Chapter 4

Knox’s POV

The silence inside the car was suffocating, broken only by the faint hum of the city miles away and the harsh, ragged rhythm of our breathing.

I leaned back against the leather seat, watching Maya through the dim glow of the dashboard lights. Her hands were trembling violently as she yanked her dress down, frantically trying to piece herself back together. Her pale face was flushed, her dark hair a gorgeous, chaotic mess around her shoulders, and her eyes were wide with a mixture of disbelief and sudden, raw panic.

She looked like a woman who had just realized she had jumped off a cliff.

Truth was, I had zero regrets about what had just happened. My blood was still roaring, my skin burning where her nails had dug into my shoulders. From the moment I saw her standing in that ballroom—defiant, furious, and looking like she wanted to set Jonathan Black on fire. I had wanted her. Knowing exactly who she was only made the fire burn hotter.

I knew every humiliating detail of what Black had done to her. I knew she was the woman he had kept hidden in the shadows for two long years, the secret he was terrified the press would find out about. And I knew that seeing her with me would completely destroy him.

But as I looked at her sitting in the passenger seat, looking so small and wrecked, I kept that part to myself. She didn't need to know my motives. She didn't need to know that every calculation in my head was designed to bleed Jonathan Black dry until he couldn't even focus on the ice.

Maya reached for the door handle, her knuckles white. "I'm leaving."

Before she could pull the lever, I reached across the console, my large hand clamping down firmly around her wrist. "Maya, wait."

She snapped.

Her free hand flew across the space between us, landing on my cheek with a deafening, stinging CRACK. The force of the slap jerked my head to the side. My jaw clenched as a sharp, burning heat bloomed across my skin.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed, her voice breaking into a ragged sob. She was trembling from head to toe, glaring at me with a pure, white-hot fury that took even me by surprise. "Who the hell do you think you are? You treat me like a whore! You think just because you're Knox Mercer, you can back me into a corner, take advantage of me when I'm out of my mind, and then drag me into your pathetic little games?"

I didn't flinch. I slowly turned my head back to face her, wiping a drop of blood from the corner of my lip where her ring had caught me. "I didn't force you into anything, Valeria. You wanted it just as much as I did."

"I was out of my mind!" she choked out, tears finally spilling over her lashes and tracing wet paths down her cheeks. "I am a professional journalist, Knox! I have worked my ass off to be taken seriously! I am not some ring-rat, I am not a slut for you to use and throw around, and I am certainly not fake dating you after... after this!"

She reached for the door again, desperate to escape into the dark night air.

"Walk away, then," I said, my voice dropping into a low, steady rumble that cut straight through her panic.

Maya froze, her hand hovering over the handle.

"Walk out into the middle of nowhere," I continued, leaning my forearms on the steering wheel, watching her closely. "Go back to the Daily Chronicle on Monday morning. Go back to fetch coffee for editors who don't even know your name. Watch Jonathan Black smile on television while his PR team controls, leaving you as nothing more than a footnote in his golden life."

She bit her lip, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly.

"Or," I said, stepping right back into the pitch, "you stick to the plan."

"Are you insane?" she whispered, turning to glare at me through her tears. "You just crossed every boundary line imaginable! How can you stand there and suggest we still fake date?"

"Because the play hasn't changed," I said bluntly. "You want your career, Maya? This is how you get it. You stay by my side for a month. You get the exclusive interviews nobody else in this city can touch. My agent, my team, my personal access—it's all yours. You put your name on the front page of every major sports column in the country. You get promoted from junior assistant to lead reporter before the season ends."

She stared at me, her throat bobbing as she swallowed hard. I could see the sharp, analytical wheels turning in her head, battling against the emotional hurricane crashing through her chest.

"You get your power back," I added quietly, driving the knife in. "You stop hiding in the background."

A long, agonizing silence settled over the car. The rain began to patter softly against the windshield, a steady rhythm in the dark. Maya closed her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath. When she opened them again, the tears were gone, replaced by a cold, hardened resolve.

"Fine," she said, her voice tight, clipped, and completely stripped of warmth. "We do the fake dating. You give me full access to your articles and quotes so I will get my promotion."

"Good," I murmured.

"On one condition," she cut in sharply, turning her body to face me fully, her dark eyes locking onto mine like steel. "This... whatever happened in this car tonight... was the first and absolute last time. Nothing like this ever happens again. No touching unless the cameras are rolling. No private meetings behind closed doors. You keep your hands to yourself, Mercer. If you break that, I walk, and I burn your exclusive to the ground."

I looked at her fierce, beautiful face, the absolute defiance in her eyes, the dark red flush still painted across her skin and felt a dangerous spike of amusement deep in my chest.

She thought she could set rules. She thought a simple verbal agreement could keep the air from exploding every time we stepped into the same room.

"Agreed," I said smoothly, leaning back in my seat and restarting the engine. "Strictly professional from here on out."

As I pulled the car onto the main highway, taking us back toward the city lights, I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. Maya was staring out the passenger window, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, putting as much distance between us as the small sports car allowed.

I smiled faintly to myself, gripping the steering wheel tight.

She meant every word she said. But as I remembered the feeling of her skin beneath my hands and the sound of her voice crying out in the dark, I knew one thing for certain:

Keeping my hands off her was going to be an absolute lie.