“I’m so sorry.” She reached out and placed her hand on top of the one he had left resting on the tabletop.
“You couldn’t have known.”
She released a slow breath. “What happened to her?”
“Bone cancer. Ten years ago, when she was five.”
Just nine words, and yet they conveyed all the heartache and suffering a parent went through when their child was diagnosed with a terminal illness and later died from it.
“What was her name?” she encouraged softly.
“Millie Rose.”
“She liked flowers?” She referenced his comment about the flower tattoos.
Some of the tension eased from Knox’s wide shoulders. “She really did. Roses were her favorite, obviously, but she also loved sunflowers, daisies, buttercups, and other wildflowers.”
“Where are they all tattooed?”
“The red roses are across my chest, the daisy chains are around both my biceps, a poppy, a sunflower, and buttercups are on my back. There are other flowers too, obviously, because it’s been ten years since she…” He stopped speaking to draw in a long and controlling breath. “I shaved my head for the first time ten years ago too.”
“Because Millie Rose lost her hair from chemo,” she guessed, glancing at the short growth she could see all over his scalp.
Revealing that it wasn’t that Knox didn’t have hair or was going bald, like so many men who shaved their heads. No, Knox obviously had hair; he just chose to continue to shave it off. In honor of his daughter, Ellie guessed.
He nodded abruptly. “Millie Rose had beautiful, long, red hair. It broke her heart when it all fell out because of the treatment.”
“So you shaved your head too.”
He released a shaky breath. “I wanted her to see she wasn’t alone. In any of it.” He shook his head, his sigh heavy. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that losing a child gets easier with time, because it really doesn’t.”
Ellie squeezed his hand, unable to imagine what pain and despair he had gone through, was still going through. “This is the reason you were reluctant to talk to Karen about her pregnancy or visit with her and Geoff alone today to see the babies.”
He closed his eyes briefly, his gaze all the more intense when he looked at her again. “It shouldn’t be,” he acknowledged gruffly. “It’s been ten years, and it’s fucking selfish of me to react this way, but I-I still find it difficult?—”
“It’s your pain, Knox, and don’t let anyone else ever tell you what you should or shouldn’t feel or for how long. Does Karen know?” Ellie didn’t doubt for a moment that Karen, if she knew, would have understood Knox’s disinterest in her pregnancy.
“No,” Knox said, confirming what Ellie had already suspected.
She knew Karen had been Knox’s PA for over a year now, since he had taken over the New York office from Magnus Wynter, and yet he had just admitted he hadn’t ever confided about Millie Rose to her.
But he had known Ellie for only four days, and he had just told her.
What did that mean?
That Knox really was serious about being attracted to her?
Ellie still wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Flattered, obviously. Knox wasn’t a man that any red-blooded woman would ever be able to ignore or resist.
But she had never been into having brief flings with people. In fact, meeting Andrew when she was only nineteen had pretty much ensured she had only dated a couple of guys before him, and not for any length of time or with any depth of feeling. There had been no one else during or since Andrew.
Knox Wilder wasn’t just next-level compared to those other younger men, including Andrew. He was up in the stratosphere on his own unique plane.
And Ellie would be lying, to herself, mostly, if she denied the warmth that spread from her chest to between her thighs, just thinking about making love with this man?—
No!