Hard to Endure Chapter 05

Hard to Endure Chapter 05

So I confessed to Knox. I didn’t want him sacrificing himself for an arranged marriage. There would always

be more money to make, but there was only one Knox.

That day, I booked his favorite restaurant and bought roses and a ring. I told him, completely serious, “Knox,

let’s get married. Let’s be together forever.”

Knox went rigid. He turned cold and distant, and there was even a trace of disgust in his eyes. “Summer, I’m

your brother. That’s all I’ll ever be.”

Then he warned me. “Don’t go getting ideas you shouldn’t have.”

My parents had always told me that if I wanted something, I had to fight for it. If I pushed hard enough and

grabbed for it, I’d get what I wanted.

So I acted like I hadn’t understood his rejection. The colder he got, the harder I pushed.

Then his engagement was actually settled. In that moment, a wave of panic and insecurity swallowed me

whole. I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t accept Knox belonging to anyone but me.

So I faked being sick to get him home, and then I slipped something into his drink. That night was steamy

and chaotic, and I slept with Knox, the person I loved most.

When I got home, Knox was in the middle of a video conference in the living room. Arthur greeted me with a

smile. “Mr. Callahan got in a little while ago.”

I kept my face calm, but my steps got slower and slower. Before long, I could barely make out what Arthur was saying. I was so nervous that my heart pounded.

Then I finally saw Knox, and he glanced over at me, cool and brief. For some reason, I thought of that night again. It was the last time we’d seen each other, and it had been humiliating for both of us.

I hadn’t dared give Knox much of the drug, only a little. But it was enough for me to tie his hands to the

headboard and his feet to the foot of the bed.

When it wore off, Knox came to. The moment he saw what was happening, his eyes filled with a fury I’d never

seen before.

I was straddling him, flushed, looking down at him. Everything that should have happened and everything that shouldn’t have had already happened, and none of it could be undone.

Knox told me to get off him. As if I would. Not only did I stay, but I went even further, until I was completely

spent and Knox had stopped fighting it.

I figured Knox would never marry anyone else after that, so I untied him. He stumbled to his feet and threw

his clothes on, his back tense and his whole body cold.

On his way out, he looked at me with no expression at all. “Summer, let’s not see each other again.”

The look he’d given me that night was exactly the same as the look he was giving me now.

I pulled myself together, let my mouth turn down and my eyelids droop, and sat down next to him. He stayed in his meeting, and I scrolled through my couples videos with Adrian, sneaking glances at him out of the

corner of my eye.

We hadn’t seen each other in three years, and Knox seemed even more mature and more attractive than

before. Since he was at home, he was wearing a black loungewear set.

The gentle, boyish Knox I remembered seemed to be long gone. I sighed to myself.

It wasn’t until Knox went overseas that I figured out why he’d changed.

After that night, he quickly handed off the company’s business here to a few people he trusted, and he moved abroad, supposedly to open up new markets. I sent him message after message, and he only replied

once.

Knox: [Summer, we’re done. We have nothing to do with each other anymore.]

After that, we lost touch completely. He skipped every holiday and anniversary we used to spend together.

He didn’t even come back on the anniversary of my parents’ deaths.

I sat in front of my parents’ headstone and cried. I cried that Knox was an ungrateful jerk, and that I never should have brought him home the first time I saw him.

Then, out of nowhere, I remembered what Knox had said. People said he was bad luck, and anybody who

took him in ended up dead.

That was the day I finally understood. Knox, that idiot, had to be blaming himself for my parents’ deaths. So I had a feeling that maybe Knox liked me too.

Knox’s meeting finally ended. With shaking hands, I held my phone out to him. My eyes were red, and my

voice caught. “Knox, Adrian and I broke up.”