The Proviso (89 page)

Knox strode angrily into the office and she got a
chance to study him for a moment: his haggard face, his strained
voice, the exhaustion that underlay it all. He went straight to
Eric’s desk to begin a rant, and Eric ignored him, still staring at
Justice.

He slammed his palms down on Eric’s desk and barked,
“Cipriani! Pay attention! What the
fuck
is your
problem?”

Eric’s gaze went to Knox’s then and with a small
jerk of his chin, he said, “Look.”

Knox’s head whipped around and his eyes widened when
he saw her. Nobody spoke, nobody moved.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Justice murmured as she sat
and began to sort through the files she’d left behind two days
before, not daring to look up at him. “It won’t happen again.”

Knox unfolded to his full height slowly and turned
to face her. He sat back on Eric’s desk and crossed his arms over
his chest, and one ankle over another.

“That’s what you say every time you’re late,
McKinley,” he growled. “I oughtta fire your ass.”

She glanced up then and raised an eyebrow. “You
can’t. You haven’t laid any paper on me and I’ll sue you for
wrongful termination.”

He pursed his lips as he stared at her, then he
barked, “Thanks for the tip. I’ll remember that,” before he stalked
back into his office and slammed the door.

Justice went about her business as usual, expecting
that at some point, Eric would—

“Why are you here?” he demanded, leaning over her
desk at 4:30 after everyone except Knox had gone home. Knox was
downstairs in the sheriff’s department yelling at Raines for
causing him to lose a case. That happened a lot with Raines, she’d
learned; he’d burned every attorney in that office several times
with sloppiness bordering on outright sabotage and Knox more than
most—which was why Knox unofficially relied more heavily on the
Kansas City Police Department and state troopers than he was
supposed to.

“He sent you away for a reason, Justice,” he snapped
when she refused to answer the question. “You weren’t supposed to
come back and you were supposed to sign your annulment.”

“Fen Hilliard’s got bigger problems than whether
Knox fulfills the terms of the proviso or not.”

He backed off and stood to his full height, his
black eyes wide. “You know?”

“Yes, Eric,” she muttered dryly. “I’m fairly decent
at researching, and getting married at gunpoint certainly warranted
a little bit of it.”

“Fen will have you murdered if he finds out.”

Justice chewed on the inside of her cheek and nodded
slowly. “I figure so. But. There are worse things than dying over a
matter of honor.”

He stared at her speculatively and for quite a long
while; she returned his gaze, daring him to say it. Finally, he
did. “Honor has nothing to do with it.”

“Now that you mention it,” she snapped, “you’re
absolutely right about that and you probably knew that from day
one.”

“I did,” he returned sharply. “I don’t know exactly
why he wanted me to interview you, Justice, but I had no intention
of hiring you.”

“Got that part, thanks. The right questions are: Why
did he marry me? And then turn around and let me go after all that
hoopla?”

Eric said nothing for a moment, then sighed. “I
don’t know. Knox does a lot of things that don’t make sense to
me.”

“Apparently, you’re not the only one.”

He took a deep breath and stared at her desk, using
a fingernail to absently pick at nothing. “Well, for what it’s
worth,” he said, releasing his breath in a long whoosh, relief now
evident in every syllable, “you have no idea how happy we are that
you came back.”

* * * * *

80:
DON’T WRAP IT UP

Knox’s SUV was gone by the time she wrapped up her
day and drove home.

Home. Hers. Hers and Knox’s. Together.

She found her way through the labyrinthine suburban
streets to the back corner of the subdivision where she lived now.
The gate was open and she parked in the driveway.

I bet she wants to fuck Knox Hilliard as much as I
do . . . She wouldn’t know what to do with him if she had him.

She sighed and dropped her head on the steering
wheel, tears dripping down her nose because now she was here by her
own choice and she didn’t know how this would turn out. She felt
sad and amused and melancholy and frightened and hopeful all at the
same time. She scrounged around on her key ring for what might be
the front door key, but she couldn’t find one.

He had never expected she’d come back. To him. To
fight his fight with him. To see what could be if she were here
freely, to be his wife and his lover and the mother of his
children, like she’d dreamed of. She’d been handed her fantasies on
a silver platter and she wanted to live in them for however long
that lasted.

She popped her trunk and got out, slammed the
driver’s door, and started unpacking her car.

Her eyes were dry and scratchy. Her brain was tired
from working through the tangle of emotions, which she couldn’t do
until she knew a few more things.

Like why Knox did everything so bassackwards.

She slammed the trunk lid closed and at that moment,
she heard the front door open. Well, now she wouldn’t have to ring
the doorbell of her own house.

Knox strode across the lawn toward her, an
expression on his face she couldn’t decipher. The setting sun in
the west splashed across his hair and his face. When the small
beveled diamond panes in the windows caught the sun, they shot gold
prisms onto him like raindrops. He
was
the sun.

His well-worn jeans rode low on his hips and did
nothing to hide the strength in his legs—the ones that had outrun
her their first night together. Likewise, his plain white tee shirt
did nothing to hide the vivid musculature of his chest and arms.
She remembered what his bare chest looked like, remembered how it
had felt against her bare breasts, and she couldn’t help those
sensations in the pit of her belly.

Knox Hilliard, her boss. Her husband.

Her lover.

He stopped right in front of her and just looked at
her. She did nothing but stare back at him. She watched him as his
eyes warmed and darkened, then her eyes closed.

It wasn’t long in coming. He furrowed the fingers of
his right hand through her hair and pulled her to him gently. His
kiss was half gentle, half demanding and she vaguely wondered
if—hoped that—he would take her to bed right now. Pulling her body
to his, he wrapped his other arm around her hips and held her
close.

Oh, yes,
this
was why she’d come back, Fen
Hilliard be damned.

Knox’s arousal pressed against her belly, their
clothes doing little to soften it. Justice was drowning in him,
falling into whatever magic spell he had cast over her. She ran her
hand over his arm, up, up until she had wrapped her arm around his
neck and pulled herself as close to him as she could get.

That kiss went on and on and on. Justice loved and
gloried in every second of it. He stroked her nowhere else, made no
other demands, didn’t talk to her. He just kissed her and she
kissed him back.

The evening was silent of the man-made sounds of
civilization. The birds, the cicadas, the breeze in the leaves were
the only sounds, the only music that accompanied their kiss.

“You came back,” Knox whispered into her mouth,
still kissing her, now butterfly, sweet, light.

“You noticed.”

“Why?”

“Because you let me go.”

He wrapped his arms around her tighter and buried
his face in her neck. She held him close to her, her head on his
shoulder and she felt moisture seep through her hair and onto her
skin. She found that . . . odd.

After a long while, he said, hoarse, “How far did
you get?”

“St. Louis. I stayed there. I had a lot of thinking
to do.”

She was shaking badly, her thighs trembling as if
she had just run the mile in two minutes. Justice wanted Knox to
take her to his bed, to keep her there forever.

To love her.

He pulled away from her slightly and sighed heavily.
“I have to tell you some things.”

Oh. That.
“I already know.”

He stared at her warily. “Sebastian said you
didn’t.”

“Google is my friend. I found an old
Wall Street
Journal
article and drew my own conclusions as to who killed
Leah.”

Knox’s eyes widened then and he pushed her away,
though still grasping her upper arms as if he would never let go.
“And you came back anyway?” he demanded. “
Why
would you do
that?”

She took a deep breath. There were only two reasons,
and she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit either, but she settled for
the less revealing of the two:

“I want to be powerful, like Giselle,” she
whispered. “You can teach me that.”

“So you can go back to Washington the way you were
supposed to two days ago,” he returned, a note of . . . something .
. . in his voice she couldn’t figure out.

Justice shook her head slowly, holding his gaze. “I
told you I’d have given you anything if you’d asked. Why would you
be so
arrogant
as to presume to know what I would or
wouldn’t do or think?”

“You’re a genius, Iustitia. I thought you’d
understand this isn’t the smart choice.”

She shrugged. “Taking on King George wasn’t the
brightest idea anybody ever had, was it?”

Knox’s face was so haggard, so worn. He looked every
minute of his almost-forty and then some, and to Justice, he was
the most beautiful man who ever lived. He stared at her, apparently
unable to speak because he kept opening his mouth as if to say
something, then closing it again as if it weren’t worth saying.

Finally, he lifted a hand to her face and caressed
her cheek with his knuckles.

“Do you believe in vigilante justice, Iustitia?” he
whispered.

“Yes,” she murmured.

His eyes widened. “What about theft versus crimes
against the body?”

“Truth is more sacred than life or property,” she
whispered.

“Revenge?”

“Occasionally serves a purpose.”

“Black and white?”

“Truth. Justice.”

“At all costs?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

He looked at her for a long time, then whispered,
“Very good, Iustitia.”

They stood looking at each other forever and then,
“I need to unpack and iron my clothes. And I’m still very tired.
It’s been—” She bit her lip and couldn’t help that her eyes filled
with tears and her mouth trembled. “It’s been a very long week. I
can’t— I can’t take much more.”

He nodded his assent and he wrapped his arm around
her shoulders, holding her close as they went into the house
together, his lips pressed against her temple. Justice knew that
must mean something, but in her fragile state of mind at the
moment, she refused to analyze anything he did.

Knox left her alone to sort through her things as he
brought them in from the driveway. She discovered room in the
drawers for her clothes. Half the closet was empty, save the
ubiquitous tangle of hangers, which meant he had done this before
he married her. It made her feel . . . special. No, equal.

He came back just as she finished hanging up the
last dress she owned. He leaned against the jamb and crossed his
arms over his chest, looking at her clothes in the closet.

Justice had to know. “Why did you send me with
Giselle if you weren’t going to like how I came back?”

He grunted and looked her up and down. “I love what
she did with you,” he said gruffly. “I don’t like that other men
like it. You were pretty before, but I guess it didn’t occur to me
that you’d come back so—” He stopped, took a deep breath, and
released it softly, reverently, his eyes blazing: “Stunning.”

Her insides, between her legs, tingled sharply and
she didn’t know what to say to that. “She said I looked
sixteen.”

“I know. She made sure to point that out to me very
loudly and with much profanity. It was her idea to take you
shopping in the first place.”

Her eyes widened. “But I thought you—”

He shook his head. “I very rarely pay attention to
what women look like, Iustitia. I only care what’s in between their
ears and in their souls.”

So he hadn’t thought she needed a makeover. A burden
lifted from her heart that she hadn’t known she still carried.

“She was right,” Justice admitted. “The day I came
back, the other attorneys, defense counsel, treated me
differently—like I belonged there, like I could do my job. They had
been patronizing me all along and then they didn’t anymore. I
didn’t know until I came back different.”

He sighed. “I— I never noticed. I’m sorry.”

“I have another bone to pick with you.”

Knox snorted. “How many more after that?”

Her mouth twitched. “I’ll let you know.”

“Well?”

“You bought me. You bought me from my father.”

He looked away then. “He would have never let you
go, Iustitia. You would have been chained there forever by his need
for free labor because he’s too damned cheap to hire someone, too
damned lazy to work himself, always guilting you into staying. I
asked his permission, blessing, whatever you want to call it. He
wanted money because he thought I had it.”

“Why didn’t you just threaten him like you did
me?”

“He told me point blank he’d call the FBI with some
bullshit story and I didn’t want to take the chance they could make
some oddball charge that would stick, especially since I’d forced
you to stay in the office.”

“Why
me
?”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I had my
reasons,” he muttered finally.

Justice huffed, shaking her head as she turned away
from him to begin folding and smoothing the clothes that would go
in the drawers. “Honestly? I don’t know whether to be grateful or
to be mad. I—” She stopped, more tears welling. “When I came back
from Giselle’s, he— He looked at me the way you looked at me out in
the grass that night.”