Her chin tips in response, and she goes back to pushing her eggs around. “I may have been horrible to Owen, but I like Ella. She doesn’t deserve this.”
I reach across the table and take the fork from her hand, before linking my fingers through hers. “You weren’t horrible to him. Stop putting yourself down. You’re fucking human. We both are.”
“Don’t,” she says. “I don’t want to talk about him. Not right now.”
“Okay, that’s fine.” I avoid informing her that she brought him up and continue. “With Ella and me…it’s not what you think.”
I squeeze her hand and wait for something, anything from her.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Something…I saw in Owen’s phone.”
“Okay. Ask me anything, I’m done fucking around. I meant that. No more games. No more running.”
She nods. “I know Ella is a friend of the family. Or that’s what Owen told me.”
“Yeah,” I lie. “In a way.”
“How close were him and Ella? Like…” She hesitates, choosing her words carefully. “You know what? Fuck it. Were they ever together? Like maybe before him and I started officially dating?”
My jaw clenches. What the fuck did she see on his phone?
“Not that I know of. Neither of them ever mentioned it. And we didn’t meet her until after shit went down with your father. Why do you ask?”
She pulls her hand away, and picks at the moist label on the water bottle. “Nothing. Like I said, just some texts that seemed kind of different. It’s fine.”
“Show me.”
Anger starts to rise up in my chest. If that little prick put up a fight to date Ella because he was so in love with Sawyer. If he refused to do something for the family for once, instead of letting it all fall to me, in the name of love. Then went behind my back, behind Sawyer’s back, and fucked around with her? Fuck. I’ll dig up his body so I can kill him myself.
“No, Knox. It’s fine.”
My nostrils flare, and heat spreads up from my chest. It’s not fine. If she thinks something’s off, then something has to be off.
“Sawyer. Get the phone.”
She must see how close I am to losing my shit, since she jumps up and hurries to the bedroom, returning in less than a minute with the phone.
I read through the messages. Specifically noticing the dates, and the lack of texts…conversations that must have been deleted.
My jaw is so tight it aches. I set the phone down on the table carefully, because if I don’t control myself right now, I’m going to put my fist through her kitchen wall and she doesn’t deserve that.
Owen. My brother. My blood. Who let me carry everything on my shoulders. The company, the family, the secrets. All while he got to live his perfect life. While he got to have my Sawyer. While he got to be beloved by everyone. And this whole time, he was going behind my back, behind Sawyer’s back.
“Knox.” Sawyer says slowly. She’s watching me the way you’d watch something that might fall over an edge. “Say something.”
“Give me a second.”
I push back from the table and stand, pressing both palms flat against the surface, staring at nothing. Breathing through it. Counting it down the way I learned to when I was seventeen and my father’s rages started bleeding into mine.
It doesn’t work as well this morning.
“Knox?”
“I need to go.”
I hear her sharp intake of breath and I look up at her immediately, knowing exactly what she’s thinking. She’s telling herself some bullshit right now, and my behavior isn’t helping.
“Hey.” I cross to her in two strides, cupping her face in my hands, tilting her up to look at me. Her eyes are already shuttering, already preparing for impact. “Look at me. This has nothing to do with you. You hear me? Not one fucking thing.”
