The Proviso (110 page)

Justice left Knox’s office with a ring on her
finger, and the entire metro would soon know she’d never been just
fucking her boss. She waved her ring at Eric as she passed his
desk. “Okay, you can hire women now. My name is
officially
tattooed on his ass.”

They howled, and Justice skipped to her desk,
dropped into her chair, and spun, laughing until she was wiping
tears away. The jokes began to fly fast and furious at her and each
other, which she returned with the best of them—

—until Fen walked in.

The sudden silence was deafening. Justice gasped and
felt sick to her stomach. She carefully, quietly put her nameplate
face down. Richard looked at her and she gulped as she looked at
Fen. Of all the days—

“Well, don’t everybody stop having a good time on my
account.”

Everyone went back to work, sober now, and Justice
attempted to make herself very small, though she did take the
liberty of doodling Knox’s name and putting a heart around
it—because she could do that now.

Knox came out of his office, chuckling and shaking
his head, a wide grin on his face that died as soon as he saw Fen.
His expression flashed from sheer amusement to sheer rage and he
stopped, swiveled on his hip and put his right hand on his hip. His
voice hard, he said, “I thought I told you not to darken my
doorstep again.”

“I have a proposition for you that could settle this
whole thing.”

“There’s only one solution I’m interested in, so
unless that’s it, I suggest you leave before I set your nose for
you.”

“Don’t be so hasty. I’ll give you half of my shares
of OKH in exchange for
her
,” and he pointed straight at
Justice, whose eyes widened as she looked up from her doodles.

“I told you to ask her and she declined. What’s the
problem?”

“Make. Her.”

The room was dead silent. Knox looked at Fen as if
he’d lost his mind.

“Fen,” Knox said slowly, “I don’t own her, not to
mention the fact that I stopped taking orders from you years ago.
Did you not get the memo?”

“I know,” Fen replied equally slowly, flat,
threatening, “that you run this county with an iron fist and this
office no differently. I also know that you aren’t quite as willing
to make the same, ah,
sacrifices
that I’m willing to make to
get what I want. Make. Her.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Knox barked.
“You threatened Justice in front of my entire office and now you’re
threatening me?”

Justice’s breath caught in a sharp stab behind her
sternum at the thought of Knox leaving her, dying over an
inheritance he didn’t want and the best he could do about
it—because he wasn’t willing to take the most drastic step—was to
weave and bob.

She couldn’t imagine her life without Knox in it
now—now, when her dreams had come true, that
he
had made her
dreams come true. She rose then, tall and proud, her hands on her
hips.

“You simian cocksucker,” she growled, that Terrible
Voice coming from the depths of her soul once again. “What makes
you think I’d whore for you?”

Fen’s anger was palpable and he took a step toward
her. Suddenly, the sound of chairs scraping on the wood floors and
four slides chambering their rounds echoed through the office. No
one was amused; she’d never seen such expressions of ferocity on
the faces of her friends, not even when Hicks had been taken
hostage. Eric. Richard. Patrick. Even Dirk, whom she had never
known carried a weapon. On their feet with their weapons pointed
straight at Fen. Knox’s eyebrow rose at Fen’s look of shock, his
face draining of all color.

“She doesn’t want the job, Fen,” Knox said mildly.
“For the third time now.”

Justice watched Fen as he looked around at them all,
and then directly at Justice. He stared at her for a long time and
she stared right back, refusing to look away first. She’d taken on
Knox, Raines, and Martin McKinley and won—Knox’s respect, Raines’s
imprisonment, and property that was hers by right of her labor. She
might actually fear Fen’s henchmen, but she wasn’t afraid of him
face to face.

Then his eyes widened and he sucked in a breath.
“Red hair,” he said slowly. “She has red hair.” He looked at her
left hand, which she didn’t try to hide, then at Knox’s. His brow
wrinkled. “But she’s so young,” he whispered in confused awe.

Justice whipped her own Glock out of her holster and
pointed it dead at him.

“Here’s the deal, Fen,” she snarled. “You come after
me like you did Leah and Giselle, I’ll shoot you where you stand.
You go after Knox, I’ll sneak up on you in the dead of night and
make you beg for your life before I slit your throat. He’s my lover
and my husband and the father of my children. You will
not
take him away from me without retribution.”

Fen sucked in a breath, unable to hide his fear and
remnant rage. Knox watched him, his expression inscrutable. “Check
and mate, Fen,” he said. “You have no way to keep OKH whether
Justice and I have a baby or not. I suggest that you clean out your
desk on December 26 so Eilis can move in on December 27.”

The man’s gaze snapped to Knox. “What do you mean,
Eilis?”

“She’ll be the new CEO of OKH Enterprises.” Knox
tilted his head and smiled benignly when his face turned red and he
snarled. “You can probably also say goodbye to your senatorial
hopes, all things considered. And to think: All you had to do to
keep OKH was ask me if I wanted it.”

Fen stared at Knox warily. “You don’t?” he asked
slowly.

“No. I never did. I still don’t.” Fen swallowed and
his color dropped. “Furthermore, Sebastian and Bryce don’t want it,
either.” He sucked up a sharp breath and his eyes widened. “We
started fighting you when you tried to kill Giselle, although
considering how you feel about her, I’m not sure what you hoped to
accomplish there except pull her pigtails a bit. She certainly
called your bluff, though, didn’t she?” Knox tsk’d at him, slapped
his back good ol’ boy style, and pressed him toward the door,
chuckling all the way. “Go home, Fen, and think about that for a
while.” He shoved Fen out unceremoniously and slammed the door
behind him.

Then, leaning on the doorknob, Knox looked directly
at Justice, who very calmly holstered her gun and primly
straightened her dress. He put his hand on his hip.

“You enjoyed the hell out of that, didn’t you?”

“It was orgasmic.”

* * * * *

Three weeks passed after Justice had forced Knox to
claim her, and each day, Justice’s temper grew short, then
shorter.

As expected, Justice’s sperm donor hadn’t made his
rent, so she took Hadley and his partner with her to clear out his
belongings and padlock the property. Neither trooper dared say a
wrong word to her for fear of getting their heads blown off. She
glared at Hadley and muttered, “Buncha gossipy little girls, every
last one of you.”

Everyone, including Knox, began to give her a wide
berth, and at home, Justice picked a lot of fights and they had
lots of angry sex, which she found Knox liked almost as much as she
did.

On the other hand, Knox had grown downright
indulgent and cheerful. Two new residents who had gone through law
school with tales of Knox’s temper whispered in their ears looked
thoroughly and completely confused their entire first week.

Everyone pretty much agreed that they
liked
Knox Hilliard now. The older set reminisced about a young AP who’d
spent four years in California surfing before going to law school
and coming to Chouteau County, who’d said “dude” and “hang loose” a
lot, who’d had a breezy, lovable personality.

And wasn’t it a shame that that poor young AP had
died in the trial of a lifetime when he was too young to understand
how to shield his soul from what he’d been witness to? But that
young AP had been resurrected by a new, younger AP who’d given him
his joy back.

One day, along around lunchtime when Justice had
kicked her shoes off and Richard brought her her cheeseburger from
across the street, she opened it eagerly to smell its addictive
deliciousness—only to be assailed by a wave of nausea so intense
she burst out the door, nearly knocking Knox over, and ran down the
hall to the restroom, sliding halfway there, her hand clamped over
her mouth.

She barely made it before she hung over the
porcelain god and sacrificed the meager contents of her stomach.
Justice wanted to cry, but couldn’t, suddenly simply too tired to
do so. She sat on the floor, wiping her mouth and patting her
tongue with toilet paper, her back to the wooden stall door
(because she hadn’t bothered to close it behind her), her knees up
to her chest.

Justice felt very, very sorry for herself.

At that moment, she heard Knox’s ringing laugh from
all the way down the hall and she scowled.

Waitingwaitingwaiting.

Footsteps pounded down the hall, closer, faster. The
restroom door burst opened and those footsteps sounded on the tile
floor.

“This is the ladies’ room,” she groused, not looking
up at him.

Knox sat on his haunches, his elbows across his
knees, that radiant grin wide and his eyes sparkling. “Well, I
guess that explains your month-long bitchfest.”

“Fuck you,” she muttered, and he laughed again.

“I’d kiss you, but you know—”

“Then go get me a toothbrush and some toothpaste,”
she snapped, and sighed when he arose, taking her hands and pulling
her up, enfolding her in his arms.

“Thank you, Iustitia,” he said a thousand times if
he said it once, raining kisses over her hair and face. “Thank you
so much.”

“It’s too soon,” she sniffled. “I’m actually scared
now. What if Fen—”

“He won’t. Iustitia, I don’t think I’ve ever been
this happy.
Thank
you.”

Tears welled in her eyes at the depth of love and
gratitude in his voice. “You’re welcome,” she sniffed. “Are you
going to go get me a toothbrush or not?”

* * * * *

104:
IF YOU DON’T KNOW ME BY NOW

MAY 2008

Giselle looked at the two little blue lines, her
soul both rejoicing and apprehensive. Did she want this?
Absolutely. Did she want to tell Bryce and watch him as his swift
mind came to the only logical conclusion? And did she want to go
through that moment when he’d be forced to confront a development
he most definitely did not want? No.

But she remembered how she had avoided him all those
months so she wouldn’t have to tell him how she had deceived him.
It hadn’t done her any favors to wait and she’d still been
compelled to tell him. If she waited now, it would only make him
that much angrier that she hadn’t told him up front.

She squared her shoulders and decided to go on the
offensive, so she marched herself downstairs to the library where
he worked. She slapped the stick down on his desk and said,

“You need to go get your swimmers counted and
pronto.”

Bryce stared down at the stick for a long while and
she could
see
the gears working in his head. She could also
see when his teeth ground and his jaw clenched. He looked up at her
slowly, his face hard.

Her eyes narrowed. It
was
the only logical
conclusion, after all. “Don’t you dare,” she said, hoping the
warning in her voice would give him pause. “So help me, if you
accuse me of being with another man, I will walk out that door and
you will never see me or the baby again.”

Now he couldn’t say anything at all unless—

He opened his mouth and she held up a hand.

“Don’t try to call my bluff. I
never
threaten
what I won’t carry out.”

His nostrils flared because he would know she meant
it.

“I suggest you go get tested as soon as you can and
then I will allow you to apologize
on your knees
for
thinking what you’re thinking and, most likely, will continue to
think until a paternity test tells you otherwise. And I
might
think about forgiving you for it.

“I also suggest you get used to the idea, if not
totally embrace it. I agreed to your terms, even though I wanted a
child and I will not tolerate any thoughts on your part that I
somehow trapped or tricked you into getting what I want.”

He leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped
behind his head as he looked at her speculatively. She waited
anxiously for his return salvo, as she had no idea how he could
counter that attack.

“You know,” he said slowly, “Michelle tried that
offense-as-defense tactic on me. Once.”

Giselle froze and gaped at him, unable to believe
what he’d just said. A part of her soul died and she swallowed, the
hurt in her chest so deep she didn’t know where it would end, or if
it ever would. She blinked to stave off tears, then nodded
abruptly. She turned and left him there to go to the bedroom to
pack her things. She put them in her car while he watched her out
the window.

Looking up toward him, she called, “You just can’t
let go of the idea that I’m a slut, can you?”

Then she dropped into her car and left.

She didn’t cry until she was safe in her own bed in
the house that had been her home for five years. Sebastian and
Eilis, startled, looked up from their dinner at the conference room
table, but said nothing as they watched her bring in a small
overnight bag. She slammed her bedroom door shut and commenced to
sobbing.

* * * * *

Bryce gulped as he watched her taillights round the
corner and disappear, devastated by her indictment of him.

A
slut
?!

No, oh
no
. She couldn’t really think—

He dropped his head in his hands. Of course she
could; he’d said it once before with the lift of an eyebrow and a
smirk. She had suffered in lonely shame for eight months, avoiding
him, avoiding his opinion of her. He would never have had the
opportunity to redeem himself without Knox’s
intervention—twice.