The Billionaire's Secret Kink Box Set: Knox: Secret Alpha Billionaire Romance Bundle (Rosesson Brothers Book 1) (15 page)

"Dinner?" Mica asked, warmth spreading through her at the smile. It was the first one she'd gotten since he figured out who she really was.

"You offering?" Knox asked, his golden eyes pinning her in place.

"I could order takeout. There's a great chinese place close by."

"Chinese is good. Get me anything with meat in it," he said, then turned back to his computer.

Mica nodded and found the menu in a drawer in her kitchen, scouring over it.
Anything with meat in it.
Mica made her decision and called in the order, then sat back on the couch to wait for it. He'd have to stop working long enough to eat. On one of Knox's computer screens she could see the Brotherhood of Saints website, on the other, she saw what looked like a criminal database.

Twenty-five minutes later the buzzer at her door sounded. Mica tried to stand but Knox held out a silent hand to her. She sank back into the couch as he let the delivery man into the building, then stared at him through the peephole. She held up her credit card and tried to get his attention but he waved it away and pulled out his own wallet. Mica watched him pay the man and re-lock the door, then take the food to the table. She had wondered why he sat with his back to her earlier, but now as she saw him return to his chair she realized that it was so he was facing the door.

"Smells great," he said, dropping the two large bags on the table, then clearing a place on the table in front of him.

Mica agreed but her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth suddenly. She stood and walked to the table, her eyes on the food he was pulling out of the bags.

Mica sat and reached for a container. Beef broccoli. She pushed it towards Knox and tried the next one. Shrimp fried rice. She kept that one. She'd ordered two of everything, firmly believing Chinese food tasted best straight out of the tiny white box. She rubbed a pair of chopsticks between her hands until they cracked in half, then dug in, relishing the first tasty bite.

Knox either believed as she did, or was following her lead. He ripped apart his own chopsticks and sampled the beef broccoli then focused on an orange chicken container.

The air sat still and heavy between them, but Mica didn't care. She would care, once her belly was full. She ate half of her container of fried rice before anyone spoke.

"Did he catch you taking his money?" Knox asked, and Mica looked up in surprise. His gaze weighed heavily and she couldn't tell if there was judgment in it or not.

"He did." Mica took another bite and chewed carefully, then relayed everything else there was to tell, her food forgotten in front of her as she did so. She pushed it out quickly, without emotion, wanting to get past the past already.

"I had walked out of Bailey's room, but then had second thoughts, thinking if I took just a little bit more money I could get by a little longer wherever I ended up. I knew it was wrong, but I also knew I couldn't stick around and wait for him to sell my virginity to the highest bidder, no matter what I had to do to stop it. When I went back in for more money, he appeared suddenly and went crazy. He didn't hit me, but he tied me to a post in the basement while he made some changes to my room. He boarded up and barred the only window and put a heavy lock on the door. He took everything out of my room but the bed and my books. He didn't even leave me any clothes but what I had on. Then he put me in there, telling me things were going to be different from now on. I stayed in the room for two months. He let me out twice a day to use the bathroom, and brought me food once a day. No matter what I tried I couldn't break the board on the window, and when I tried to get out the door, he would laugh at me and tell me that my debt was only growing faster now that I couldn't cook or clean for him. He told me other things, horrible things that I don't want to repeat, but they worked on me like some sort of inner sickness that twisted my brain and made me want to agree to anything he said if he would just let me out. I never went to school again after that day, and I remember praying someone would come look for me, but no one ever did. He must have told them I moved or something."

"I finally agreed," Mica said softly, her eyes on the table. "I told him I wanted to pay him back for everything and I would go see his friend and do whatever he wanted. He had taken the money he found in my hands that day, but I had shoved two-hundred and forty-two dollars into the toe of my shoe and I planned to use it to escape from him on the trip to the East Coast where his friend lived. I kept my shoes on even while I was sleeping, and kept that money in my shoe, since I didn't know when he planned to take me."

"Once I agreed he let me outside for an hour a day, but he always kept a close watch on me. He was twice my size and four times as strong. I didn't try to escape him. When it finally came time to leave for the train, he put some sort of a drug in my food. I could tell that he had because I started feeling light-headed almost immediately. The effects of the drug were strange, they made me feel very much like I didn't care what he did to me. I didn't care about anything. He gave me so much that I couldn't even walk, but he foresaw that. He had a wheelchair for me. In my drugged state I couldn't fight him, couldn't even talk back to him. He put me in the wheelchair and tied my arms to my chest, then put a shirt and a bib on me, then put a fancy-looking leather sash around me that tied my upper half to the chair so I didn't fall out. When we got to the train he kept calling me his handicapped daughter, and there was nothing I could do. I couldn't form coherent sentences to tell anyone what was really happening. The people on the train let us board first and we had a private room on the lower level of the train, a room built for a wheelchair. The first thing Bailey did when we got there was close the door, then pull me out of the chair and put a diaper on me. I was so drugged I couldn't even care that he was doing it."

Mica felt a shift in Knox's energy from her right. She pushed on, knowing he was angry again. His anger felt good to her now though, like he was fully on her side.

"The train from Portland to the East Coast leaves at night and he went almost right to sleep in the bed. He left me in the wheelchair to sleep between the far wall and the tiny sink. I slept too, but one time when I woke up I could think more clearly. The drug had started to wear off. I watched him sleep and tried to figure a way out of there. I had no idea if trains had police or if there was a way for me to jump off of it. I sat in the wheelchair and pulled my arms out of the cloth restraints he had used to bind my arms to my chest, watching him for the slightest movement. Just when I was starting to feel even better, an alarm next to him went off. He had set it to wake him up when I needed more of the drug to keep me quiet. I lolled my head and acted still drugged. He got up and put a bottle of water to my lips, encouraging me to drink it. I did, but I acted drugged still and tried to spill as much of it down my front as I could. But still I could feel the drug working on me right away. He got back in his bed and laid down, and I tried to fix one thought in my head and focus on it. When I thought he was asleep I half stood over the sink and shoved my finger down my throat and threw up all of that water as quietly as I could. He didn't wake. I watched him for two hours, until I felt normal, and then I got up and snuck out as quietly as I could. I'd never been on a train before and didn't know how they worked, but my plan was to go to any employee I saw and ask if there were police officers on the train. Problem was I didn't see any employees. It was the middle of the night and everyone was asleep. I walked from car to car to car until I finally reached the very back car that was open to the public. I sat in an open seat and watched the door in the front of the car. That's when I saw you the first time, remember?"

Mica looked at Knox and saw the memory on his face. His eyes were half-lidded, a slight smile quirking his lips.

"I heard the conductor announce a stop in ten minutes and I developed a new plan. I was going to get off the train and disappear. I didn't care what town it was in. The police would have to believe me. I would tell them Bailey kidnapped me and tell them everything, and pray that they would help me. But while the train was slowing down, Bailey found me."

Mica stopped talking and faced Knox squarely. "You know everything else."

Knox nodded. Their eyes locked over the table and Mica felt magic in it. Tingles danced up and down her spine from the connection.

Knox began to speak. "Bailey's a monster. You didn't do anything wrong and you couldn't have done any different. I wish you would have stayed and let me help you though. I wanted to help you. I would have tried to have Bailey found and put in jail."

Mica felt the tears well up in her eyes at his words. She'd dreamed about coming clean to Knox Rosesson dozens of times but had never quite been able to imagine what he would say about what she had considered a shameful secret. Now that he was in front of her, professing that none of it had been her fault, she felt a concrete weight roll off of her chest, freeing her completely for the first time in her life. His hazel eyes spoke volumes of forgiveness and absolution, which she hadn't even realized she needed quite so much.

Mica picked up a napkin and hid behind it, raw emotion tearing at her. But no, she wouldn't cry. Not here, not now. She dabbed her eyes and took a deep breath, then forced herself to drop the napkin.

"So what happens now?" she asked.

Knox smiled at her again and she felt herself melt.

"Now we wait until he makes another move. Eventually, he'll make a mistake and that's when we'll get him."

Mica blinked. "I mean now when you leave me. Who is going to take your place? I-I know you have better things to do than sit here and babysit me."

Knox shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. "I'm not leaving."

"You're not?"

Knox shook his head. "I've got a locksmith coming first thing in the morning. We'll get your locks changed tomorrow and we'll talk more then. I don't have anywhere more important to be right now."

"I can't believe that Knox. You've got a company to run. You've got a life."

Knox stared at her hard, his eyes narrowing, and Mica felt her gut twist.

"Nothing else is as important as this is to me right now," he said. "There's no way I'm leaving you alone until you're safe."

Mica cast her eyes downward. "Knox, I don't know if I can afford—"

Knox cut her off, his voice sharp. "This isn't about money. This is about what's right. And it's about us, Mica. Let me ask you something. Did you ever think about me? Did you ever wonder if there could have been something between us? Eventually, I want to hear exactly why you left, and I want to know what has happened to you in the last ten years, but more than that, I want to know if what you said on the train was true."

Mica didn't have to ask him what he meant. She knew.

Knox knocked the food containers out of his way and reached for her hands, enveloping her cold and trembling fingers with his own warm, strong ones.

"I meant what I said to you when I thought your name was Rachel, and I've thought about it hundreds of times over the last ten years. I have to admit, I was hurt that you left. I might still be harboring a bit of that hurt in my heart, but I'll get over it. But I have to know, did you leave because you lied about what you felt for me? Or did you at least tell me the truth about that?"

Mica's stomach churned. She hadn't expected this. She hadn't prepared for it. She blurted out the truth as she knew it. "It was true. It's—it's still true. But I'm scared too."

Knox nodded and looked satisfied. For now. He pulled his hands back and lifted his chin. "Why don't you get some rest. I'll stay awake. I still have work to do anyway."

Mica knew she was dismissed.

She was glad. She stood and left the room, not caring about the food, not caring about anything but getting herself back under control.

Knox

Knox sat on Mica's couch in the dimly lit living room and stared out the bay window at the streetlights. His mind churned with thoughts, each more loaded than the last. He could physically feel the weight of Mica's presence in the same house, and it ate at him. He'd let go of thinking of her as Rachel, even using the name Mica when he thought of what she'd said and what they'd done on the train.

He wasn't tired. He was too keyed up to be tired. She was alive. She was here. She was only a few rooms away. The spark that had developed between them still burned. Burned brightly enough that he wanted to go to her. Wanted to find her in her bed, hair mussed, body relaxed from sleep, thoughts unguarded, and take her—make her belong to him. He'd never wanted that before. Never felt an automatic, ingrained trust in a woman that made him want to be there with her, be vulnerable with her, let her be his everything, like he wanted to with Mica.

The thought scared him and exhilarated him. He'd long thought of himself as ruined for relationships. Completely unsuited for them. Watching his father systematically destroy his mother and loving his mother but turning out like his father had done that to him. He never wanted to be that person who destroyed someone who loved him. But thinking of Mica, his heart told him he didn't have to be like his father. He could be someone different, someone better, someone who could have the trust, the companionship, the love, and the passion, with none of the bad stuff.

He knew it was possible. He'd seen good relationships from the outside. None of them existed in his family, but that didn't mean he couldn't be the first. Daxton's relationship with Darcy came to mind. Daxton didn't have their father's penchant for ruin. Daxton had treated that woman like a queen, but then
she'd
destroyed
him
.