Knox set down his fork. “Anything.”
“Mika and Vivi told me about the five years we spent apart. About how you rejected me.”
His expression shuttered, pain flickering across his features. “They told you the truth.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
He was quiet for a long moment, staring at his plate. Then he sighed and looked up at me, his gray eyes raw with old guilt.
“I was a coward,” he said simply. “I met you and I wanted you more than I’d ever wanted anything. And then I found out you were human, and I panicked. I thought I was protecting you by pushing you away. I thought if I was cruel enough, you’d move on and find someone who could give you a normal life.”
“So you told me I was just a warm body.”
He flinched. “Yes.”
“And then you left.”
“Yes.”
“And I was pregnant.”
“I didn’t know.” His voice cracked. “I swear to you, Lina, I didn’t know. If I had known...”
“What would you have done?”
He met my eyes. “I would have stayed. I would have fallen at your feet and begged you to let me be part of their lives. Part of your life.”
I believed him. I couldn’t explain how I knew he was telling the truth, but I did.
“My friends said we’ve been fighting lately,” I continued. “Before the coma.”
Knox nodded slowly. “We have. A dangerous woman escaped from custody. That was the first trigger. Then the threats started coming. Against you. Against our family. I wanted to increase your security, keep you safe. You thought I was being controlling. We argued about it a lot.”
I processed that. A dangerous woman. Threats. Against me and our family.
A flash of an image crossed my mind. Fire. Smoke. A blanket burning on a doorstep. Was that real? Had that actually happened? Or was my brain inventing things, trying to fill in the gaps with fiction?
“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” I admitted quietly. “I keep getting these flashes. Images. I don’t know if they’re memories or just my imagination.”
Knox reached across the island and took my hand. “Whatever you see, whatever you remember, I’m here. We can figure it out together.”
His thumb traced circles on the back of my hand and I felt warmth spread through my chest.
“While we were apart,” Knox said, his voice softer now, “I wrote you letters. Hundreds of them. Telling you everything I couldn’t say in person. How much I missed you. How sorry I was. How I’d do anything to take back what I said.” He paused. “I never sent them. But after we got back together, I gave them to you. You keep them in a box under our bed. You used to read them sometimes.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Letters?”
“A lot of letters.”
I definitely wanted to see those.
We finished dinner with lighter conversation. Knox told me about the twins’ latest antics, about pack politics, about funny things that had happened over the past few months. I listened and laughed and found myself leaning closer to him across the island, our fingers brushing when we both reached for the wine.
The tension between us was building. I could feel it in every look, every touch, every moment our eyes met and lingered too long.
“I should let you rest,” Knox said finally, standing to clear the plates.
Right. Rest. That was definitely what my body wanted right now.
