The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 27

Chapter 25-1

Zara

The next morning, I wake up thinking about Locke Tanner’s hands.

Not the almost-kiss. Not the way his mouth was close enough to ruin every decent thought I still possessed, before my father chose that exact moment to become the least welcome man in America. His hands.

I lie still for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling, thinking that I’ll be seeing Locke in less than an hour, and my stomach flips. Then immediately protests.

I press one hand to my side and exhale slowly until the ache settles into something manageable. The bruise from last night is there beneath my skin, deep and angry, layered over places that are still healing in ways no one can see unless I let them close enough.

Locke saw, and that might be the part I can’t stop thinking about, the seeing. It’s been a long, long time since anyone noticed my pain, let alone cared about it.

By the time I get to the clubhouse, the place looks almost respectable in the daylight. That’s pretty impressive, considering that there was broken glass strewn across the floor just seven hours ago, and at least two men bleeding near the pool table.

The main room smells like coffee, lemon cleaner, old smoke, and bad decisions… and then I spot Locke. He’s sitting at a table near the back wall with a laptop open in front of him, a notebook beside it, and three paper cups of coffee lined up like he’s been awake long enough to become dangerous in a completely different way.

He looks up the second I walk in, and the full force of his attention lands on me with the same quiet impact it did last night. For one stupid second I forget why I even came here.

“You’re ten minutes late,” he snaps.

I blink. “Good morning to you too.”

“It was.”

“Was?”

“Yeah. Before you walked in here looking like you should be in bed.”

Heat climbs up my neck before I can stop it, because there’s absolutely no way he doesn’t hear the sentence the same way I do. His expression doesn’t change, though mine definitely does.

Asshole.

“I’m fine,” I say, crossing the room.

“You weren’t fine last night.”

“Last night I got elbowed by a drunk man the size of a refrigerator.”

1/2

Chapter 25

“He apologized.”

You made him do that.”

“I encouraged him to do that.”

I stop beside the table and look down at him. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

He nods toward the chair across from him “Sit.”

“Bossing me around before I’ve even had coffee. Bold choice.”

He pushes one of the cups toward me. “I got you coffee.”

I look at it, then at him. “You don’t know how I take it.”

“Black with one sugar.”

My eyebrows rise.

“Jade told me,” he says. “I called her from the coffee shop.”

Claim

The fact that I’m disappointed that he didn’t magically know this about me is honestly embarrassing. I sit carefully, trying not to wince too obviously. His gaze stays on me for one long, unimpressed second before he reaches into the backpack on the chair beside him and lifts a paper bag onto the table.

“Eat.”

I stare at him. “Are you feeding me now?”

“You’re pale.”

“I’m Irish. We call this a healthy pallor.”

“Eat, I said.”

I huff and open the bag, mostly because arguing with him before my caffeine seems unwise. There’s a warm breakfast sandwich inside, wrapped in foil, and something about that makes my chest go strange.

“You always buy breakfast for women you barely know?” I ask, desperately trying to kick the feeling of utter joy bubbling up. “Keep us fed and watered?”

“Nope. Just you, baby.”

He watches me unwrap the sandwich like he’s personally decided that my blood sugar is now his responsibility, and the absurdity of that should make me laugh, but instead, it makes something ache. Knox never watched to see if I ate.

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