Page 41 of A Smile Full of Lies
“Sam Myers.”
My vision went red.
“Whatexactlydid he say to you?”
“Knox—”
“Tell me.”
She looked like she wanted to disappear into the floor.
“He said I could have the job if I changed my voice and wrote fluff. And… if I blew him once in a while.”
White-hot rage slammed through me.
“Oh,” I said, too calmly. “Oh.”
“Knox,” she said, her voice urgent now, trying to backpedal. “Don’t make a big deal about this. It’s not worth it?—”
“Not worth it?” I turned, incredulous. “Hesexually harassedyou. You’re lucky I’m not already out the door hunting him down andbeating the shit out of him.”
“Jesus Christ, no,” she breathed. “You cannot go to jail over me?—”
“Watch me.”
“Knox, please, don’t do something that could get you locked up just because some insignificant asshole upset me.”
Her eyes went wide. I could see it — the panic, the plea, theneedto make me stop.
But I wasn’t going to just sit here and do nothing. If she didn’t want me handling things with my fists, I had other ways to make that asshole pay.
“Effective immediately, that asshole isfired.You know why? Because Iownthat fucking magazine.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Surprise,” I bit out. “My mother founded it. I inherited controlling shares. I’ve let it run itself for years, but that ends first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Knox,” she whispered, “please?—”
“He violated you.It doesn’t matter that it was just words. That’s all it takes for me.”
She opened her mouth again — maybe to argue, maybe to beg — but I wasn’t finished.
“You need a job, right?”
Ros nodded but didn’t meet my gaze.
“Yeah. I always hoped Nina would pick up one of my books and make my dream of becoming an author come true, but… I don’t guess that’s ever going to happen. If I don’t write the book she wants me to write, she’s never going to help me get published.”
“You want to write a book?” I said. “You do it my way. You write the story Nina suggested you write, but you do it without her. Noagent. No deals. You self-publish. I’ll fund it. I’ll back it. I’ll give you a place to live and a goddamn advance on royalties if you make me one promise: you write the truth about what happened to my family.”
She blinked, stunned.
“You’d really let me?”
The room went still, and in the silence, I realized something brutal. Rosalind Cooper was the one and only thing in Stonewood that had the power to destroy me at least a hundred different ways… and I’d just demanded that she move in with me.
I cleared my throat.
