The Proviso (88 page)

78:
THY WILL BE DONE

She wasn’t sure when the glee slowly faded and she
really started to analyze the situation, but it wasn’t long after
Blue Springs. Knox Hilliard had let her go after a wedding at
gunpoint, less than two days of marriage, money having changed
hands between him and her father, a week with Giselle being made
over, armed, and prepared for—

Fen Hilliard.

Fen Hilliard had killed Leah Wincott. Justice knew
that as certainly as she knew her own name. It only spoke to his
cunning that the only man in the world who had any reason at all to
see her dead could cover that up so well.

She rested her elbow on the window ledge and rolled
up her fist against her mouth, her mind churning and burning as she
drove.

The question wasn’t why Knox had let her go. That
was obvious. The question was why he’d made her a target in the
first place—and why he’d employed such an elaborate scheme to do
so.

Occam’s Razor: The simplest explanation tends to be
the correct one. That was her starting point for everything she had
to spend time to puzzle out and now was no different.

The simplest explanation was that Knox had wanted to
marry her.

He’s attracted to you . . . he couldn’t hide it.

Indeed, that was a simple enough explanation, but it
could not be the correct one. All he’d had to do was ask her.

I know you’ve been hankering after a piece of my ass
since you got here . . .

I would have given you anything after that day in
class when you touched me and defended me—if you had just
asked.

No, you wouldn’t have.

What twisted logic led him to think she would’ve
turned him down?

. . . why couldn’t you have just told her up front
and let her decide? That would’ve been the honorable thing to
do.

Yeah, Knox, why couldn’t you have?

Have you ever used one on someone?

Silence.

How many people knew? How many people were in on
this?

Giselle.

Mr. Kenard.

Sebastian.

Kevin Oakley? Somehow, she doubted that.

Fen Hilliard, out next year on December 27 whether
Knox fulfilled the proviso or not.

OKH, a lock for Sebastian.

Fen, losing his campaign.

Congress, backing off Sebastian.

Justice groaned as the entire situation exploded in
her head. “I should’ve googled.”

She reached Columbia after eleven and stopped to get
gas. While it pumped, she opened her trunk and her safe again.
Retrieved the annulment documents. Eric had written it so she was
the petitioner and Knox the respondent. Basis: fraud.

She sighed as she put it all away again, locked it
up, and went to pay for her gas. By the time she’d gone to the
restroom, picked up a pop and a bag of chips, slow tears had begun.
The clerk, who was about her age, did a double take when he looked
at her and attempted to flirt with her. He was deliberately slow so
as to lengthen the one-sided conversation.

“It can’t be that bad,” he said, indicating her
face, which was probably blotchy.

It was horrible. It was wonderful. Choices. She had
choices now. Knox had taken away half her choices when he’d forced
her to stay in the office, then the rest when he’d forced her to
marry him.

She shuddered, then sniffled. “Everything’s
fine.”

“Are you from town or are you a Mizzou student?”

She tightened her lips and said, “I had the gas on
pump six.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m married.” It just slipped out. She hadn’t meant
to say that, but she caught her breath, horrified when she realized
how much she’d enjoyed saying that because of who her husband was.
She suddenly felt she’d lost something she’d never really had.

The clerk looked at her bare left ring finger and
his mouth tightened.

By this time, she’d gathered a lot of attention
because he was holding up the line for flirting at her. Then she
noticed that people were staring at her thigh holster. A pair of
state troopers on break and foraging for dinner was there. They
approached her when she had finally paid for her gas and got a
receipt and change.

“Miss?”

She stepped out of the way of the other customers
and took the officers aside.

“I’m an assistant prosecutor in Chouteau County,”
she said quietly to them before they could go any further, showing
her badge as a courtesy to them.

Both sets of eyes widened a bit. “Isn’t that Knox
Hilliard’s county?”

“Yes. He’s my boss.”
My . . . husband.

“Can we give you an escort to wherever you’re going?
East or west? We’d be glad to, you know, speed things along for
you.”

“No, thanks,” she murmured. “I’ll be okay.”

They tipped their hats and went about their
foraging. One hundred fifty miles east of Chouteau County on her
way to Washington, DC, Knox Hilliard’s name preceded her, protected
her, garnered deference and respect as one of his attorneys. How
much more would it have garnered if they knew she was his wife?

She was married to a notorious man and his name
would protect her all the way to DC should she care to invoke
it.

It took another two hours to get to St. Louis and
find a cheap motel room. She had a lot of driving ahead of her but
all the time in the world to do it, as long as she husbanded her
money carefully.

East or west?

The question had plagued her since Columbia and she
could only come to one conclusion:

Both choices were wrong. Or right. But she didn’t
know which or why.

I will choose a path that’s clear: I will choose
free will.

Free will? She’d had none of that the minute she’d
seen Knox shoot Jones in the head and he’d used it as an excuse to
keep her there. Yet after having had eight weeks of dealing with
criminals and getting to know Hicks as a rather lovable curmudgeon,
Justice figured Jones deserved what he got. Maybe more.

She managed to get twelve hours of mostly troubled
sleep and awoke after noon.

I wonder what Knox is doing right now.

Without her. Eric would know why she hadn’t shown up
for work; she wasn’t sure about Richard or Patrick. Hicks had court
today and wouldn’t notice.

Why
was she thinking about that office? As of
six o’clock last night, she didn’t work there anymore.

She got out of bed and cracked open her laptop to
check her email and her blogs. No hamlet. She sighed, more
depressed than the situation warranted.

Justice went out for food and found a
hole-in-the-wall diner. As she ate, she caught herself looking at
her cell phone, expecting it to ring. Why? She checked it for
messages: None.

Vague disappointment. Why?

Justice finished her meal and went back to her room,
then spun the Rush from her laptop and sat on the bed in the dark,
the blinds drawn.

Only twice in her life had she done this: Once to
give her strength to stand up to her father and go to college, the
other to give her strength to stand up to her father and go to law
school.

Now she needed guidance because she didn’t know what
to do to quell her uneasiness with going east
or
west.

“Speak to me, Geddy,” she whispered as she lost
herself in meditation; three songs passed with nothing catching her
ear or her mind.

Being comfortable with who you are when you’re
behind a computer and being lauded and paid for your opinions, and
courted by prestigious institutions where you could hide away and
write? Not the same as being comfortable in your own skin.

Okay, then. Who was she?

Justice McKinley, granddaughter of Juell Pope,
widely respected legal philosopher.

Justice McKinley, wife of the OKH heir and Chouteau
County prosecutor Knox Hilliard.

Justice McKinley, writer of political and legal
philosophy and theory—

—and that was all it was: theory. Based on nothing
because her life experience consisted of working on a farm until
she’d gone to work for Knox and Richard’s words ran through her
mind:
You’re popular because you’re a novelty, not because
you’re saying anything original.

She’d learned more about herself in the last eight
weeks than she had her whole life.

Who was she
really
?

Just a lonely, confused, nobody baby lawyer sitting
on a bed in a motel in St. Louis, Missouri, armed, ready and able
to take on the world, but with no path, no direction, no plan.

Who was she? Wait, no. That was the wrong question.
Who she was would always be in flux as long as she didn’t know what
she wanted to be—

Her eyes popped open.

—and had never known until she’d met Giselle
Cox.

Powerful.

I can’t teach you how to be that . . . You have to
come to it on your own, through hardship and fear . . . Power is
acquired, earned.

Justice had had a very short and sweet taste of
power standing in the middle of Missouri in a QuikTrip, armed, paid
deference by two state troopers because of whom she
represented.

She liked it, but she’d like it a lot more if she
could command that kind of respect on her own. It would take her
years to acquire that kind of power without guidance, a shoulder to
lean on occasionally, some validation.

What you wanted from me was to teach you to be
powerful and I told you I couldn’t do that . . . Knox can and he
will if you let him.

The enlightenment she sought began to bloom in her
mind like a lotus. It unfolded and spread until it supported the
whole of her soul. She began to shake it out, distill it.

Knox
was her guidance.

. . . you haven’t been treated any differently than
any other new resident we’ve ever had.

With regard to her training as a lawyer, no, she
hadn’t. She saw that clearly now. He wielded his scalpel with
exquisite precision in a relatively safe environment where he could
catch his baby lawyers if they fell under his sharp edge.

Everything he had done and said to her from the
moment he hired her had been designed to break her down, force her
to work against him to make her stronger, like a muscle. He’d
goaded her, baited her with increasing intensity to make her focus
on him, to keep her from disengaging or cowering in fear, to keep
her in the fight, to make her comfortable with confrontation and,
in her case, sexual confrontation.

She’d thrown a tire at him.

She’d threatened him with a sexual harassment
suit.

She’d spit in his face.

She’d never backed down when he’d gotten in
her
face.

She’d thrown his tyranny back at him.

She’d slapped him for making her a slave and dared
him to hit her back by threatening his life.

She’d made him work for her acquiescence out in the
grass, but her breaking point had come as a shock to both of them.
He’d backed off immediately, cocooned her in his warmth,
apologized, kissed away her pain; bathed her, dressed her, put her
to bed.

Knox had taken away everything she had, given her
everything she needed to be the woman she wanted to be, then set
her free with years of training he’d packed into eight weeks.

You have to be honest with yourself about what you
really want.

To work in the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office.
Check.

To be powerful. Check—or at least getting there with
a good push in the right direction and all the tools and trappings
she needed.

To have some sort of personal relationship with Knox
Hilliard. Check.

East or west? She still didn’t know, but she
couldn’t stay in a cheap motel in St. Louis indefinitely. She had
to make decisions because she had no backup plan. Now she had too
much disparate information, her options too numerous and foreign to
sort through efficiently.

West:

To fight a good fight with people like Sebastian
Taight and Giselle Cox and Bryce Kenard against a man who had
murdered an innocent woman to keep what rightfully belonged to
Knox. They thought her their equal, worthy of their regard, capable
of joining the fight and taking on Fen Hilliard if she had to.

East:

To flee from a man who would kill her if he knew
Knox had used her to fulfill half of the condition of his
inheritance. For whatever reason, Knox had changed his mind and
sent her away, given her back the freedom he’d taken from her. She
could take back her life and everything he’d given her to continue
east to do wonderful things, perhaps change the world.

You have to be honest with yourself about what you
really want.

Justice sucked in a deep breath at that and closed
her eyes again when she finally stumbled into the heart of it. Yes.
The truth will out.

She still wanted Knox as her lover, in spite of
everything.

She gulped.

. . . if it means the difference between making love
to you and not, I’ll catch you every time.

And Knox wanted Justice to be his lover.

His kisses. His hands in her hair. His mouth on her
breasts. His naked body against hers. His fingers inside her,
making her arch her back and feel that glorious blossom and pop.
His husky baritone rolling over and over in her mind, telling her
what he wanted to do to her, what he wanted her to do to him,
fanning the flames, making her want him in spite of everything else
he had done to her.

She sighed and shrugged, opened her eyes, turned off
the music. Trapped between Fen and Knox Hilliard, between what she
wanted and who she wanted to be, she again found herself with no
choice whatsoever.

Her mind and her soul at ease, she slept like the
dead.

* * * * *

79: I
ALREADY BOUGHT THE DREAM

Justice walked into the Chouteau County prosecutor’s
office after lunch. All conversation stopped and Eric’s jaw
dropped. Ignoring everything, she went to her desk and dumped her
stuff on it as if nothing were different about today than any other
day she arrived late to work.