“And he admitted to having broken into your apartment yesterday and to waiting for you when you got home,” Knox revealed grimly. “So I’ll ask again: Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she assured shakily. “Did you hurt Andrew?” If Knox had gone to the trouble of going to the DERA offices today, she somehow doubted he had left again without doing something to let Andrew know of his displeasure.
Knox narrowed his eyes. “Would you care if I had?”
“Not in the least,” she answered honestly. “In fact, I would thank you for it.”
Andrew had proven, time and time again, that he didn’t care how much he hurt her emotionally and physically. Ellie had stopped caring about him when he first taunted her with the knowledge of his numerous affairs. She had begun to actively hate him after the first time he hit her. Now she despised him utterly.
Knox felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders at hearing Ellie’s unequivocal avowal of not giving a fuck what happened to Day. “He’s still in one piece. For now,” he added wryly. “He might have a few bruised ribs of his own to contend with and a broken wrist, but that seems only fair, in the circumstances.” More than fair as far as Knox was concerned. “As a consequence of him having admitted to having broken into your apartment yesterday…?”
Ellie swallowed. “He did. He made a mess of, or broke, a lot of my things. Including smashing a dinner service that had belonged to my parents into tiny pieces, which he knew had great sentimental value to me.” Her voice shook slightly, her lashes wet with unshed tears.
“Is it fixable?” Knox was furious with himself for not having asked Linus to check into the security of Ellie’s apartment building earlier.
As it was, he had called the other man on his way to see Ellie, asking Linus to treat her security as a priority. In the meantime, Knox was going to suggest to Ellie that she stay with him for the moment. Knowing how stubborn she could be, he knew that wasn’t going to be easy.
She shook her head. “I already threw the pieces away.”
“Vindictive bastard,” Knox growled.
“Oh, very much so,” Ellie agreed.
“But he didn’t physically touch you this time? Ellie?” he asked sharply again when she grimaced.
“He…pushed me, and I fell against a sideboard— Knox, please, you don’t need to go and see him again!” She moved around her desk to grasp his arm as she looked up at him appealingly. “I have a small bruise on my hip, that’s all. I very much doubt he’ll come anywhere near me again after you visited him this morning.”
“That isn’t good enough,” Knox rasped.
“No,” she acknowledged softly. “But I don’t want every conversation we have to be about a man I once thought I cared for. Now I know that I really didn’t. He was in my life and seemed supportive when my parents died. Yes, I know now that was only because I inherited a lot of money, but at the time, I genuinely thought he cared about me.” Her mouth twisted. “All these years later, learning about his many affairs when we were together, and the way he’s treated me since we parted, I don’t believe he could ever have cared for me beyond the money my parents left me. I now know that a man who loves—cares about me,” she corrected, her cheeks coloring, “would never behave in that hurtful way.”
Knox stilled. “How do you know that?”
Her smile was a little shaky, but her gaze never wavered from meeting his. “Because I’ve now met a man who I believe when he says he would never hurt or betray me.”
Knox studied her face for several seconds. “I’m hoping that’s me?”
“Of course it’s you,” she assured shakily.
“Thank God.” Knox took her in his arms, molding the soft curves of her body against his harder ones. “And for the record,” he murmured as he lowered his head, his lips just centimeters away from hers. “I think ‘care about you’ is a very lukewarm way of describing how I feel about you.”
She blinked. “It is?”
“Very,” he assured earnestly before he claimed her lips with his own.
CHAPTER TEN
Ellie had no memory of, nor did she care, how she came to be lying on the sofa in her office, her business jacket and glasses removed—the former placed on top of her desk, the latter on the back of her chair—with Knox resting on his elbows over and above her.
His lips were now traveling down the length of her throat to the sensitive hollows at its base. The lick of his tongue inside those hollows caused a shiver down her spine, pleasure rippling through her as his lips moved lower still.
He raised his head to look at her. “Is it okay if I unbutton your blouse?”
Was it okay…? “God, yes. Please.” Her cheeks suffused with heat when she realized how she must sound.
She was eager, not desperate, but she definitely longed for the pleasure she already knew Knox could give her.
“It’s a front-fastening bra,” she invited once her blouse was unbuttoned and the two sides of the garment pushed aside.
