Knox (Marino Brothers Duet, #1)

Chapter 7 - Maria

I curl my fingers tightly into my palms as the car pulls into a long driveway. We're here. My new home for probably the rest of my life.

Knox gets out first and heads straight for the house. The asshole didn't even bother getting my door for me. Some husband, right? I open it myself and bunch my dress in my hands, somehow pushing myself out of the car and simultaneously saving my dress from getting dirty. The front door is left slightly ajar and I'm guessing that's for me. Is this his idea of being courteous? Because I know serial killers that are kinder than him.

I step inside the house to take a look around. This house is more like a mansion. Immediately upon entering it's pleasing to the eye. There's a symmetrical set of two staircases that start on different ends before winding up and meeting at the top. The floor is black marble, the bannisters black wood. On the right is a grand kitchen and to the left is an enormous dining area. Straight ahead the house parts into two directions and what seems like long hallways leading to different ends of the house. I glance up, squinting at the blinding light of the chandelier even though it's several feet above my head.

This place screams money and suave but there's absolutely nothing to offer inside. Just emptiness. Honestly, the house reminds me of Knox. It's no wonder it's parallel to his taste. I could never live in a place so eerily quiet but I don't really have a choice here.

"Your room is upstairs." Knox appears from one of the hallways I was looking at earlier and walks toward me where I'm standing right in the middle of the entrance. He stops a couple of steps away, face void and leaving me totally clueless as to what he's thinking right now. "The second floor is bigger than this one. My room is on the opposite side and probably as far away from you as I can get. You live your life and I'll live mine. We won't cross paths."

Great sentiments for our wedding night, I want to remark. But I stay quiet because this definitely works for me. If he wants to stay away from me as much as I want to stay away from him then I'm safe. He won't touch me.

His dark eyes do a quick scan of me and then his mouth forms a cold smirk. "Look at the relief on your face. Did you really think you'd warm my bed? That I'd fuck you?"

Heat blooms on my cheeks. Asshole. I did think that but now I'm realizing how far-fetched that sounds. He wouldn't even kiss me when we were proclaimed husband and wife. He sure as hell won't fuck me in the privacy of our own home.

"Is it just you?" I ask when I realize I don't know anything about his living situation.

"Yes." He does another unimpressed once-over of me. "I had to ask my brother to find his own living space now that we're married."

The way he said that makes my eyes narrow. "Don't make it sound like that's my fault. I didn't ask for this, Knox."

"Believe it or not, neither did I."

"Then why are we here?"

"Because life isn't fucking fair," he snaps. The anger on his face is so rich it's like I personally ruined his life. I don't understand. I haven't done a damned thing to him. "You have no idea of anything. You're fucking hopeless."