The Proviso (82 page)

She had to wait a few minutes for him to finish his
business with Davidson and when he had, he returned, that angry
scowl still on his face. She closed her eyes and gulped. What
had
Giselle done to her?

The door slammed and she flinched, but she didn’t
open her eyes until she felt Knox’s hand on her chin, forcing her
head up—and he kissed her.

It wasn’t a nice, sweet kiss like the one at the
symphony, oh no. It was firm, demanding, and way too much for her
limited experience with men—well, limited solely to Knox, that was.
He didn’t touch her other than for his hand on her chin and the
kiss that she was falling into, her libido picking up where it had
left off the night before last.

She sucked in a breath, her body strung as tight as
a violin string.

He drew away from her and she opened her eyes, but
didn’t look at him because he had been so angry earlier. She didn’t
understand what any of this meant. Her head was a jumbled mess.

“Congratulations.” She gasped at his cruel tone. She
looked up at him and his face was hard, cold. “You’re getting
married today.”

“What?” she whispered, confused.

“You and I are getting married today. Judge Wilson’s
on his way up the back.” He slapped the files he had in his hand on
the desk, one single paper on top wafting in its own breeze. He
pointed to it. “Sign it. That’s the license.”

“What— I don’t understand. Are you serious?”

“I’m dead serious,” he snarled.

She had indeed slipped down the rabbit hole and Knox
was the Mad Hatter.

“I don’t have to marry you. You can’t make me.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “No?”

“No.”

He turned and sifted through the same files, then
pulled out a professionally taken zoom shot of her father going
about on the farm. “Look at that, Justice. Imagine it with cross
hairs.”

She sucked in a breath. “You wouldn’t,” she
whispered, dread clutching at her throat.

He leaned toward her, his face hard. “Do you want to
try me?”

“Why?” she whispered, choking on a sob. “Why
me?”

“What’s it gonna be, Justice? Marriage or a dead
dad?”

She swallowed and said nothing.

“Marriage it is, then,” he said, and stood over her
while she signed the license. He picked it up, stared at it, then
looked at her. “What is that?” he barked, pointing to her
signature.

“My name,” she whispered. “My name is Iustitia.”

“Is it on your paperwork like that?”

“Yes.”

After staring at her for one more moment, he went to
the door and threw it open. “Cipriani. Connelly. Davidson. I need
you.”

The three of them came into Knox’s office and closed
the door. She looked around her. They actually seemed to know what
was going on and their attendance had been anticipated.

“Justice,” Knox said, low, “you are to speak of this
to no one. Do you understand me?”

She gulped. “Yes,” she whispered.

Judge Wilson came in quietly through another door in
the back of Knox’s office. He said the minimum he felt he needed
to. Eric and Richard signed the certificate with alacrity and
seemed to know, but not care, that she was doing this under duress.
Judge Wilson took the file with him. He nodded grimly at Knox and
left the way he came.

“Everybody back to work,” Knox barked when the
evidence was gone, and he turned his back on her. “You too,
Iustitia,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his tongue after Richard,
Patrick, and Eric had closed the door behind them.

She felt like she’d been run over a truck, but she
determined that she would not cry. What would Giselle do? she asked
herself, and she stood up tall, all five-feet-ten-in-heels of her
and she stared at him until he looked up at her to see why she
hadn’t gone yet. They stared at each other for a long moment, then
Justice gathered herself and spat in his face.

His eyes glittered as he stared at her, wiping her
spittle from his face without saying a word. That was much more
frightening than anything he could’ve said and she gulped.

Finally he bent down to write something on the back
of his business card. He stood then and walked toward her. She
trembled in fear, but refused to back up when he got within a
centimeter of her, their noses nearly touching.

He pulled at the neckline of her dress and slid the
business card unerringly into her lacy, almost nonexistent, bra,
staring into her eyes the entire time. “That’s your new address,”
he said, his voice filled with things she didn’t understand. “I’m
going to send you back to your farm and you’re going to change into
something a little less—Blatant. Once you’ve done that, pack your
things and take them to that address and make yourself at home. Be
back by one o’clock, because I want you in the courtroom.”

“I hate you,” she murmured, her voice steady in
spite of her fear, which gave her some more badly needed
confidence.

“Uh huh. I can tell by the way you kiss.”

Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed.

“You slap me, Iustitia—”
Why
was he calling
her that? “—and you’ll regret it, I guarantee it. I need a child
from you and I need it by Christmas of next year. You do that and
on New Year’s Day, we’ll call it square. You only have to put up
with me for a year and a half.”

Could it get any worse? She couldn’t decide if she
wanted to be angry or confused. “A child? What will you do with it
after you get it?”

“Keep it, naturally.”

“I would not abandon my child to you.”

“Then you’re welcome to stay with me, too.”

“How are you going to get this child if I don’t let
you—”

He stepped as close to her as he could, his body
touching hers, because she wouldn’t back down.

What would Giselle do
what.would.Giselle.do.
whatwouldgiselledo?!

“Not only will you let me,” he whispered, barely
touching his mouth to hers, his eyes open, “you’ll be begging me. I
know how you respond to me and I’m going to take every advantage of
it.” His lips on hers were light, butterfly kisses, gentle. He
caught her bottom lip and touched his tongue to it and she gasped
because she was letting him do this to her and she did like it and
she hated him
and
herself for that.

Then he let her go and she darted back to her desk
as fast as she could.

* * * * *

74:
WEAK ENOUGH NOT TO CHOOSE IT

Somehow, between the moment Knox had told her to go
home, change, and pack, and the moment she actually got ready to do
so, he must have changed his mind, because he emerged from his
office and grumbled at her, “Put your stuff down and get to work.”
He dropped another stack of files on her desk, as Eric was in
court. “Your files backed up while you were out stripping Halls and
Armani bare.” Justice’s eyes widened and she wondered if this was
when he would start holding her “vacation” against her. It seemed
so far away ago now, even though it had ended only yesterday.

His mouth quirked as he looked at her. “She has
champagne taste and a husband who lives to drench her in it. I know
where she shops.”

Justice nearly wilted in relief and she did get to
work. She noticed throughout the day that the men looked at her and
treated her differently—not in a sexual way, but like an adult, a
professional, as opposed to a teenaged girl playing prosecutor. She
regretted that Giselle had been right about that.

The defense attorneys who covered the speeding
tickets, DUIs, and other such revenue-enhancing offenses of the
county, who had gotten to know her when she was still in her
sixteen-year-old-girl Sunday school wardrobe, did a double take and
didn’t treat her quite so cavalierly. In fact, they acted like
she’d actually graduated from law school. On Giselle’s advice, she
watched what the female defense attorneys wore and while Justice
was pretty sure her neckline was a tad too low and her hem a little
too high, it wasn’t in any way inappropriate.

The women also looked twice and their attitudes
changed. Before, they’d been kindly amused with her, even
compassionate that she was stuck with Knox for a boss. Now they
were out for her blood. Perversely, this heightened Justice’s
confidence in a way that the men’s treatment of her didn’t. It
meant they saw her as a threat—not as a girl who needed gentle
handling.

. . . comfortable with who you are when you’re
behind a computer . . .

She’d never been comfortable anywhere else and she
suddenly realized that all these years, people had patronized and
condescended to her.

Except Knox.

That realization wasn’t immediate. It took half a
day to remember that from the first moment he’d touched her and
talked to her all those years ago, to when he’d hired her, to when
he’d found her on the roadside, to when he’d pressed her up against
the door, to when he’d threatened her father—never had he
patronized her.

She knew how to spot online condescension and deal
with it effectively, but in real life . . . Knox’s blatant cruelty
had heft and definition. She could catch most of it and throw it
back at him even though he frightened her. Condescension and
patronization were nebulous weapons she had never seen, but now
that she had, they only became more effective because she didn’t
know how to deflect them.

You— You’re powerful and— And I want to learn
that.

With each defense attorney she met, each file she
dispatched in her favor, she grew more confident in herself and her
work. It snowballed and she cleared her inbox faster and more
efficiently than she thought possible. She was so pleased with
herself, with the changes within her that she almost forgot she’d
gotten married that morning at gunpoint—

—then remembered the minute Knox appeared at her
desk with a speculative look on his face. He said nothing. She
looked at the clock and saw it had passed seven; everyone was long
gone—and she hadn’t noticed.

“You did well today, Iustitia,” he said, his voice
strained from being in court all afternoon. Suddenly, she realized
that he was very tired.

“Thank you,” she said warily—because what else
could
she say? And why was he
still
calling her that?
Her mother was the only one who’d ever called her that and at that
moment, she missed her mother very, very badly.

“Pack up your stuff. I want to go home and go to
bed.”

Her gut clenched and she swallowed. It wasn’t as if
she had forgotten this, precisely. It was more that she had just
refused to think about it. She had lost herself in this newfound
confidence and respect from her coworkers and opposing counsel, had
enjoyed herself and her work—and because of that, she hadn’t had
room in her brain to be afraid of Knox, of what would happen if she
defied him.

And what would happen if she
didn’t
defy
him.

Right now, though, she did as she was told because
she didn’t figure she had a choice. However, she lectured herself
very sternly, if he wanted anything from her, he’d have to rape her
to get it; that way, she could lay all the blame on him.

But in her soul, she knew that wouldn’t be necessary
and that was what she feared most. The memory of that night when
she had passed by the Kenards’ bedroom door and heard them making
love flashed across her memory and she blushed. Fortunately, she
was turned away from Knox, so he didn’t see her face.

He said nothing as he followed her out the door and
down the stairs. Sheriff Raines glared at her, but she ignored both
him and the frisson of fear that ran through her. She walked toward
the AP’s parking spot she’d appropriated—and stopped.

Where was her car?

She turned, panicked, and nearly ran into Knox’s
chest.

“You’re coming home with me,” he rumbled, steadying
her so she didn’t fall backward, “and your car’s gone for good. It
was a piece of shit.”

But it was
her
piece of—crap. She’d paid for
it with money she had worked very hard for and suddenly, she was
very angry. She hadn’t even had a chance to fight him for her car
the way she’d fought for her dress. Even then, Giselle would have
had her way if Mr. Kenard hadn’t interceded on her behalf.

Her nostrils flared as she looked into his eyes.
With three-inch heels, she could look Knox in the eye and she liked
the equalization. He stared right back at her, daring her to say a
word.

So she did. “You have taken everything I have away
from me,” she said low, enunciating every word with haughty
precision.

“Not everything,” he murmured lazily, his eyes
hooded as his gaze raked her from head to toe. “Not yet.”

Justice sucked in a breath, her eyes wide, her mind
in turmoil.

The breeze lifted her curls and released one from a
loose pin. It flipped across her face and he lifted his hand to
smooth the wayward curl from her face and tuck it behind her ear.
Then he turned and walked farther down the sidewalk, expecting her
to follow. On the one hand, if she did, she’d be capitulating. On
the other hand, if she refused, he’d force her. Either way, it
would be humiliating.

He’d reached his SUV and had opened the passenger
door. He turned to look at her, waiting for her to make up her mind
whether to go with or without force.

Finally, resigned, she walked toward him slowly. She
might have even dragged her feet if it wouldn’t have ruined her
shoes. Surprisingly, he did help her up and in, took her briefcase
and closed her door. He opened the back door and put both his and
her briefcases there, then proceeded around to the driver’s door.
He got in and started the car, then looked at her sideways.
“Seatbelt?”

That made her mad all over again. If he’d read
anything she’d written, he’d know how she felt about that.