Harper rearranged dishes that didn’t need rearranging. She wouldn’t look at me. Wouldn’t even glance over her shoulder. Which told me everything I needed to know. Whatever she was about to say next, it was going to be complete bullshit, and she knew that if I saw her face, I’d call it exactly that.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said carefully. “And I think it would be best if we lived apart.”
I leaned back in my chair and studied the rigid line of her spine. The way her fingers gripped the edge of the countertop just a little too hard. The slight tremor in her shoulders she thought I couldn’t see.
I could always see.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and leaned forward. “We can move,” I said quietly. “Somewhere new. Somewhere he doesn’t know about.”
Because I already knew what this was really about. It had nothing to do with our relationship and everything to do with the six-foot shadow she couldn’t outrun.
Her lower lip trembled. “I did that already.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “He found me anyway. He’ll just find me again.”
Something hot and dangerous stirred in my chest. I pressed my tongue against my molars and breathed through it.
“And if he finds you here?” I asked. “And I’m not around to protect you?”
She swiped at a tear before it could fall. “I can protect myself. If you’re not living with me, I can buy a gun. Register it legally. It won’t violate your parole.”
The words hit me like a sucker punch.
This woman. This five-foot-four, hundred-twenty-pound woman, who flinched when a cabinet door closed too hard, was telling me she wanted to arm herself against a man twice her size. Not because she felt strong. Because she was terrified. And she loved me enough to face that terror alone rather than risk my freedom.
I wanted to flip the table. I wanted to hunt Silas down and finish what every instinct in my body had been screaming at me to do since the moment I first saw the scar on her face.
Instead, I focused on my breathing. “Would a Glock make you feel safer than having me next to you?”
She looked at me then. Finally. Those green eyes, red-rimmed and glassy, and she couldn’t even pretend. Couldn’t manufacture another one of those plastic smiles.
“You don’t want me here,” I said, “because if he shows up, you’re afraid I’ll end up back in prison for protecting you.”
“You can’t go back to prison.” Her voice splintered. “I just got you, Knox.”
“I just got you.”
Words that opened a wound I didn’t know I still had.
Fourteen years behind concrete walls and steel doors. I’d counted every single day. Not for myself. For Gwen. For every birthday I missed, every nightmare I wasn’t there to chase away, every school play where the seat I should’ve been sitting in stayed empty. I’d served my time. I’d gotten my second chance. And now I had Harper, who looked at me like I was something worth saving.
And the sick, honest truth? The one I would never say out loud?
I’d go back. I’d rot in that cell for another eleven years, another lifetime, if it meant she stayed breathing.
But I also had a daughter who’d already lost her father once. And a better man, a smarter man, would make damn sure it didn’t come to that.
There had to be a way out of this nightmare. The restraining order that Harper had filed after he’d hit her was a start. If the prison had filed charges against Silas rather than simply firing him, that would have helped too. But some prisons don’t air their dirty laundry. They handle things internally.
“You can’t endanger your life to protect mine,” she said.
“Ditto, Princess.”
Her eyes flashed. I almost smiled. Because even terrified and trembling, Harper had enough fight in her to go toe to toe with me, and God help me, I loved her for it.
My lip quirked. “If you want to kick me out because I’m a terrible boyfriend or because you’ve decided this relationship isn’t what you want, I’ll accept that.” I held her gaze. “But you’re going to have to look me in the eyes and tell me that’s the truth.”
She swallowed again. Said nothing.
“Okay then.” I leaned back, spreading my hands. “Seeing as how I’m apparently an incredible boyfriend and you very much want this relationship to continue, this isn’t about us. It’s about your safety.”
