"Good." I raised my voice, not quite shouting, but loud enough to carry. "Maybe everyone in this bar should know what kind of man you are."
People were looking now. Conversations had stopped and I could feel the weight of their attention, the small-town curiosity that missed nothing.
Garrett's face flushed. He hated being embarrassed and he hated anything that threatened his carefully constructed image.
"You're going to regret this," he said quietly, his grip still tight on my wrist. "No one is going to want you, Daisy. You're almostthirty, you're hiding in a nowhere town, and you have nothing. No career, no money, no future. I was your best option. Your only option."
The words hit their mark. I felt them land and felt the old shame try to rise up.
Then I remembered Knox. His hands on my body last night. His voice telling me I was beautiful. His confession that he'd spent eight years becoming someone worthy of me.
Garrett was wrong. About all of it.
"Let go of me," I said again. "Now."
"Or what?"
A shadow fell across the table.
"Or I break your arm."
Knox stood at the edge of the booth, calm and lethal, his eyes fixed on Garrett's hand around my wrist. He didn't raise his voice. Didn't posture. But the threat in his words was unmistakable.
Garrett looked up at him, and I watched the calculation happen. Knox was bigger. Harder. Clearly not someone who made idle threats.
"This is a private conversation," Garrett said, but his grip loosened.
"It stopped being private when you put your hands on her." Knox's voice was ice. "Let go. Walk the fuck away. Don't come back."
"Who the hell are you?"
"I'm the man who's going to make your life very difficult if you don't leave in the next thirty seconds."
Garrett released my wrist as I pulled my arm back, rubbing the red marks his fingers had left.
"This is who you're choosing?" Garrett looked between us, his lip curling. "Some mountain trash in a flannel shirt? Jesus, Daisy. I knew you were pathetic, but this is a new low."
Knox moved. Fast, fluid, controlled. One second he was standing at the edge of the booth. The next, he had Garrett by the collar, hauling him up and out of his seat.
"Knox." I stood, my heart pounding. "Don't."
He paused and looked at me. I saw the war on his face. The old Knox would have beaten Garrett bloody without a second thought. This Knox was waiting. Giving me the choice.
"He's not worth it," I said. "Let him go."
Knox held Garrett for one more second, long enough to make his point. Then he released him with a shove that sent Garrett stumbling into the table.
"Get out," Knox said. "And if I ever see you near her again, I won't stop."
Garrett straightened his suit, his face mottled with rage and humiliation. The entire bar was watching now. Sadie the bartender had her phone out, probably ready to call Cal if things escalated.
"You're making a mistake," Garrett said to me, his voice tight with barely controlled fury. "Both of you. This isn't over."
"Yes, it is." I stepped closer to Knox, and his arm came around my waist, pulling me against his side. "It's been over for a long time. I was too scared to see it. But I'm not scared anymore."
Garrett's eyes dropped to Knox's arm around me. Something ugly flickered across his face.
"You were fucking him while we were together," he spat. "That's what this is. You were cheating on me the whole time."