“You can’t keep me a prisoner here?—”
“I could,” he cut in, turning to face her. “But I’m not going to. I just want to keep you safe. You need to stay here until Day gets the message you are no longer his punchbag or his banker.”
Ellie was so mortified by this subject that she could no longer meet Knox’s gaze. “That could take weeks, months.”
“I think that after the weekend, you’ll find that the restraining order is doing its job.”
“But you said you now have one of the Wynter security teams guarding me and watching Andrew.” Not that she had seen, or expected to see, any of the men Knox had protecting her. Knox wouldn’t have them as one of the teams he controlled if they weren’t exceedingly good at their job.
“I do, and I have no doubt they are doing a very good job of that, in both cases,” he confirmed her thoughts. “But for my peace of mind, I would prefer, for now, if you stay here with me. At least until after the weekend.”
And who was going to protect her from Knox during that time?
Not that Ellie feared she would come to any harm by Knox’s hand. As she’d thought once before, Andrew had a look of goodness and wasn’t, and Knox exuded an air of danger like no other man she had ever met, and yet he was infinitely gentle and protective toward her.
“I’ll chop up the onion while you put the water on to boil for the spaghetti, okay?” he encouraged now.
“You’ve done this before,” she realized.
“I think cooking meat and onion is something a group of soldiers know how to do.” He took a sharp knife from the wooden block and began to peel the onions. “It starts off as cottage pie, then the second day, add a few spices and tomatoes and you have spag bol, then on the third day add hotter spices, along with some sweet peppers and chutney, and it’s a tasty curry. All from a base of minced beef and onions. Voilà.” He indicated the neatly sliced and diced onions
Ellie put the water on to boil before pouring a little virgin olive oil into a frying pan and cooking the perfectly diced onions.
Knox, having cleared away the debris from peeling the onions, now opened the packet of minced beef and tipped the meat into the pan at exactly the moment the onions were fried to perfection.
It was amazing to Ellie how comfortably they worked together, especially after the strangeness of their conversation before that. But they moved about the kitchen in complete harmony, and were never in each other’s way. As if they had been doing this for years.
Andrew hadn’t liked to cook. Because of that he had never offered to help her in the kitchen when she insisted on having a home cooked meal. He either sat and watched a game while she did the cooking. Or, as he preferred, ordered food to be delivered.
This, working side by side with Knox to produce a meal they were going to eat together, was a different form of intimacy. But it was intimacy.
“You were a soldier?” Ellie prompted once the two of them were seated opposite each other at the long marble breakfast bar, enjoying the food they had prepared.
“Years ago.” He shrugged. “Soldiering and being a full-time dad don’t really go together.”
“So you gave up being a soldier to be with Millie Rose.”
“Absolutely,” he said without regret. “Millie Rose was…she was everything to me.”
Ellie heard the emotional catch in his voice. “I am so sorry you lost her.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m already sure this delicious food isn’t going to make the curry stage.” He abruptly changed the subject as he helped himself to some more of the bolognese. “Just so I know, are you going to eat the garlic bread you made? Because if you don’t, I can’t either.”
She eyed him curiously. “Why can’t you?”
“Well, it really all depends on whether you’ve decided you’re going to share my bedroom or use one of the spare rooms.”
“I don’t— Knox!” she admonished once she realized what he meant regarding the garlic bread and whether they would be sleeping together. One of them having garlic breath wouldn’t be conducive to that closeness and falling asleep in each other’s arms.
Although if she shared Knox’s bed, she doubted they would be doing much sleeping.
Would that be such a bad thing?
She already knew that Knox was a generous and inventive lover.
One she wanted to spend time in bed with?
God yes!
