You Know I Love You: Book 1, You Know Me duet (You Are Mine 3)

by Willow Winters

  It doesn’t matter, though. None of this really does.

  All that matters is that I stay in this office for as long as Evan’s here. He’s like a ghost in this house. A ghost of his former self.

  So I do what I’ve always done, I’ve bury myself in work. That was the plan anyway, but now I can’t focus on anything but the sounds of him moving through the house.

  He walks by the door every few hours, making the floor groan, and I know he wants to open it, wants me to talk to him. All I can hear is him saying it’d be better if I didn’t know. To hell with that.

  I’m not going to give him all of me when he can’t be bothered to do the same. There is nothing more important than us. Not a single thing that should come between us; yet it feels like he’s got plenty in the space between my heart and his.

  So we’re at a standstill, him refusing to leave and me refusing to blindly forgive.

  His voice plays in my head over and over again, telling me it’s only ever been me. I want to believe it. It’s everything I’ve been praying for him to say.

  But then what is he hiding?

  My eyes flicker to the screen as my nails tap on the pale blue ceramic mug next to my laptop. Tick, tick, tick. I read the line over and over: Love is a stubborn heart.

  Magdalene, the editor, highlighted the line. She thinks it’s beautiful and she wants repetition of the metaphor throughout the book.

  Love is a stubborn heart.

  Is it, though? My forehead scrunches as I think back to the story in the manuscript. The tale about a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. Two families who hated each other and their children who wanted nothing more than to run away together. It’s not a tragedy but it doesn’t have a happily ever after either. It’s too realistic.

  If love really was that stubborn, wouldn’t they have been together in the end?

  Maybe it wasn’t really love.

  Or maybe love just wasn’t enough.

  I don’t know that I agree that love is stubborn. I suppose it is, but more than that, it’s stealthy and lethal. I nod my head at the thought.

  Love is deadly.

  Rolling my eyes. I push the laptop away. My comments don’t belong on this manuscript right now.

  I don’t know the very moment I fell in love with Evan. It felt like I was counting the days until it would be over, and then one day, I simply decided on forever. Just like that, a snap of my fingers. Slow, so slow and resistant, and then in an instant, I was his and he was mine. And that’s how it was going to be forever.

  I smile at the thought and try to focus on the lines staring back at me from the computer. I try to read the words, but I keep glancing at the wall behind me. At a photo of the first night he took me to meet his parents. It was after I’d decided on forever.

  I’d never felt that kind of fear before. The fear of rejection. Not like I did that night and I know why: it’s because I’d never put my heart out there for anyone to take.

  I was very much aware that Evan had every piece of me. Unless he didn’t want me. In which case, I’d be broken and I didn’t know how I’d recover.

  The thought consumed me the night he brought me to his family home. I was sure his family wouldn’t like me. It’d been so long since I’d been with a family for dinner. I used to go to my friend Marissa’s when I was in high school. But that’s not the same. Not at all. It was also a rarity that I accepted Marissa’s parents’ offer for dinner.

  When you lose your parents at fifteen, people tend to look at you as though they’ve never seen anything sadder. I’d rather be alone than deal with that.

  So I was, until Evan. And he didn’t come on his own, he had a family that

  “had to meet me.”

  My back rests against the desk chair as my gaze lingers on the photograph. I had it printed in black and white. It’s the four of us on the sofa in his family home’s living room. It’s funny how I can see the colors of the sofa so clearly, the faded plaid, even though there isn’t any color in the picture that hangs on my wall.

  All four of us are smiling. His mother insisted on taking the photo. Just as she’d insisted he bring me that night.

  It’s only now that I can remember how Evan’s father looked at her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but that’s because they hadn’t told us that she was sick.

  I guess in some ways it was the last photograph. If that isn’t accepting someone into your family, I don’t know what is.

  I have to hold back the prick of tears as I think of her. I only met Marie a handful of times. The dinner was the second. The third was after she’d told Evan; she didn’t have a choice, seeing as how she had to be hospitalized. The last time I saw her was at the funeral.

  I may not know when I fell in love with him, but I think I know the moment he fell in love with me. The moment a part of his heart died and he needed something, or someone, to fill it. Maybe I got lucky that it was me. Or maybe it was a curse.

  I roll my eyes, hating that I’m stuck in the past because I can’t move ahead with the future.

  Maybe we weren’t really meant to be. Maybe it was never the type of love that’s meant to keep people together. Just the type of love when you feel compelled to give someone compassion.

  Are there types of love? I find myself leaving the question as a comment on the book and then deleting it.

  If there are, then maybe Evan’s love is the stubborn kind. He’s not so stubborn that he’ll stay this weekend, though. Come Friday he’ll be gone again. Maybe it’s a different kind of love then …

  It’s only when I hear the bedroom door shut that I finally look back at the manuscript and email the editor back. I need more time before I can give feedback on any of these to the author and I’m ready to fall asleep in the corner chair, or any place I can where Evan will leave me alone.

  I need more time for so much more. I need time and a clear head to move forward with my own life. I need someone to tell me I’m not walking away from the only man who will ever love me, but there’s no email I can write for that unfortunate request.

  Evan

  If I could focus on the hate and leave her all alone,

  I’d be able to move forward, if only I had known.

  I can’t speak the truth, I don’t want to make it real,

  I can’t stand what I’ve done or what it makes me feel.

  Regret will settle in my chest and suffocate the day.

  If only I could make it right, if only there was a way.

  “It’s good to see New York again,” James says as I walk into his office on Greene Street in lower Manhattan.

  Even as he speaks, he stares out the office window. It’s an impressive eight-by-eight-foot picture window, making the view seem like it’s not quite real.

  I don’t return his sentiment. I’m fucking miserable regardless of the scenery or location. I want to drop to my knees and confess everything to Kat. The weight of it all is burying me. I think she’d forgive me. I can see it in her eyes that she wants to accept anything I’m willing to divulge. I could tell her almost everything and I think she’d let me stay.

  I’m too scared to do it, though, and bring her into this mess. If they find out she knows … she just can’t know. Not until I end things here at least. It’s step one to getting my Kat back.

  “It’s crazy how you miss it, isn’t it?” he continues as he turns to me. He’s more relaxed than he was in London, although his suit is crisp and fresh from the dry cleaner. I close the door as he takes a seat at the desk, unbuttoning his dark gray jacket.

  “Sorry you had to wait a minute, I was just getting this paperwork wrapped up.” He leans back in his chair, loosening his slim navy tie and unfastening the top button of his crisp white dress shirt.

  “Are we going to talk about it?” I ask, needing to get this shit off my chest. I kept quiet in London, but I can’t anymore. It’s been weeks. That must be enough time.

  Is that how long it takes to get away with murder?


  “Talk about what?” he questions and his voice is gravelly and low.

  “Talk about the fact that the charges against Bruce are dropped?” I say then hold his cold gaze with one I hope informs him I have no time for bullshit and I’m out of patience.

  He may have been relaxed before I sat down, but now he’s still. And silent. I let my eyes fall to the stack of papers on his desk, then drift to a small picture frame. It’s a cube and matte black on all sides, and I have no idea who the woman in the picture is.

  I absently pick it up, ignoring how his eyes bore into me, how his icy gaze heats as I let the question hang in the air, forcing him to answer.

  The block is lighter than I thought it’d be and I don’t recognize the broad with a closer look either. It’s not his ex-wife, or his current girlfriend. Not that I thought Luna or whatever her name was, the fling of the month, would have a place in his office.

  “My sister,” James says, answering the unasked question. “A Christmas gift.”

  I nod my head once, putting the block back down and waiting for him to answer me.

  “Bruce didn’t do anything, so of course the charges didn’t stick,” James states in an eerily calm voice. “We knew he was innocent.” James pulls out a drawer and shuffles something inside of it, but I can’t see what. He doesn’t elaborate or give any room to further the conversation that we should have.

  “What’s done is done, and there’s nothing more to say.”

  “That’s not what Sam told me. She told me she’s scared.” It’s the only reason I let her get so close. She’s terrified that the truth is going to come out. She helped me, so she’d go down with me.

  “Whose fault is that?” James sneers.

  “She’s your wife,” I say, pushing out the words through my clenched teeth.

  “I don’t have a wife,” he answers me with a sly smile, as if he’s clean of this mess. As if it’s all on me. Deep down in my gut, I know it is.

  “Ex then,” I concede and add, “I didn’t know the divorce had been finalized.” He picks up a pen and taps it against the desk but doesn’t take his eyes off me. It hasn’t gone through yet, according to Samantha. All the money needs to be split one way or the other, and neither him nor Samantha, his ex-partner in this business and future ex-wife, wants to take less than the other.

  “Either way, what’s done is done and the two of you need to let it die.”

  “An innocent man—”

  “Got off!” He looks me in the eyes as he leans forward and adds, “And a guilty man got away.”

  “We should have come forward.”

  “Should have, but you listened to a shady bitch. That’s your problem, not mine.”

  My gaze falls to the desk as my fingers itch to form a fist. I called him. The number I dialed that night was to his office. I had no idea she’d be the one who answered.

  “I panicked—” I start to say, but he cuts me off.

  “Because you fucked up. And now I have to clean up your mess and make sure you stay out of trouble.”

  “Is that what this is? You doing me a favor?” I ask sarcastically, letting the memory of that night fade. I can’t quit while there’s still an investigation. I can’t bring more attention to myself or to the company. One of my clients dies and I get fired or quit shortly after? Yeah, that’ll get the police’s attention.

  I wish I could tell Kat everything, but then she’d know she was married to a murderer. Even if it was just an accident. I’m a coward and I’ll never be a man she deserves. But every day that goes by, I want to be more of the man I was the day before it all changed.

  “I need time off,” I state, fed up with the conversation. I imagine this isn’t the first time something like this has happened and I sift through the memories of all the shit that’s gone on behind the scenes for years. I never questioned anything, I never suspected a thing. Not until James brought me into the inner circle.

  “No,” James answers immediately with no negotiation in his voice.

  “Then I quit,” I tell him as my fingers dig into the chair. The only thing I can think about is Kat. She’ll get over the fact I kept this from her. I know she will. It’s not the first time I’ve kept a secret from her. We’ll be okay as long as I’m through with this shit.

  His thin lips twist into a half smile as he says, “Well, that can’t happen.” He looks at me with a calculated glint in his eyes. Like he’s been waiting for this and he’s ready for my rebuttal, eager for it even.

  “Why not?” I question as my muscles coil. Even though I’m aware it could cause suspicion, I can do whatever the fuck I want. “I’m not going to work for this company anymore.”

  “That’s not—”

  “It’s called quitting,” I spit back at him. I don’t need this job; I’ve got plenty of money in the bank and my investments, and Kat’s career is finally stable. She bled money for years, but it’s leveling out. We’ll be all right financially and this is what she wants and what I need.

  “You can’t just quit.”

  “I can, and I am.”

  James’s smile fades and he tilts his head to the side, an expression of the utmost sympathy on his weathered face. His deep brown eyes look darker as he picks up a folder on the left side of his desk. It wasn’t hidden, but it’s not labeled and it looks like all the rest.

  My eyes follow his movement and my brow furrows until he opens it.

  “The hotel had cameras. They’re gone now, of course, but a few snapshots were taken. Some I think you’d find particularly interesting. Maybe enough so to stay.”

  I can imagine what they are before he flips the folder open. The eight-by-ten glossy photo paper shows the one thing that proves I lied. I’m walking into the hotel lobby I claimed I didn’t enter. And I’m not alone. Standing right next to me is Tony. Only hours before he was found dead in the rec room of the hotel. The one reserved for our company and the division Bruce is the head of. The photograph of Tony and his bloodshot eyes takes me back to that night. To the moment I found him dead on the floor.

  My limbs freeze in waves. Like the betrayal that moves through me.

  “It’s a security net on my end,” James says and then closes the folder, pulling it off the desk and into his lap.

  “So if I quit,” I start to say, but instead I stop and stare ahead out of the window. I want to kill him. There’s never been a time in my life when I’ve desired someone dead. But right now, it’s all I want.

  “Then I assume it’s for less than moral reasons,” James says, spelling it out for me. “I need to protect myself.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I tell him and my words are hard. My hands turn to fists as they tremble with the need to get this anger out.

  “I know, trust me I know,” James says. “And I don’t like this any more than you do.”

  A sarcastic huff of a laugh leaves me. “Fuck off,” I sneer at him.

  I stand up from the office chair so quickly it nearly falls over. I grip it so tight I think I’ll break it. Fuck, I want to break it. I can picture beating the piss out of him with the broken wood.

  My body is hot, my mind in a daze of regret and sickness.

  “I’m leaving,” I barely speak as I turn my back to him and start to walk off.

  “The fuck you are,” he says.

  My body whips around, tense and ready to let it all out. Every day it’s been building and building, the tension winding tighter and the need to destroy something climbing higher and higher. I only took a few steps away, and with his words I’m right back across the desk, ready to do something stupid.

  My body heats as my fist moves from the chair to the desk and I lean closer. He may not want to show it, but I see the fear in his eyes.

  He should be scared. He’s fucking with me. Threatening me. No one is going to take my wife from me. I won’t allow it.

  “I need to get away from this. From you.”

  I never should have listened to him and try to cover it up. He set
me up. He used that night to his advantage and I played right into his hand.

  It takes everything in me not to reach across the desk and haul him up by his collar. To fist the fine cloth in my grip and spit in his face.

  Pure rage and adrenaline pump through my blood.

  “Careful now, Evan.” James smiles as he says it, but I notice how he leans back. Both of us know he’s scared. If I throw this punch, if I push, he could bring it all to light.

  And then I’ll lose her forever.

  “I’m going home, and I’ll let you know when I’m available again.” Never. The word is whispered in the back of my head. I’m never returning to this office. I’m never doing another thing for this prick.

  “You can’t leave me. I’ll ruin you,” he practically whispers with nothing but hate. He says the words I already know.

  “Ruin me then,” I respond easily, looking into his dark eyes as I turn the doorknob and leave him behind me. On the surface I’m calm, but brewing just beneath my skin is nothing but chaos. Everything I’ve feared has finally come.

  Proof I was there.

  Proof I lied to the police.

  I leave the office with the threat echoing in my head. I did this to myself, digging the hole deeper and deeper.

  There’s no way Kat will stay when it all goes down.

  Kat

  Never trapped, never alone,

  This city never sleeps.

  Even in the daylight,

  The sins are left to creep.

  They tempt me and pull me,

  And make me feel alive.

  My mouth is dry, my body hot.

  In temptation regrets will thrive.

  My iPhone lights up as I push the top button to check the time again, and then again to look at the date. I’m anxious for this meeting; unusually so. Then again, I’m anxious all the time now.

  Evan hasn’t come home; he isn’t talking to me. It’s been four days and each day I feel like I need to cave more and more. I didn’t know how much I wanted him there until he was gone. I just need him back.