Page 107 of A Smile Full of Lies
God, I wanted to laugh in this kid’s face. Wanted to grab the sheaf of papers he was waving around and shred them just to see him stammer. None of this shit mattered. Not when Ros had handed me her soul with both trembling hands.
And she thought she gave it to a stranger.
I kept my face impassive, nodding like I was listening, while my grip on the edge of the table tightened until the wood creaked. The kid’s voice blurred into a low hum, like an air conditioner about to fail.
Timing. Control. Strategy. That’s what mattered now.
I could’ve stormed into that kitchen this morning and demanded everything — stripped her down, body and truth both, until she was raw and gasping and mine. But a man who wins doesn’t tip the board when he’s already ahead. He plays his hand slow. Measured. Calculated.
I let my gaze flick to the clock. The second hand stuttered forward, and I decided I was done pretending to give a shit about risk assessments and liability clauses.
I pushed back my chair, smooth and deliberate, and the junior’s voice faltered mid-sentence.
“Uh — sir?”
“Urgent security breach,” I murmured, already standing. “Handle the rest.”
I didn’t wait for a reply.
The conference room door shut behind me with a soft click. Silence, clean and sharp, wrapped around me in the hallway.
Finally.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and rolled my shoulders once, loosening the tension. Then I headed for the stairwell, phone already heavy in my hand.
Not because I needed it to tell me anything new.
Because I was ready to start using it as a weapon.
The stairwell was dim and cool, cinderblock walls swallowing the echo of my footsteps. I stopped halfway down, leaning against the railing, phone already in my hand. Not because I needed it. I’d memorized every word before I even left the house. But pulling them up again was like dragging a blade across my palm — painful, deliberate, grounding.
Her name glared at me from the top of the thread:@MidnightRose.
I scrolled slow, like I hadn’t already carved these sentences into my ribcage.
You win, okay? You win. I came for you. I wanted it. I got off on it. But it’s done.
I have feelings for Knox. Real ones.
My chest tightened. My cock twitched. Every part of me wanted to slam the phone shut, march out of this building, and go take what she’d already given. Rip the truth straight from her mouth while her body shook apart under me.
But that wasn’t how a man like me won a game like the one Ros and I had been playing for the last seven years.
That was how you lost.
So I stayed still. I forced myself to breathe. Forced myself to let the hunger coil tighter instead of burning itself out.
This wasn’t about me getting what I wanted, in the moment. It was about me showing her she’d already handed it over. Thatthere was no safety net, no mask, no distance between her and the monster she thought she’d been confessing to.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, dragging in a sharp breath that tasted like concrete dust and control.
I reminded myself I was playing chess, not checkers.
I wasn’t going to let her words live in the dark, tucked away in some encrypted cache like a secret diary. No. I was going to bring them into the light. Make her own them. Make her say them again — with my eyes on hers, my hands on her, no way to hide.
I thumbed the screen dark, slid the phone back into my pocket, and straightened.
Timing.
