question, I’ll crack open like an overripe peach and spill across the kitchen floor.
And the worst part?
I can’t even talk to him about it.
Knox has been a wall all night. If he’s even in the kitchen, he’s impossible to communicate with. One-word answers. Clipped orders. That locked jaw silence he wears like armor. He hasn’t looked at me, really looked at me, since I walked in.
It’s like the man who kissed me slowly, who held me like I was breakable and worth breaking for, disappeared the second this Savannah walked through the door.
I carry a plate of lamb out to the runner, and when I pass the dining room, I hear Savannah’s laugh again, soft, low, intimate.
Knox’s eyes flick up.
Meet mine.
Just for a second.
And then he looks away.
Like I’m no one.
Like I’m not carrying a secret that could change everything.
By the time dessert is plated and Table Seven is cleared, I’ve convinced myself I imagined it. The whole thing. The look he gave her. The brush of her fingers on his arm. The weight of his silence.
Maybe I’m overreacting.
Maybe it’s not what it looked like.
Maybe.
“Holy shit,” Gracie whispers, slipping into the kitchen like she’s seen a unicorn wearing red bottoms. Her eyes are wide, cheeks flushed, apron askew like she nearly tripped over herself getting in here. “Tell me that wasn’t Savannah Monroe sitting out there.”
I freeze. The mixing bowl in my hand slips slightly. “What?”
Gracie squints at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You didn’t know?”
“I...” My voice breaks before it even starts. I clear my throat. “Who is she?”
Gracie blinks, then glances over her shoulder like she’s making sure Knox hasn’t suddenly materialized behind her. “She’s his ex, Josie. Like,theex. The one who was in that article about him. I think she might be the one who broke his heart.”
My stomach lurches.
Ex.
