“Nothing.”

“What else does he do to you?”

“Nothing!” I cried again.

“You’re going to cover for him when I’ve already seen more than enough? You would’ve rather been with some bullshit excuse for a man who hurt you, than with me? Fuck, Harlow, all I ever wanted was to love you. To take care of you. To make you my goddamn world. Why would you choose this over me? Why would you continue to choose this over me?”

“Please leave,” I sobbed. “He’ll come after you if he finds you near me, Knox. If he suspects anything, I-I don’t know what he’ll do, but I know it won’t—” I cut off on another sob. “It won’t be good for you.”

“You’re out of your damn mind if you think I’m leaving you to deal with this by yourself.”

“You’re not; I’m fine. I promise I’m fine, but you have to leave. If he did something to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I bought myself a week from anything else with him, so please go.”

“A week?” he asked, his face twisted in disgust. “You bought yourself a fucking week? How often does this happen?”

I nodded and choked out more sobs. “He thinks I’m pregnant. He won’t touch me as long as he thinks that.”

Knox’s face fell. “Are you?”

“No!”

Relief washed over his features for a moment, but his expression grew hard again. “What does he do to you?”

“Please stop.”

“Tell me, Harlow. I can’t help you if I don’t know.”

“He’ll kill my family if you do!” I slapped a hand over my mouth to quiet the surprised cry that left me. My eyes widened along with Knox’s.

“What?”

I shook my head slowly back and forth.

“What did you just say?”

“You need to go!” I whispered harshly, and fumbled with my clutch for my phone. Fear spread through me when I saw a text from Collin before I read it.

Collin: Stuck talking with a few people I know the mayor’s counting on for donations. How are you feeling?

I sighed in relief and tapped out my response.

Harlow: It’s starting to pass. I’ll be fine. Be out there soon.

“Low!” Knox’s exasperated tone filled the room. “You’re just going to start texting someone after you drop that on me?”

“I’m making sure he doesn’t come looking for me!”

Knox’s large hand cradled my cheek, and when he spoke again, his voice was deep and soothing. “I’m taking you from him, Low. I’m not letting you live with him; we’ll go to the police—”

I started shaking. “We can’t! Knox, you can’t! Do you know who his dad is?”

“Of course I do. How do you think I knew what your last name was?”

“His dad will somehow make sure nothing happens to Collin, but it will get back to Collin that you were the one who reported it. Please. Promise me you won’t. I’m not being dramatic when I say Collin will come after you. I can’t let anything happen to you,” I sobbed.

“And I can’t stand back and not do anything.”

Tears fell harder down my cheeks, and I moved my hands to curl them around the sides of Knox’s neck; my thumbs brushed his jaw. I love you flitted through my mind over and over. My entire body trembled now that I was touching him again, and it would’ve been so easy to say those words. They were on the tip of my tongue, begging to be spoken. Instead, I said, “Knox, I need you to leave. I need you to leave, and I need you to forget what you saw.”

“How can you expect me to do that?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion.

I shook my head. I couldn’t answer that, because I knew that I couldn’t do that. “I can’t let you get involved in this. Just please listen to me. Leave this room, forget about what you saw, and forget about me,” I repeated, my voice shaking with urgency.

“I can’t do that,” he confessed, and for the very first time I watched as wetness gathered in Knox’s dark eyes. “We’ll run away, something . . . anything. I told you the other day; you were always supposed to be mine. I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”

My jaw trembled and my head dropped. “We can’t. Didn’t you hear me? He’ll kill my family. If I leave, if I tell anyone . . . they’re dead.”

“Then he deserves to be six feet in the ground or rotting the rest of his life away in a damn cell! He’s fucking sick, Harlow.”

“You think I don’t know that? But this is what’s happening, Knox. I’m dealing with it; you need to, too.”

“I refuse to deal with this. I refuse to deal with the fact that you have a husband who not only hurts you, but lets older men touch you in front of him.”

My head jerked back, and it took me a few seconds to remember that he’d seen me when Ren was still there. “No. No, Collin was furious when he saw that.”

Someone pushed against the door, and my entire body went rigid. We both held our breath as we watched the person put pressure against the door a few more times before giving up, but that didn’t ease my fear.

“I need to go back out there.”

“Let me take you away from all this,” he pleaded.

“You can’t.” My voice was hoarse as I pulled out of his arms. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t understand, but you can’t. I swear to you I’m much safer staying with him than if I were to leave.”

“Harlow,” he groaned. His shoulders sagged in defeat as he ran his hands over his head. “I can’t make you leave your husband. If you think you and your family are in danger, I won’t go to the police until you give me the okay. But I’m here. After all these years I’m still here. If it ever gets to be too much, if you ever can’t handle it anymore, if you ever need someone to get you away from him, then call me and I’ll be there.”

I hesitated before nodding.

Knox’s too-perceptive eyes narrowed. “What? Do you not have my number anymore?”

I shrugged and quickly shook my head; the action contradicted my next words. “I remember it.”

There was a brief pause before he asked, “Then what, Low? Are you changing your mind? Do you want to get out n—”