The Billionaire's Secret Kink 2: Knox (Secret Billionaire Romance) Read online

  "No, we don't have any reason to detain him. Not yet. I'll get you the details as soon as I know them. But I want to know where he is and who has seen him. And how he got a key to this building and this apartment. I want to know what he's driving. I'll message you as soon as I know more."

  Mica held her breath as Knox stopped talking for a moment, then resumed. "Ok, you do that. See you then."

  Mica pulled two cups out of her cabinet and brought them to the coffeemaker. All was silent in her living room. She bit her lip and tried to pretend she wasn't nervous.

  Movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned to find Knox standing there, his smoldering eyes fixed on her. She glanced at him then looked away, grabbing up a cup. "Coffee?" she asked.

  He only stared, not saying a word.

  Mica kept her eyes on the coffee maker, her words locked in her throat. She wanted to get this right. Carefully, she poured herself a cup, and him one too. She left hers black, promising herself she'd add sugar and cream when her tale was told, but she pulled out the sugar and cream for Knox, and slid them towards him on the counter. She took a deep, bitter sip from her mug and turned to face him, not quite able to look at his face. She stared somewhere in the region of his chest and pushed out the words.

  "I lied to you ten years ago. I told you he'd been harassing me and had put his hand up my skirt while I was sleeping, and that I didn't know him, but that wasn't the truth. I had my reasons for telling you that lie, and they seemed like enough at the time. I hope if you hear me out, listen to my reasons, you'll be able to forgive me." Mica licked her lips and brought her gaze up to meet his. His face was all hard lines and clenched jaw, but did his gaze soften? She couldn't be sure. He nodded his head.

  Mica felt a flush of relief and just started talking, not even sure where she was starting or how she would finish, but glad he was listening. She dropped her eyes to the floor, trying to collect her thoughts.

  "I guess my story really starts when I was ten." Mica looked up at Knox to see if he was going to protest her going back that far, seven full years before Knox met her on the train. His eyes were flat, expressionless. She swallowed hard, preparing to go on. It would be a long story, but he had to hear all of it if he were going to truly understand her motives. She pushed out her next words in a rush, holding her tears at bay. She didn't have time for them right now.

  "My mom died. She had cancer. She knew she was going to die and she tried to prepare me as best she could, but how could I really be prepared for something like that? She had broken ties with all of her family years before because something had happened that she wouldn't tell me about. But when she realized she was going to die she started calling them up, prepared to swallow her pride and apologize and ask for someone to take care of me. But what she found shocked her and made her have to reconsider everything. Her parents had both died four years before in a freak boating accident. Her sister was in prison for her fourth DUI, and any other family had either disappeared or died. The only family member who was still around was her half-uncle and she made me swear I would never, ever contact him. She hated him for something and said I would be better off living in a ditch than living with him, or even knowing him."

  Mica mimed writing on a piece of paper watching Knox as she did so. It was imperative that he understood how alone she had been. "Seriously, she made me sign a contract, a piece of paper that she wrote out that said I would never contact him and if he tried to contact me I wouldn't talk to him."

  Knox nodded again, tersely. Mica bit the inside of her lip. He wasn't softening.

  "She wouldn't give me the name of my father either. I still don't know who he is. She said he was a bad man, and I'd be better off if I never knew him."

  Mica took another sip of her bitter coffee, relishing the harshness of it. She needed harsh right now. She looked at Knox again and felt her mouth go dry at what looked like a spark of compassion growing in his face. Or was it pity? She couldn't stand pity. As she was considering, Knox looked away, to the coffee on the counter.

  "Please, that's what it's there for," she told him.

  Knox gathered his cup, then began to pour in two creamers and two tiny spoonfuls of sugar. Mica, glad she could go on without having to look at him, kept talking. The worst was coming, but it didn't matter. She couldn't stop now.

  Chapter 5

  Mica

  "My mom didn't know what to do. She'd been completely up front with me ever since she'd received the diagnosis that she only had a few months to live. It was terrifying to me. I'd only ever known my mom and the teachers at school. We never had money for vacations or even outings. My mom had no friends, she always seemed scared of people. I was an introverted, shy child and the thought of being put in foster care or having to live with someone I didn't know after my mom was gone gave me panic attacks. It got so bad that mom had to pull me out of school because I would cry every time I had to leave her. She decided to pull me out because I would just have to change schools when she died anyway. She would talk just like that, matter-of-factly, without sugar-coating anything, mentioning that she was going to die soon at least once a day. She actually seemed tired, and ready to go, ready to be done with living, which didn't help me at all because I began to wish I would get cancer too and die with her, or before her, and that way I wouldn't have to go on without her."

  Mica took a deep breath, remembering the pain of those days for the first time in years. Knox had finished preparing his coffee and was standing back where he had been before, a calm but otherwise unreadable look on his face, occasionally sipping from his cup. Mica stole short glances at him as she talked, unable to look at him for very long without feeling a twisting in her gut.

  "As mom got sicker and sicker, unable to even get out of bed some days, I became her caregiver. My prayer was the same every night. God, please make my mom well, and if you won't do that, please make me sick. I stayed healthy though, and mom got sicker. One day, she got a phone call from an old friend. I remember everything about that day. The way she laughed and cried and talked to her friend for hours, and the way I huddled in the kitchen listening to her, praying it was good news. When she finally got off the phone she called me in to her bed, which really was just an old mattress on the floor of the living room. She said that she had found me a new mom, and that I didn't have to be afraid anymore. She said it was her oldest friend from high school and that the friend had agreed to take me. She said the woman's name was Karen and that I would meet her in just a few days. Karen was going to drive up and get us both, and we could live with her until mom died."

  Mica suddenly felt tired, like she weighed a thousand pounds. She didn't want to relive any of this, but of course she was. The fears and anxieties of childhood were creeping back up on her, reminding her of what that time in her life had been like.

  "I cried that night, but then I cried every night. I slept next to mom on the mattress in the living room, because it was all we had. Our tiny apartment didn't even have a bedroom. I would roll off onto the floor and cry silently so my shaking wouldn't wake my mom. If she woke up in the morning and I was still on the floor, having cried myself to sleep, I would say I must have rolled off the bed in the middle of the night."

  "We had been living in a small town in Northern California, but Karen came and got us like mom said she would. She packed up some of our things into the trailer she was pulling behind her car and we left the rest. We drove to her house just outside of Portland, Oregon and she put us both up in her guest room. For a few weeks mom seemed better, or at least happy. I began to feel hope too. Hope that maybe she would live, and that if she didn't, I would be able to stay with Karen. Karen was nice to me and seemed to care about me."

  "Karen had cats, and mom and I would spend all day lounging on the couch, watching TV, and snuggling with the cats. Then one day a man came over while Karen was at work. It was Dick Bailey. I didn't know who he was at the time but my mom did. He let himself into the house with a
key and my mom freaked out. She screamed at him, demanded to know what he was doing there. He yelled back at her, told her it was his house, and she'd better get out. My mom called Karen at work and she came home and got Bailey to leave and tried to calm my mom down. I had run outside into the garden, but not far enough that I couldn't hear them talking."

  "Karen had married Bailey and my mom thought this was the most awful thing she'd ever heard. She kept screaming, 'How could you marry him, after what he did to me?' and Karen just kept saying there was some sort of a misunderstanding, and he didn't really mean it. I never did find out what Bailey had done to my mom, and I never did figure out why, if he and Karen were married, he was never around, only staying with Karen at her house once every few weeks or sometimes months. Plus he was ten years older than she was. My mom was twenty-seven when she died and Karen was the same age, but Bailey always looked way older. He had gray hair and a gray beard, even back then."

  Mica stopped as her voice threatened to choke up on her. God she hated having to retell this, but even as she thought that, she realized she felt lighter too, less strangled. Her anxiety had been about the massive lies she had told, and now that she was correcting them, her body was relaxing, her mind becoming clearer.

  Knox spoke for the first time since she'd started talking, motioning into the living room. "Relax, take a moment."

  Mica watched his face, then nodded and took her coffee into the living room. The story was getting so long, but he needed to hear it. He had to hear it all if he was going to understand completely. She sat down on the couch and wrapped her fingers around her hot coffee, drawing strength from it. Knox walked to the window and looked out, then leaned against one wall, facing her, his face still carefully blank. Mica tried hard not to notice how strong and handsome he looked. She dropped her eyes, a blush creeping onto her face at the thought.

  "That night, mom told me we were leaving. She said there was no way I could stay with Karen now that she knew Karen was married to Dick Bailey. She was frenzied and seemed completely crazed. She said she would call us a taxi in the morning and we would go find somewhere else to live. I couldn't think of a word to say to her to change her mind. It was almost like she was a different person. I don't think she slept at all that night. Neither one of us did. She muttered to herself under her breath all night and I stared at the ceiling, wondering what was going to happen to us now. What was going to happen to me now."

  "But the next morning, she had a relapse. She tried to get out of bed and couldn't even walk. I had to carry her to the bathroom. Within three days she was in the hospital. She never came out."

  Mica pushed her words out very fast, not wanting to get stuck there. She kept her eyes fastened on the wall just to the right of Knox.

  "Karen took care of me. We cried together. We had my mom cremated with a tiny service. Basically it was just me and Karen and the funeral director. Karen took a month off work and did her best to ease my pain. Dick Bailey had disappeared again and I hardly even thought about him. I just mourned my mother as best I could, basically crying a lot and watching a lot of TV with Karen. When she finally went back to work she enrolled me in school and I tried to go on. I didn't see much of a point, but over time, the hurt faded and I got back into a routine. I was still shy and introverted, although I made one friend, and that helped."

  "Over the next couple of years, my life seemed to stabilize. Dick Bailey showed up off and on and mostly ignored me. Sometimes he would stay for a couple of weeks before disappearing again. One day, Karen told me she wanted to adopt me. I thought that was a wonderful idea. I certainly had come to love her in a surrogate mother kind of way. She never yelled or was mean, but then I did my best to please her and help her too. I was very aware that she could just throw me out at any time. But when we went to the courthouse, Bailey was there too. Before I knew it, the papers had been signed and not only did I have a new mom, I had a new dad too. I remember going home that night and staring at the ceiling for hours, feeling terrified, and not knowing why."

  Mica glanced up at Knox, hoping to see something other than harshness in his face, but it was hard, unyielding. His coffee was nowhere to be seen and veins stood out on his forearms as he clenched his hands into fists. She swallowed and looked back down. Was she losing him? Was he angry with her? She had no choice but to push on.

  "N-nothing really changed though. I kept going to school, Karen kept going to work, and every once in a while Dick Bailey would show up for a few days, then disappear again. He didn't talk to me and I didn't talk to him. Sometimes he would look at me in a way that would make me uncomfortable, but then he would disappear again and I would forget about it until the next time. He and Karen had a strange relationship. I never saw them kiss or hug or say anything sweet to each other, she hadn't taken his last name, and I couldn't tell if he ever worked or contributed any money to the house. It didn't even seem like they were married, except when he was around he would sleep in her bed. I tried like mad not to know what went on in their bedroom, but the house was small and sometimes I heard them. They got along well enough when the door was closed."

  Mica took a drink of her coffee, hoping to slake the thirst that had snuck up on her. She put it down, unable to handle the bitterness any longer. She snuck a look at Knox and was dismayed to find he was glowering down at her, anger clear in the set of his jaw. Oh God. Was he angry at her? Or did he see where this was going? He might think he did, but she was sure he had no idea. She dropped her eyes again and continued.

  "Life went on. I did well at school. Karen and I became closer than ever. I never dared ask her why my mom had hated her husband, but over time it seemed less important. Then Karen died too, when I was fifteen."

  Mica kept her eyes down, not wanting to see Knox's reaction, reciting the words with no emotion. The only other person in her life who knew at least some of this story was Ruth, her former employer, and Ruth had cried when she'd heard what teenage Mica had gone through. Mica wasn't looking for pity. She'd cried enough in her life over people dying.

  Besides, the story was still going to get worse.

  Chapter 6

  Mica

  "She left the hospital where she worked as a nurse one day and got hit by a car in the crosswalk. She died instantly. The police came and took me out of school. I couldn't talk for a few days and actually had to be hospitalized. When I got better, Bailey showed up to take me home. I wanted to tell the nurses that I couldn't go with him. He wasn't my father, or anyone to me really, but of course he was my father in their eyes. He had adopted me along with Karen. And where else was I going to go? He still rarely spoke to me, although it was clear that he expected me to take over Karen's role of cooking for him and cleaning the house. He never said a word to me about Karen's death. I have no idea if he grieved or not. I lay awake every night wondering when he was going to disappear. I actually hoped he would. Things were awkward with him around, and I would catch him staring at me at weird times. I figured if he took off, I could make it to school on the bus and would be ok, as long as he showed up every month or so with food. And if he didn't, I would steal it from the school cafeteria, at least while school was in session. That was my plan anyway. But he never disappeared again."

  "He didn't work and I don't know how he got money. Karen might have had a life insurance policy. He stayed home all day making strange changes to the house. Like he dug a bunker in the back yard and filled it with tins of water and food, and he began to put bars on our windows and replace all the doors with steel doors. One day when I came home from school there were five aggressive dogs chained in the back yard and all the cats had disappeared. He started having strange friends over. I hated those nights more than anything, because the men were dirty, smelly, and completely disgusting. They would say horrible, scary things to me, and one guy even cornered me in the bathroom once, saying he was going to give me a taste of what it was like to be a woman. He was drunk and I managed to squeeze past him and out of there, and I
ran out in the yard and hid until the guys left. Whenever men started showing up after that I tried to not be there. I had one friend, Angela, and sometimes her parents would let me stay over. Bailey never seemed to care where I was or what I did, well, until one night when I was sixteen and everything changed. Angela was grounded so she couldn't have me over and I didn't have anywhere else to go. It was late and the library was already closed. I hid in my room as the house started filling up with Bailey's friends. I stayed in my room all night but I had to use the bathroom and the house seemed quiet so I finally snuck out. As I left the bathroom, some guy I'd never seen before was standing there, waiting for me to come out. He smiled this horrible smile at me and called me a pretty little thing. I tried to get past him but he grabbed my arm and pushed me up against the wall."

  Mica heard the flat, robotic tone to her voice. Even Ruth didn't know this part. No one had heard the rest of this, and she didn't know how to tell it any other way. She hated this part of her life, hated her vulnerability, her defenselessness, and how she had just stayed and let it all happen. If only she'd had the guts to run after that night. If only ... she became slightly lost to her regrets and didn't notice Knox fuming across the room. Didn't realize he looked ready to kill someone.

  "He started ... touching me, and trying to kiss me, and he actually ripped my shirt down the front. I was small-chested and didn't wear a bra very often so I didn't have one on. He acted like it was an invitation and he went right to work on my breasts with his hands and mouth. I'd never had a boyfriend. I was considered kind of a nerd, and was too shy to talk to any of the boys in my class. I knew in a rudimentary way what sex was and I knew that's what he was trying to do to me. I tried to fight him off but I was skinny and not very strong. He just laughed and pushed me against the wall harder. I started screaming—not because I figured anyone would help me, but because I couldn't stand the feel of his touch on my skin. But Bailey showed up. I heard him come down the hall. I had no idea what he would do. He was such a puzzle, and I'd never even had a proper conversation with the man. I stopped screaming and stared at Bailey over the man's shoulder as he kept touching me. My skin crawled at his touch but my mind was captured by the look on Bailey's face. He was watching his friend maul me, and the look on his face was ... excited, and greedy. Like he'd come across a jewel mine and wasn't sure how to get the most profit out of it. Then he moved, fast and hard, and shoved the big man off of me. He asked the guy what he thought he was doing and the guy said, 'Hey man, sorry, you said she was ripe for it.' I pulled the ripped halves of my shirt together at these words and ran to my room, slamming the door and locking it and pushing my dresser in front of it. When I was done, I heard the last part of their conversation in the hallway. Bailey was laughing at the guy and then telling him he didn't have enough money to buy me. That I was a virgin and that made me worth more money than that guy ever had seen in his life. Then he threw the guy out of the house."