Page 69 of Ruthless Knight

I was right.

Knight’s grandfather thanks everyone for coming out tonight, proceeds to make a speech about his wife that sounds like vows of undying love, then he makes the announcement, declaring how proud he is that his eldest grandson has just gotten engaged.

That’s when things really take off and it’s like the party is more about us. The press swarm us with their congratulations and questions. Knight and I are asked everything from how we met to how he popped the question. Someone cheekily even asks if the Princess of Monaco would be invited to the wedding, seeing as how she was Knight’s date for the yacht party.

As fake as we are, I am happy when Knight answers that she wouldn’t be in attendance, then he makes the journalist apologize to me for being disrespectful and messy.

Said journalist is then shown the door.

The night wears on, and more pictures are taken with more kisses that feel far too real. I play the game, play the fiancée, play with fate.

Soon, the night ends. I survive my first official day on the job, but something sinister becomes quite obvious to me.

Of all the people I met tonight, Knight’s father wasn’t one of them. Neither was his half-brother Bastian, nor his stepmother, Sloane. But they were all there. I saw them.

At one point, when I was talking to Knight and Jericho, I looked right at them, wondering if they were going to come over. They were talking to other people, so I thought that might be why they didn’t at the time, but they made no attempt at any other times.

I couldn’t have been more surprised, and it was extremely obvious that they weren’t anything called close. I also noticed his father was like that with Jericho, too, and seemed to favor Bastian.

To me, Knight’s grandfather acted more like a father than his father did. I don’t know his mother, as she lives in France, but I noticed how his grandmother took on the role of mother too.

It made me wonder what happened between them. I couldn’t imagine not being close to my father or speaking to him when he’s right there in a room with me.

The goal for tonight was to get to a place where I could speak to Knight about Sunset Cove, but as the night ends and we bid goodbye to everyone, the questions about him and his family fill my mind.

Both matters, however, slip away when we slide into the fog of tension in the back of the Maybach, and Ryan starts the journey home.

Now that Knight and I are practically alone, it feels weird. We just spent hours pretending to be a couple engaged and in love.

Going back to the people we were before is harder than I expected.

It’s harder to un-believe that we didn’t belong to each other every time we kissed, and we’re just a contract.

The tension thickens the further we drive away. But it’s not the angsty tension we had before. There’s an undertone of something sinful and sexual.

I know Knight feels it too, because he keeps stealing glances at me. At one point, out the corner of my eye, I catch him staring at my bare thigh where the dress splits.

I purposely don’t move because I want to see how long he will do it. He stares, and stares, and stares, until Ryan drives over a little bump in the road. That is the only time Knight looks away.

We continue the journey in silence, but it’s loud, almost deafening.

I can’t even think straight, and when I do, I keep remembering all the sinful things he said to me tonight and other nights, and the way he kissed me.

Finally, we look at each other and a moment of unspoken words fill the space between us. I wish I knew what he is thinking.

As if to show me, he leans forward, as if to kiss me again. I’m stunned at myself when I stay there, waiting for the kiss to come.

But it doesn’t. The moment is interrupted when the car pulls to a stop and Ryan announces that we’re home.

Knight gets out first. I follow, suddenly realizing the night is over.

He’ll leave and go back to his cave, then I’ll have to wait until tomorrow or whenever I next see him to recreate this moment of truce to negotiate the renovation plans for Sunset Cove. Right now feels like the perfect opening, so I have to take it.

“Knight.” I rush up to him before he reaches the stairs, but he keeps going.

“It’s bedtime, Goddess.”

We walk inside, into the bright hallway, and he continues walking away from me. Not in the direction of his room, but his office.

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