Chapter 3

Amaya Turner POV:

The air in the hallway felt like it had been sucked straight out of the room.

Stepping into the full glow of the wall sconces, Knox's face was impossible to miss. It was the same sharp, ruthless face plastered across Forbes covers, State Street financial journals, and massive NHL billboards outside TD Garden.

Davey stared at him with bulging eyes, his mouth opening and closing without a sound.

Beside him, Carlene finally recognized who she was looking at. Her carefully maintained middle-class poise shattered instantly. The color drained from her cheeks, leaving her face the shade of chalk as she took a stumbling step backward.

Knox's large palm radiated steady heat against my cold skin. Looking down from his six-foot-three height, he fixed Davey with a glacial stare.

"I asked you a question," Knox said evenly, his deep voice echoing off the narrow walls. "Do you have a problem with my girlfriend?"

Davey swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing frantically as he tried to salvage his pride in front of Carlene.

"You... you're Knox Leonard?" Davey stammered, his voice pitching high. "That's impossible! How could a nobody like her be dating someone at your level? She's playing you, Mr. Leonard! She just grabbed you off the street to get out of our date!"

Knox let out a short, humorless laugh.

Instead of answering Davey's insult, Knox let go of my hand only to slide his heavy arm firmly around my waist, pulling me flush against his hard side.

Through the thin fabric of my dress, the solid wall of his chest and the crisp scent of cedarwood and winter mint surrounded me, making my breath catch in my throat.

"Does she need your permission to date me?" Knox's tone was flat, carrying the quiet, terrifying authority of a man who could buy and sell half of Boston before breakfast.

Davey looked like he was choking on thin air. He whipped his head toward Carlene, his face red and sweating. "Carlene! Didn't you tell me she was a helpless foster girl with zero connections?"

Carlene's hands were trembling so badly she had to clasp them together in front of her stomach. She couldn't even bring herself to meet Knox's eyes.

"I... I had no idea, Knox," she stammered, her voice shaking. "Amaya never breathed a word to me! If I had known the two of you were—"

Knox narrowed his gray-blue eyes, shifting his gaze to my foster mother.

"Mrs. Lane," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "If Coach Richard were still alive to see you pimping out the girl he raised to a pathetic bottom-feeder for networking favors, he'd be disgusted."

Carlene flinched as if Knox had reached out and slapped her across the face. Her head snapped down, humiliation burning bright red across her neck.

That told me everything: Knox hadn't just walked out of that VIP room two seconds ago. He had heard enough to know exactly what Carlene was doing.

Knox looked back at Davey, his cold gaze dropping to the man's right hand.

"You put your hands on her wrist just now."

It wasn't a question. Davey instantly shoved his right hand behind his back, cold sweat beading across his forehead.

"I—I was just trying to get her to come back to the table, Mr. Leonard! I swear I didn't mean anything by it!" Davey babbled.

Knox didn't even blink. He gave a slight tilt of his chin toward the suited man standing quietly behind him.

His assistant stepped forward smoothly and held out a crisp, matte-black business card between two fingers.

"Mr. Gardner, I am chief legal counsel for Apex Capital," the assistant said in a clinical, unbothered tone.

"Regarding the physical assault you just committed against Mr. Leonard's partner, our litigation team will be contacting the managing partners at your firm at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

At the mention of Apex Capital calling his bosses, Davey's knees visibly buckled. He didn't even dare take the card. Everyone working on State Street knew that Apex Capital held major stakes in almost every mid-sized investment firm in New England.

One phone call from Knox's legal team wouldn't just get Davey fired—it would get him blacklisted from the entire East Coast finance industry.

"No, Mr. Leonard, please! It was a massive misunderstanding!" Davey's voice cracked in sheer panic as he bowed his head repeatedly. "I'm sorry! Miss Turner, I'm sorry, I was out of line! Please don't call my firm!"

Knox's fingers tightened fractionally against my waist, his thumb resting right over my hipbone.

"Get out of my sight before I have hotel security break the hand you touched her with," Knox said quietly.

Davey didn't wait another half-second. Leaving his expensive coat and his dignity behind in the dining room, he spun around and bolted down the hallway, scrambling so fast on the polished floor that he slammed his shoulder hard into the corner wall before disappearing toward the lobby exit.

I let out a long, shaky breath I felt like I had been holding for twenty minutes.

Carlene stood frozen in the corridor, completely abandoned by her prize catch. She forced a stiff, ugly smile onto her pale face and took a hesitant step toward us.

"Knox, what a small world. It's been so long since Richard's funeral," she said, trying desperately to sound warm and maternal.

"Why didn't you tell me you and Amaya were seeing each other? Brodie is coming home next week after signing his NHL contract, we should all have a family dinner—"

"Mrs. Lane," Knox cut her off, his voice like chipped ice. "You don't need to trouble yourself with Amaya's affairs tonight. I'm taking her home."

Without waiting for her reply, he kept his arm locked around my waist and steered me past her toward the private gold-trimmed elevator at the end of the hall.

His assistant swiped a keycard, and the heavy brass doors slid shut, cutting off Carlene's stunned, livid face.

The exact second the doors closed and we were alone with his silent assistant, I realized how close I was pressed against Knox's chest.

My face went hot. I quickly stepped out from under his arm and retreated two paces, pressing my back flat against the cool metal wall of the elevator car, my heart thumping wildly against my ribs.

Knox glanced down at his now-empty arm. A dark, unreadable flicker crossed his gray-blue eyes before he slowly slid his hand back into his trouser pocket.

"Thank you, Mr. Leonard," I whispered, staring down at my bruised wrist as I rubbed it gently. "If you hadn't walked out when you did and played along... I really don't know how I would've gotten away from him."

Knox leaned his broad shoulders back against the opposite handrail, his heavy gaze pinned directly on me in the small space.

"Mr. Leonard?" he repeated, a trace of dry mockery in his deep voice. "Two minutes ago in the hallway, it was 'honey.'"

My cheeks flamed scarlet. I bit my lower lip hard, wishing the elevator floor would open up and swallow me whole. "I panicked! Davey was trying to drag me out to his car, and you were the only person in sight. I'm really sorry for using you as a shield."

Knox's dark brows drew together slightly as he looked at the red finger marks circling my pale wrist.

"When you're backed into a corner by trash like that, your first instinct is to grab a random man in a hallway instead of calling me for help?" he asked, his tone surprisingly sharp.

I blinked up at him, caught completely off guard. Why would he say that? Yes, my foster father had been his youth coach and mentor, and Knox had paid for Richard's medical bills and funeral, for which I was eternally grateful. Yet to me, Knox Leonard lived in a different stratosphere.

"I... I don't even have your private number," I mumbled honestly, my fingers curling into the cheap wool hem of my coat. "Besides, why would I bother someone as busy as you with my personal mess?"

Knox clicked his tongue in quiet annoyance, a deep frown creasing his scarred brow as if my answer had somehow irritated him.

Before he could reply, the elevator chimed and slid open into the brightly lit underground VIP parking garage. Sitting in the reserved spot right beside the elevator doors was a sleek, matte-black Aston Martin DBS, looking like a crouching beast on the concrete.

Knox stepped out of the elevator, unbuttoning his suit jacket with one hand.

"Come on. I'll drive you back to Cambridge," he said over his shoulder.

I stopped right outside the elevator doors, suddenly terrified of being trapped alone in a cramped two-seater sports car with him now that my adrenaline was wearing off.

"No, really, you've already done way too much for me tonight!" I said quickly, taking a step toward the pedestrian exit ramp. "The T station is only two blocks from here. I can just take the subway back."

Knox stopped dead beside the driver's door. He turned his head slowly, his scarred right eyebrow lifting as he looked at me in my thin black dress and cheap coat.

"The National Weather Service just issued a red-alert Nor'easter warning for Greater Boston starting in ten minutes," Knox said flatly. "Do you want to freeze to death waiting for a train that isn't coming, or are you getting in the car?"

As if on cue, my phone buzzed inside my purse with a piercing emergency weather alert, and a freezing blast of wind howled down the concrete entrance ramp of the garage, making me shiver.

Knox didn't wait for me to debate it. He walked around the hood of the car, pulled open the heavy passenger door, and stood there holding it, his cold gray-blue eyes daring me to argue with him.

Swallowing my pride and my nerves, I ducked my head, walked over, and lowered myself into the low leather bucket seat. The second Knox shut the door above me, sealing me inside the tight cabin, the rich scent of leather, cedarwood, and Knox himself swallowed me whole.