Page 51 of On Your Knees

“Stay,” I tell Levi as he levers himself up onto one elbow.

He just blinks at me, sleepy and not quite tracking.

As I’m walking down the hallway, the doorbell chimes again, then again as I’m moving through the entryway.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. If I were more awake, the excessive ringing would tip me off that it is not Patrick at my door, but my brain isn’t that fully online.

Desperate to stop the ringing, I unlock and yank open the door without even looking through the peephole. Then I freeze.

Ruby’s eyes rake down my half-naked body with utter contempt, and I’m so unprepared for it that I flinch—and I fucking hate that.

“What the fuck,” I snap, scrambling for some sense of control.

Ruby is completely unfazed by my sharpness. I did learn it from her, after all. She drags her eyes back to my face.

“Really, Ethan?”

Her dark hair is pulled back into a sleek low bun. Under her long beige jacket, she’s wearing a navy silk dress that comes to mid-calf. It’s cinched at the waist but shows no cleavage. Ruby knows exactly how to walk the line between modest woman of the church and wealthy socialite. She would never admit it, but I know she’s modeled herself on Eva Peron.

“What do you want?” I demand.

“You are well aware of what I want. You cannot ignore this. It’s coming, and you know where it could go. For you, especially.”

My stomach turns. “Then what’s the point of discussing it?”

“The point, Ethan, is to meet it—and defeat it. You cannot seriously think that some two-bit journalist is taking down High Castle.”

“I take it he was unbribable?”

“Don’t be crude, and don’t speak about such things on the doorstep. I raised you better.”

Anger rolls through me so hotly that I have to close my eyes to contain it.

“We have to deal with this, Ethan. You have to deal with this. You need my help, and you know it.”

It makes me sick, absolutely fucking sick, to step back and pull the door open for her. I don’t want her in my house. I don’t want her in my life.

But she’s right. I fucking hate it, but she’s right. I don’t know how to deal with this without her. That’s why I almost texted her the other night.

Ruby walks past me with a burst of flowery perfume that I really don’t want to smell this early in the morning.

Her kitten heels snap through the entryway as I close the door. I follow her into the kitchen, where she sets her pearl clutch on the island. She removes her jacket and tries to hand it to me. When I don’t take it, she drapes it over a chair.

She says, “I assume you saw the crime scene photos.”

“Yes.”

I need something to do, so I go to the percolator and start making coffee. With my back to her, I scrape back my hair, even though I know it won’t help much. I really hate that she’s seeing me like this. Even more than that, I hate that it bothers me.

Ruby says, “The photos alone don’t prove anything.”

“I know,” I reply.

“Those photos have existed for sixteen years.”

“I know.”

“What’s concerning,” Ruby goes on, “is what inspired his research in the first place.”