by Moriah Jovan
“Don’t get too close,” Patrick called to a Kansas City detective who needed to talk to Justice, but could barely contain his amusement. “I hear she bites.” The detective burst out laughing and Justice snarled at both of them.
By lunch, though, the office had cleared of all but Dirk and Eric, who had settled in with dojo business, and Patrick and Richard, who brought Justice a peace offering of a chocolate malt to go with her cheeseburger. She glared at them both to let them know it wouldn’t work.
Knox had fared no better than Justice had. He strode into the office just after lunch and said, “Hilliard, in my office.”
Well, that was new and different. Hilliard. Not McKinley. No storming; no bellowing. She went hoping he would fire her. She closed the door behind her to see Knox standing over his desk, digging through a drawer.
“What.”
He didn’t look up at her. “You want me to proclaim to the world that you’re my wife?”
“I thought I made that perfectly clear.”
He snorted and Justice gasped when he straightened to his full height, a tiny pale blue box with a white bow in his hand. Her hands on her mouth, she watched as he skirted his desk and approached her with it. “The week you spent with Giselle— I went to New York and got these,” he murmured and opened the box for her. In it were two wedding rings of platinum, hers a solitaire princess cut dark yellow diamond flanked by yellow diamond baguettes—“To match your eyes,” he whispered. “If you don’t like them, we can find something else.”—and his a band with eight small matching diamonds embedded in it at equal distances.
She shook her head almost frantically. “No, I love them.”
Tears ran down her cheeks when he picked up her hand and slid the ring on it, then let her put his ring on.
“I had Judy copy our marriage license and post it on the message board outside her office and file the original where it’s supposed to be filed, instead of in Wilson’s office. I radioed Hadley to tell him to put the word out to law enforcement and I’ll send out a memo later today in case anybody misses it. Are you happy now?”
She looked up at him, wiping away tears, happier than she remembered ever being in her life. “Yes. Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, Iustitia. I didn’t think how that would look and I would never have done that to you intentionally. Please forgive me.”
“Done,” she whispered, throwing herself in his arms to hug him tight and bury her nose in his neck so she could smell him. “Thank you, Knox. Oh, thank you.”
He set her down and looked in her eyes. “Next year, when this is all over with, I’m going to give you a huge wedding with all the bells and whistles.” Then he laughed at her stunned expression and slapped her butt. “Go get back to work.”
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 sen
atorial 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?!
&n
bsp; 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.
Whatever other irritating habits he could lay at Giselle’s feet—her mood swings, her still-divided loyalties, her refusal to spend any of his money, her overt yearning to go back to church and to take him with her, her quest to draw him out about his thoughts on matters of theology, his children, his fire, his life before the fire—she would never cheat on him.
Because she loved him, only him, and always had. She’d shown it in a hundred different ways, not the least of which in the way she’d thrown herself into the building of their foundation—the way she took care of their burn victims in the same manner she took care of Bryce, never flinching, never looking away, and never, ever failing to touch them, love on them, snuggle them if they needed or wanted it.
To draw them into her personal space and invade theirs, to give them human contact, to let them know someone didn’t see them as monsters.
As he watched her do this, Bryce had come to understand how significant it was that Giselle had been willing to touch him, to be touched by him, to draw him to her when she didn’t know his name. That she had allowed him into her bed, into her body, making him her first and only lover, after only a few hours of conversation and without the temple marriage she’d wanted was—
He drew in a ragged breath.
He picked up the all-too-familiar stick and his gut clenched at the thought of another baby—another he would adore with his whole heart and fear losing every second of every day because of who he was, who he wasn’t, what he liked, how he liked it. Now, to that list of his sins, he could add the way he had deliberately broken his covenants and disgraced his wife—the one he’d fantasized about his whole life, who gave him everything he wanted and needed and craved and loved.