Page 183 of A Smile Full of Lies
His breath caught.
“I’m not normal, Ros,” he whispered.
“I don’t wantnormal,” I whispered back.
He exhaled slowly and tangled our fingers together. He held me like a secret he didn’t have to keep anymore.
And for the first time, I saw him — not just as Knox. Not just as my husband.
But as the man who hadalwaysloved me. Even in silence. Even in sin.
Especially in sin.
Chapter
Forty-Two
DECEMBER 20
ROS
The green roomwas colder than I expected.
Sterile, overlit, and clinical, despite the bowls of fruit and water bottles arranged like some kind of peace offering. Someone had brought in a small vase of daisies. It didn’t help.
I sat in the makeup chair, hands folded tight in my lap, trying to keep from bouncing my knee. The air smelled like powder and nerves and cheap coffee.
I had done smaller interviews before. A few podcast appearances. A pre-recorded local news segment. An NPR feature I still hadn’t been able to listen to without cringing.
But this? This was national.
Late Night with Jenna Pierce.
Syndicated. Live. Airing in over forty countries. And I was their closing guest tonight.
I wasn’t just the author of the book that broke the true crime charts. I was the woman who coaxed a dying confession out ofa murderer, who took a knife to the chest for a cold case, who wrote the story that finally gave the Knox family their truth.
There were hashtags trending. TikToks dissecting every chapter ofWhat We Buried in Stonewood.People debating morality, obsession, survivor’s guilt.
But none of them knew what I knew.
They didn’t know that the man I loved — the man I’d married in secret, in the house his family had died in — had once knelt at my feet with a camera in his hand and hunger in his heart.
They didn’t know he had become the mask that haunted them. And they sure as hell didn’t know he was about to take it off.
“Ten minutes,” said the producer, knocking on the door.
I nodded, and when the door closed, I finally looked across the room.
Knox was leaning against the far wall, dressed in all black, hands in his pockets, watching me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
He hadn’t come with me to hair or makeup. Hadn’t offered any advice. He justshowed upthe way he always did — silent, steady, lethal in his patience.
I stood and paced over to him.
He straightened when I approached, reaching out to slide a knuckle along my cheekbone.
“Ready to be famous, baby?” he murmured.
