Because no, I’m not okay.
I’m barely holding it together.
She’s everywhere now, coiled around my life like she never left. She waltzed into my restaurant and booked a fucking photo shoot like it’s 2016 and I’m still wearing a helmet and smiling for sponsors. She brought a publicist with a clipboard, a ring light, and a vision board that says “Knox Knightly: Back and Better Than Ever.”
Like I’m a brand.
Like she has me right where she wants me.
Like none of it ever happened.
I stand there in the back hallway, staring at the prep schedule taped to the wall and seeing nothing but static. I hear Savannah’s laugh echo down the corridor. The buzz of a ring light. Someone calling “aaaand rolling!”
I taste bile.
This is how it started the first time.
The slow unraveling.
Her grip. Her spin. The lies whispered so often that they start to feel like truth.
The fake pregnancy.
The press tour.
The way she told everyone I’d snapped because of “emotional strain,” when it was her, always her, pulling every string until I couldn’t breathe anymore.
I lost everything back then.
My career.
My reputation.
My mind.
And now she’s back, narrating a second act no one asked for.
Only this time I’ve got something real to lose.
I walk past the kitchen and catch a glimpse of Josie plating appetizers with her head down, her face unreadable. She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t pause. Doesn’t flinch.
She’s already gone cold.
And I can’t blame her.
Because Iknowif I move too soon, Savannah will make good on her threats. Because the second I push back without a plan, Josie’s name hits every headline in the worst way possible.
And I can’t let that happen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Josie
I won’t cry.
I almost do, twice, once in the walk-in and once in the alley behind The Marrow, where I went to “check the trash” and ended up gripping the dumpster like it could hold me together.
But I won’t cry.
