“Mr. Rollins is taking out the trash,” he said with a grin before ducking back into the kitchen.
I wanted to, but I was afraid her posse wouldn’t let me near her. I could punch an asshole out without a second thought, but I was smart enough to be a little terrified of the Honky Tonk women.
“Naomi,” I said, pounding a fist on the bathroom door. “If you don’t get your ass out here, I’m either comin’ in there or I’m gonna go knock more sense into that son of a bitch.”
The door opened, and Naomi, with smudged eye makeup, glared at me. “You will do no such thing.”
Relief coursed through me, and I leaned into her.
“I’m gonna touch you now because I need to. And I’m warning you in advance, because if I touch you and you flinch, I’m gonna go out in the parking lot and start kicking ass until he’s too broken to ever touch another woman again.”
Her eyes widened, but she nodded.
I tried to be gentle as I took her by the hand.
“We good?” I asked.
She nodded again.
It was good enough for me. I pulled her past the restrooms and Fi’s office into the next hallway that led to my office.
“I can’t believe this happened,” she groaned. “I’m so embarrassed.”
She hadn’t been embarrassed. She’d been fucking terrified. The look in her eyes when I stepped into the hall was one I’d never forget as long as I lived.
“The nerve of him showing up here, saying he wants me back because he misses how I cleaned up after him.”
I squeezed her hand. “Pay attention, Daisy.”
“To what? The way you turned his face into ground beef? Do you think you broke his nose?”
I knew I had. That was the point.
“Pay attention to this,” I said, pointing at the keypad next to the door. “0522.”
She stared at the keypad then back at me. “Why are you giving me the code?”
“If that guy or anyone else you don’t want to see shows up, you come back here, and you plug in 0522.”
“I’m trying to have a nervous breakdown, and you want me to memorize numbers.”
“Enter the code, Naomi.”
She did as she was told while muttering about what pains in the ass all men were. She wasn’t wrong.
“Good girl. See the green light?”
She nodded.
“Open the door.”
“Knox, I should get back out there. People are going to be talking. I’ve got six tables,” she said, her hand hovering over the handle.
“You should open the damn door and take a breath.”
Those gorgeous fucking hazel eyes of hers widened, and I felt the world slow to a stop. When she did that, when she looked at me with hope, trust, and just a little bit of lust, it did things to me. Things I didn’t want to dissect because it felt good, and I didn’t want to waste time wondering how it was going to go bad.
“Okay,” she said finally, pushing the door open.
I hustled her across the threshold and closed the door behind us.
“Wow. The Fortress of Solitude,” she said with reverence.
“It’s my office,” I said dryly.
“It’s your safe space. Your lair. No one but Waylon is allowed in here. And you just gave me the code.”
“Don’t make me regret it,” I said, moving in to back her against the door, fighting against the need to grab her and hold her tight.
“I’ll try not to,” she promised on a breathy sigh.
“What happened out there was a shit show,” I began, putting my hands on either side of her head.
She winced. “I know. I’m so sorry. I had no idea he was coming. I haven’t talked to him since the rehearsal dinner. I tried to get him away from the crowd and handle it privately, but—”
“Baby, a man ever gets you in that position again, I want you to knee him in the balls as hard as you can, and when he doubles over, you knee him in the fucking face. Then you run like hell. I don’t give a shit about causing scenes. I give a shit that I walked into my bar and found a man with his hands on my girl.”
Her lower lip trembled, and I wanted to hunt down Warner Whatever the Fuck His Name Was and put his head through a plate glass window.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Baby, I don’t want you to be sorry. I don’t want you to be scared. I want you to be as pissed off as I am that some asshole thought he could put his hands on you. I want you to know your worth so no one in their right mind ever thinks they can treat you like that. You get me?”