Page 8 of Falling for the Knockout

“I like the way your cheeks turn pink when you’re embarrassed,” he said. She raised her hand to her face and shook her head.

“I guess it’s my tell. When I’m embarrassed, I turn bright red and my cheeks heat. I used to get teased a lot when I was a kid.” He couldn’t imagine anyone teasing Aurora; she was perfect.

“Well, if anyone teases you now, you just point them in my direction and I’ll take care of them,” he said.

“I don’t think that will be a very fair fight—you know, with you being a boxer and all,” she said. He still had her in his arms and not stealing another kiss wasn’t an option for him. Now that he had gotten over being tongue-tied around Aurora, all he wanted to do was touch her and God help him, kiss her.

“Are you sure that you two aren’t going out?” His grandfather asked. Tony looked down the hallway to where his grandfather was watching them with a shit-eating grin on his face. Yeah, he was going to give Tony hell about kissing Aurora, but he really didn’t care. He’d do it all again if given the chance.

Aurora

Aurora got home late from the hospital, after helping Tony make sure that his grandfather was all set up at home. The discharge nurse at least got Elio to agree to in-home care. She didn’t call it hospice, but Aurora knew that was the next step if he refused treatment.

Thinking over the events of the day made her head spin a little. Tony was right earlier when he said that she had started her day worried that he didn’t like her. In fact, she was thinking about finding another job so that she wouldn’t have to be around him anymore. Wanting someone who didn’t want you back wasn’t easy, and that was exactly how she felt about him.

Aurora didn’t sleep well, thinking about everything that happened at the hospital and worrying about Elio. She felt selfish worrying whether or not she’d have a job when he was gone or if the bakery would be sold off. The longer that she tossed and turned, the more she felt bad about thinking of herself. She couldn’t help it though—she had nowhere to go if she was fired.

She had left the town she had grown up in—the town that she lived her whole life in after her mother passed away. She wasn’t going to live with her stepfather. He was a decent guy, but once he started dating again after her mother’s funeral, she knew that she couldn’t stick around. Instead, she told him that she needed to move on, and he said that he understood, but if she ever needed a place to crash for a while, she was welcome back. Aurora felt bad for leaving her stepdad, but she also knew that he was the type of guy who would land on his feet. She was right too—he was remarried within four months of her mother’s death and that helped ease the guilt that she had been feeling.

Instead of lying in bed and feeling sorry for herself, Aurora decided that she’d go into the bakery and get an early start. Plus, she needed to get her head on straight before Tony came in. She knew that he needed her yesterday when Elio told them about his cancer, but would he still want anything to do with her today? When she left them last night, Tony told her that he’d see her in the morning and then, gave her a kiss that had her wanting more. But he went back into Elio’s condo, after promising to spend the night with him. She was glad that he’d be there for his grandfather, but she also wanted to take things further with him, even if it was rushing things.

It was still dark when she got to the bakery, but that was normal for her. She had a lot of baking to do before the first customers arrived. When she baked, in the quiet of the morning, she often wondered what Tony’s grandmother was like. When she asked Elio, he went on and on about how she was the prettiest, sweetest woman that he had ever laid eyes on. Of course, she thought that was the most romantic thing that she had ever heard in her life. Aurora wondered if a man would ever talk about her the way that Elio talked about his wife. She bet that the two of them were quite a pair. Even Tony gave her his crookedsmile when she’d ask him about his grandmother. But he didn’t seem to want to talk about her as much as Elio did. She knew that Tony was close to both of them since they had raised him, so losing his grandmother had to be hard on him, and now he was going to lose Elio too.

She parked in the back alley, as she did every morning, and turned off her engine. She yawned and shook her head, as though trying to shake off the sleepiness. A good cup of coffee would solve that little problem, and she happened to make the best coffee in town.

Aurora grabbed her bag and got out of her car, shutting the door and locking it behind her, out of force of habit, and pulled her key to the bakery from her bag. She caught a glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of her eyes and when it seemed to move, she scurried to the back door, fumbling with the key. Aurora felt ridiculous. The bakery was in a safe part of town, and the moving shadow was probably just a cat or something. She took a deep breath and let it out, trying to steady her nerves.

She shoved the key into the lock and turned the key, opening the back door to the bakery. Before she could even react, someone was behind her, pushing her through the door—and it was definitely not a cat. Shit, how could she have been so careless? She knew how to check her surroundings, and instead of being vigilant, she talked herself out of believing that someone might be in the ally with her.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. Aurora turned to face whoever was standing behind her and gasped. “Joe,” she breathed. Good old Joe was one of the reasons that she ran out of her hometown months ago. They had gone out on a few dates and when she realized that something wasn’t quite right about Joe, she broke things off with him. He was too clingy if she hadto label his strange behavior. They’d go out to dinner, and Joe acted like the perfect gentleman, kissing her goodnight on her front porch, promising to see her soon. She just didn’t know that his version of soon and her’s were very different. Joe usually showed up at her door before she could even have her first cup of coffee, flowers in hand, asking her to go to breakfast with him. At first, Aurora thought that he was just being sweet, but when she refused his invitation, saying that she had to be at work early, he became irrationally angry at her. He hated being told no, and she learned that soon enough. She started avoiding putting herself into that situation with Joe. Aurora wouldn’t answer the door when he’d show up uninvited and when she told him that she couldn’t see him anymore, he blew up at her. He was in her space and when he raised his voice and his hand at her, she knew that she needed to take things a step further. So, she called the police and put in a restraining order against him, filing a report about his abuse. He still didn’t seem to get the hint, so she packed her things and left town, knowing that might be her only way to get rid of his unwanted attention. But she was wrong because he was standing in front of her now, looking pissed enough to take her head off.

“What are you doing here?” Aurora asked. She had a feeling that she already knew his answer. Joe had found her and now, he wasn’t going to give her up easily.

“Well, I came to see you, of course,” he said. He looked her over and she actually felt ill from his attention. “It’s been a while, but you still look good, Aurora.” It had been six months, almost to the day since she last saw him, and that wasn’t long enough to forget what an awful person he turned out to be.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“You didn’t make that easy, did you? I had no idea that you were planning on leaving town, but once I found out that you did, I hired a private investigator to help me trap you down. It took him a while, but when he found out that you were working at this dump, I started watching you. I bet you didn’t know that Aurora, did you?” Joe asked. He sounded as though he was actually proud of himself for stalking her.

“You’re sick, Joe,” she insisted. His laugh was mean, and she knew that he wasn’t going to leave, even if she asked nicely.

“That’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it even if you are wrong,” he taunted. “For now, how about you and I find a more private setting to talk before the old guy, or your new boyfriend comes in?” Aurora thought back to every place that Tony had kissed her—in the hospital hallway, and at Elio’s on the front porch. If Joe had been stalking her, he would have seen them together, and that would have pissed him off. Not only was he clingy, but he also was possessive, and seeing Tony kiss her would have just pushed him further over the edge.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she insisted. It was the truth. Tony wasn’t her boyfriend, he was technically her boss, and although they kissed a few times, he hadn’t really asked her out or made her any promises about future kisses.

Joe chuckled, “Right, and I’m guessing you run around kissing every man in town. Is that the kind of woman you’ve turned out to be now, Aurora?” She wanted to insist that she wasn’t that type of woman, but it honestly wasn’t his business. Telling him that might piss him off further and that was the last thing that she needed.

“You said that you came here to see me, and now you have. It’s time for you to leave, Joe,” he said.

“And I told you that we’re going to leave together and have a little chat,” Joe reminded. She was hoping that he would have forgotten about that part of their discussion, but she was never that lucky.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, Joe,” she insisted. “If you have something to say to me, you can say it right here. I have work to do, and I won’t just leave the bakery.”

“As though you have a choice,” Joe countered. He grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her to the back door. Aurora kicked and screamed the whole time, shouting at him to let her go. When he started to lose control, she tried to pull away from him. That was her first mistake. The searing pain that shot through her skull was almost enough to make her pass out. And when Joe shoved her head against the metal back door, she saw stars. He did that a few more times, and she was sure that she had passed out before he was finished, and all Aurora could think about was the fact that she might never get kissed by Tony again.

“Hey, wake up, Aurora,” a man’s voice ordered. She didn’t want to open her eyes because she was sure that doing so would only make her head hurt more. It felt as though she had run into a concrete wall, and all she could do was moan in pain.

“Aurora, the ambulance just pulled up,” the man’s voice said. “I’m going to leave you for just a second to let them in the back door. You’re going to be okay, honey.” The man kissed her cheek, and she knew exactly who was talking to her.

---