The Proviso (68 page)

“Make over.”

“Yes, make over a girl who shouldn’t be in his
office in the first place. Just because you want to get this mess
over with and getting him married off is the last thing on the
to-do list doesn’t mean you personally have to cross it off. This
isn’t your project anymore.”

“You think Knox is a
project
for me?”

Bryce laughed, totally without humor. “No. The
proviso
is your project because you feel responsible for it,
you feel guilty for Leah’s death, and your whole life would still
be about managing that project if I hadn’t damn near fucked you on
that bench a year and a half ago. Am I arrogant to demand you let
it go? No. That’s my right because you married me.” He held up his
hand, then pointed at her when she opened her mouth again. “No,
Giselle! Let Knox clean up his own messes.”

“So we take the girl in for a week, cut her hair and
buy her some nice clothes—on his tab, I might add. What’s wrong
with that?”

He began to pace again, his hands on his nearly bare
hips. “This is all his fault and he needs to take care of it. She
shouldn’t have been in his office for any reason whatsoever.”

“Oh, yes, she should’ve!” Giselle shot back. “She
needs a spine and he can give it to her—in weeks, not years.
Umpteen years from now, she’s not going to be sitting in a junior
attorney chair wondering where her life went and how she became
irrelevant because she didn’t have the balls to stand up for
herself in real life.”

Bryce’s teeth ground. “You know what? That’s not
Knox’s job. He does
not
have carte blanche to just force
anybody he wants into his personal blast furnace just because he
thinks they need hardening. Now
that’s
ego.”

“This was
my
idea, Bryce. I would’ve waved a
magic wand over that frizzy braid years ago if I thought it
wouldn’t drive Knox out of his mind to see her on campus all
drop-dead gorgeous or make him compete for a woman he couldn’t have
for another four years.”

“Then let
him
make her look like what he
wants her to look like. Wasn’t he the one who taught
you
how
to walk and talk and dress like a debutante?”

“This is not for
him
. He couldn’t give a shit
what she looks like as long as her hair’s red and her IQ is higher
than his. It’s for
her
. She looks like she’s still in high
school and nobody’s going to take her seriously as an attorney of
any type. Whether she stays in his office or not, she needs to look
professional and she doesn’t.”

“That doesn’t wash, Giselle. The girl could go to
the Cato Institute and they’d let her show up in a bikini as long
as she drew an audience and cash. No!” he roared when she opened
her mouth to protest that. “I don’t buy that. All you’re doing now
is cleaning up the mess he made with her. And by the way, why are
you always cleaning up after those two? If it’s not this crisis,
it’s that crisis. You—
we
—cleaned up after Sebastian and the
mess he made with Eilis and we’re
still
dealing with the
fallout from that.

“And Knox tore Sebastian a new one over that, but he
can’t talk because he trumped Sebastian’s bullshit a hundred times
over. So we get to put
Knox’s
woman—strike that,
girl
—back together again. Both of them fucked up royally and
there you were, at the crook of a finger, to pick up Sebastian’s
pieces and here you are now, at the crook of a finger, getting
ready to pick up Knox’s pieces. I don’t want
my
wife
spending her life cleaning up after another man’s—
two
men’s—messes!

“I’ve thrown in with the rest of you against Fen.
I’m an adult. I have means. I’m invested. I chose for myself
and
I can choose to bail at any time. That girl is young,
has no means, and isn’t being given any choices whatsoever, which
is bad enough, but she’s got the most to lose all the way
around—
including
her life. That’s just fucked up.”

He stopped his angry pacing and glared at her,
pointing at her again. “No. It’s not fucked up, it’s
immoral
, Giselle. Do you get me? Immoral.
Evil.
He
took her
freedom
and her
choices
away from her. He’s
pulled some pretty shitty stunts in his time but I
never
thought I’d see the day he’d go this far.

“Justice is a
girl
. She has a
crush
on
him. She’s not even experienced enough to get past a crush to an
adult emotion, and I don’t care what the hell she writes or how
influential she is or what a genius she is—when it comes right down
to it, she’s just a
girl
with a
crush
on a man who’s
almost old enough to be her
father
, and who is exactly what
she
didn’t
fantasize about.”

“But he—”

“I don’t care ‘but he.’ But he’s a selfish bastard,
is what ‘but he.’ If he
really
loved her, he wouldn’t do
this to her. Do you not remember what Fen’s done already? Oliver
and Leah are
dead
, Giselle! He burned your bookstore to the
ground and you were supposed to go with it. He sent
two
men
to kill you—and you have the bullet holes and blood on your hands
to prove it. Do you want to have that girl’s blood on your hands,
too? If
anything
happens to her, it’ll be on all three of
you and it’ll be innocent blood.”

“Fen knows what’ll happen to him if he bothers a
potential bride.”

“But then the deed’s done, isn’t it? You know, I get
a hard-on that you threatened him at gunpoint. Love the scars, love
the Glocks. Girls with guns. Totally fuckable. Not so crazy about
the actual murder part. So she’s dead, Fen’s dead, you’re in
prison. That makes it all better how?”

Giselle drew in a deep breath, angrier than she
could remember being in a long time.
Why
wasn’t he willing
to understand this?

“He wasn’t going to hire her, much less force her to
stay. He just wanted to see her before he sent her on her way.
That’s all.”

“Yeah, and what happened to the grand plan to wait
until after his birthday and go get her?”

“Someone turned a gun on him is what happened!” she
yelled. “It just—happened!”

“That’s
bullshit
. He should have let the
investigators interview her and sent her on her way. He’s just
using it as an excuse to keep her there and accessible so he can
seduce her because he couldn’t
bear
to wait another year and
a half. You can’t look me in the eye and tell me that wasn’t the
first thing you thought when he told you.”

She had thought that, in fact. She didn’t like it
any more than Bryce did, but she’d seen Knox’s agony, watched and
felt his torment over the last three years, understood his
motives.

“To wit,” he snarled when she remained silent.

Then, so angry and hurt, confused and torn, she
couldn’t do anything but clench her fists and let out a howl. She
only wanted a release valve for all that raw jumble of emotion, but
suddenly, she found herself crushed to Bryce’s chest and her mouth
filled with his tongue. He kissed her hard and held her tight to
him, one arm wrapped around her body and his hand clutching,
caressing her buttocks. The other hand gripped the back of her head
and held her still.

Giselle squirmed, but into her mouth, he growled,
“Don’t move. Just feel.” Once he’d said that, of course, she did
feel. She felt his bare chest crushing her breasts, his jersey
shorts no better than a fig leaf for the cock that pressed hard
against her belly. She felt the urgency of his mouth as he kissed
her. She felt the hand that kneaded her as it slid down between her
legs to knead there, too. She could barely breathe for the lust
that coursed through her, competing with the anger and confusion,
each feeding off the other, getting hotter and more intense.

He pulled away from her, tore her shorts off of her
with a rip that resounded through the kitchen, then picked her up
and plopped her on the counter, her knees spread wide. He had
shoved his shorts down and had driven his cock inside her before
she could say a word.

She was wet and she didn’t know when or why that had
happened. He filled her, stretched her. She planted her hands on
the smooth granite, spread her knees wider, hooked her heels on the
edge of the counter. Her eyes closed. Her head dropped back against
the cabinet.

“
Look at me!
”

She obeyed slowly, snarling at him and he her. He
was so close they could kiss, leaning against her, his hands braced
on the counter on either side of her hips. His whisper was harsh,
hoarse.

“I’m that man you were looking for way back when to
fuck you like you want and need to be fucked, to love you like you
want and need to be loved. But you aren’t always in this with me
one hundred and ten percent and I resent that. I will
not
compete with your pack and you are
not
the alpha. Just like
I didn’t get a pass on fucking you and leaving you in the morning,
you don’t get a pass on keeping little bits of yourself from me and
giving it to them.”

Then he drew away from her and she gasped at the
force of his first thrust. His second.

“I. Am. Your. Lover.”

His third.

“I have always been your lover.”

Fourth.

“And I will always be your lover.”

His voice was so raw he dropped words, matching his
thrusts to his cadence.

“You married
me
.

“Your loyalty should be to
me
.

“You are
mine
.

“
All
of you.”

She gritted her teeth. Used the counter for
leverage. Matched him thrust for thrust.

Rode their angry fucking to its end.

Came screaming his name.

His back arched and he roared as he drove into her
one last time.

She collapsed on him, her chest heaving.

He wrapped his arms around her, buried his face in
her shoulder, tried to catch his breath—

—and sank his teeth into the crook of her neck,
making her shudder with the intensity of her response to that.

Silence while their breathing returned to
normal.

Savages.

Giselle sighed.

“I’ll let you do this,” Bryce whispered in her ear
finally. He held her close, his fingers curled in her hair. He
licked her skin where he’d bitten her. Kissed. Nipped. “But not
because of Knox. This is for her. She’s going to need every bit of
strength and courage you can pump into her in a week. But once she
goes back to that office, I’ll give him a week to do the right
thing by her and then I’ll go in there and pull her out myself—and
don’t you
dare
say a word to him about that before I do.

“After this, no more. I’m tired of sharing you with
two other men, family or not, loyalties or not, Fen or not.
Proviso
or not. You changed loyalties when you married me,
and I’m going to hold you to that.”

He pulled away from her then and held her face
gently between his hands. She could see that his anger was gone,
but his face betrayed deep hurt and weary resignation. “They will
never
love you like I love you, Giselle.”

She swallowed, ashamed that she had hurt him so
badly, that she had caused that pain in his face, and whispered,
“Okay. I’m sorry.”

* * * * *

60: TO
SIP FROM A DEVIL’S CUP

Justice was late. again. This had never happened to
her before. Always prompt, always prepared, she hated the fact that
now, five weeks in, she had acquired a reputation for tardiness.
She could only chalk it up to her dread of facing another day in
the prosecutor’s office, dragging her feet out the door every
morning.

She’d arrived late twice after her first day. Knox
hadn’t known about it either time and Eric had only given her a
scowl.

Today, her luck only extended to the fact that she’d
straggled in
so
late, everyone else was in court.

Except Knox.

“MCKINLEY!” he roared at her when she came in at
exactly 9:13, harried, overwhelmed, and terrified. “In my office.
NOW!”

Justice stepped into Knox’s office, her heart
thundering. She knew she’d get reprimanded for her extreme
tardiness, but she could bet he’d also make good on Richard’s
prediction that he’d call her on her mooning.

Her spine tingled in horrified anticipation and she
swallowed. Hard.

He walked in behind her, slammed the door, and
brushed by her on the way to his desk. She stiffened at the slight
touch of his body against hers, but she couldn’t squelch her
strange reaction to a man she feared.

She took a deep breath.

Knox dropped himself in his chair and relaxed, his
loafered foot on the edge of the desk, his chair tilted back, his
elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingers steepled under his
chin, his face carefully blank as he studied her. She started when
he spoke.

“That’s the fourth time you’ve been late in five
weeks. Care to explain yourself?”

There was no excuse.

She knew it. He knew it.

“I can’t,” she finally said.

“If you’re late again, I don’t know what I’m going
to do, but I guarantee you won’t like it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, one other thing.”

Justice knew what was coming and she swallowed,
already mortified.

“I know you’ve been hankering after a piece of my
ass since you got here so all I want to know is where you’d like to
have it. Here, now, or later when I can take you home and do you up
proper?”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Ex—excuse me?” she stammered. She felt herself
flush and her blood thump madly in her ears as she stared at him in
morbid fascination.