Her Knight at the Museum

Chapter Seventeen

Seventeen

Emily stared after him as he walked out of the bedroom. He went into the bathroom, closed the door firmly, and in a few moments, she could hear the shower running.

There was nothing wrong with taking a shower after sex. So why did she feel like he was washing every trace of her off him? Maybe she should go join him in there and try to smooth over hard feelings. No—she’d give him space.

If he hadn’t just talked about how awful and pointless war was, she never would’ve brought up the armor again. It was just that she kept imagining the FBI barging into her place with a warrant and finding a priceless, knight-related artifact she had no business owning. Wouldn’t that be enough evidence to arrest her on?

She hadn’t wanted to alarm Griffin, so she hadn’t explained that. But she should.

Heaving a sigh, she got up and pulled on her jeans, skipping the panties, because after Griffin had excited her the way he had, they honestly needed to go into the laundry. She didn’t feel like putting her bra back on, either, so she tossed it back in the underwear drawer where Andy couldn’t play with it and grabbed a big comfy sweatshirt instead. In the hallway, Andy put his paws on her, whining.

“You need to go outside, don’t you, buddy? Come on.” He followed her to the front door where she leashed him up and took him down the hallway toward the front door.

The woman who lived in the corner unit walked toward them. Emily braced herself right before Andy let out one of his trademark howls, making her jump.

“ Maldito perro ,” she muttered.

Emily held up a hand. “I’m sorry he’s so loud. He’s actually really nice.”

The woman gave her as wide a berth as the narrow hallway would allow, with a critical glance at Emily’s bare feet. Emily didn’t often wish she’d lived in Griffin’s time, but at least back then, no one would’ve judged her too harshly for being shoeless and walking a howling dog.

Although she’d only been planning to take Andy outside the front door, she now decided to walk him to the corner and back. It gave her more time to think about what to say to Griffin. She’d say again how incredible he’d been in bed. More important than that, she’d tell him how much he meant to her. How he’d brought so much magic, so much life , to her life.

She needed to tell him how much she admired him, and how even without a famous name, his nobility was obvious.

When she and Andy had almost reached the front door of the building again, Andy transacted his business under a shrub next to the sidewalk. As he bellowed, she pulled a plastic bag out of her front sweatshirt pocket and squatted down to clean up after him.

“Emily?”

The voice sent a jolt of anxiety through her. She jumped to her feet and found herself standing face-to-face with her ex-husband.

Him, and his new girlfriend.

Oh no. She’d completely forgotten to call him back.

“Tom!” she blurted out stupidly as she tied the bag shut.

He looked exactly the same: tall, lean, with artfully messy light brown hair. He wore a black tee, jeans, and chunky high-top sneakers. His girlfriend, her black hair a little longer than when Emily had last seen her, wore a white midi dress with sandals that showed off a fresh pedicure. A delicate gold heart necklace hung around her neck: a gift from Tom, almost certainly. It was a much better ensemble than Emily’s jeans, oversize sweatshirt, and bare feet, accessorized by a bag of dog poop.

Andy put his paws up on Tom’s knees. Tom said, “Hey, I missed you, too!” and scratched him behind the ears.

Did Andy still miss Tom? Emily had always spent more time with Andy and had been the one who fed and walked him. The dog had seemed confused when he’d found himself in a crate in the front seat of a U-Haul, in a few hotel rooms, and then at their Edgewater apartment. But at the end of every day, he’d seemed happy enough, resting his head on her leg or her shoulder with a contented sigh. And while he’d greeted Tom in a friendly way, he did that with everyone who let him.

“You can’t take him,” she told Tom. So much for well-crafted arguments.

He exchanged a look with Tori that plainly said, See? I told you she’d be unreasonable . To Emily he said, “I said I’d take him once I got settled.”

He had said that. But she hadn’t believed him. He hardly had a good track record for keeping his commitments, after all. And that had been several months ago.

“You took too long,” she said. “Now he’s settled.” Tom had abandoned the dog. After abandoning her.

Andy put his paws up on Tori’s knee. She giggled and said, “What a handsome boy.”

Emily’s anger flared. When Andy put his paws back on the sidewalk, Emily wasn’t sorry to see faint paw prints on Tori’s white dress.

Behind Tori, across the street, a man stood on the sidewalk, holding up his phone in their direction…was he recording her? Instinctively, Emily held her hand up to her face. This jackass neighbor was probably livestreaming her, the suspected criminal, as she stood barefoot, arguing with her ex and his lovely girlfriend. The ultimate cringe content.

“Can we come inside and talk about it?” Tom asked.

“ Yes ,” Emily answered immediately, turning on her heel.

She threw away the plastic bag in the bin near the door, then took a deep breath as she put in the code for the front entrance. Griffin was going to meet Tom. And Griffin was annoyed with her. Adrenaline fired her nerves as they followed her into the building.

Emily asked, “Did you both drive here from San Jose?” She and Tom had talked several times about taking a road trip together sometime: making the perfect playlist, listening to audiobooks, having deep conversations as the miles rolled by. That had been one of the worst things about his affair and the divorce. He’d ruined not only several years of memories but big and small future dreams, too.

“We flew out, but we’re renting a car to drive back.”

As they neared her apartment door, Andy let out a series of loud baroos .

“I thought he would’ve outgrown that,” Tom said.

“Nope!” Emily answered. She stopped at her door and dug for her key.

They went inside—and then Emily stopped short.

Griffin sat on the sofa, stark naked.

Surprise touched his features. He must not have heard them talking in the hall. Andy had probably drowned out everything else. Griffin glanced around him, then pulled the fringed throw off the back of the couch onto his lap.

“Good afternoon, sir—demoiselle,” he said to Tom and Tori. If he was embarrassed, it didn’t show; he sounded just like a lord in his own hall.

Not that he had anything to be embarrassed about. The way Tom and Tori were gaping at him made Emily even more aware of his magnificence—his powerful arms, the broad chest with golden-brown hair, the slender hips…He secured the throw around them as he stood up.

Andy strained against his leash, and Emily unclipped it. He bounded over to Griffin, who patted his head.

“Forgive me,” he added to Tom and Tori with a small smile, “but I knew not we would be receiving guests.” Tom’s eyebrows raised at the we .

Emily’s cheeks burned, and she felt on the edge of bursting into nervous laughter. “Griffin, this is Tom, my ex-husband, and his girlfriend, Tori.”

The goodwill drained from Griffin’s face. “Hey, how’s it going,” Tom said, dropping his voice about a full octave.

Griffin looked them both up and down, his lip curled with disdain.

Tori ventured, “So, Griffin, what do you do?”

“What do I do, puterelle ? I know well what you have done—”

“ Hey , hey,” Emily interrupted, holding up her hands, as Tori drew back in surprise. Emily wasn’t sure what puterelle meant, but she could guess.

Tom, his face flushed, took a step toward Griffin. “Listen, bro—”

“Do you seek a quarrel, bedswerver?” Griffin asked, turning on him. That was a new one to Emily, too, but the meaning was obvious. “You will find one.”

“Hey!” Emily grabbed Griffin’s hand and his attention. In an urgent undertone, she said, “Remember what I said? About the law?”

His jaw clenched. “You are right, my heart’s queen.” Emily felt a rush of gratitude at the endearment. Griffin might’ve gotten annoyed with her before, but he was on her side. “I cannot bear to return to any prison.”

Tom’s mouth fell open. “Emily, you’re dating an ex-convict ?”

She rolled her eyes. Griffin had been referring metaphorically to being trapped in stone, but she didn’t owe Tom any explanations.

Griffin said to her, “I wonder greatly that you have invited this vile filth, more unwelcome than dung that sticks to the bottom of a boot.”

“Hey,” Tori objected, and Tom gave her a quick shake of the head, no doubt concerned that Griffin might murder them. Andy hopped up on the couch and curled up into a comfortable ball, oblivious of the tension.

“I did not invite them,” Emily explained. Things had been fraught enough between her and Griffin without him thinking that. “I don’t even want them here.”

“Ah.” Griffin turned back to Tom and Tori. “Leave at once and never return upon pain of death.”

“Wait, not death,” Emily said weakly. “They can stay for a few minutes.” She hated confrontations like this, but she needed to convince Tom that he and his ex-dog were never, ever getting back together, so that he’d leave them both alone for good.

Tom held up a hand. “We don’t want any trouble. I’m just here to pick up Andy.” Andy’s head popped up at the sound of his name. “We agreed to this before.”

“I didn’t know you’d go months without wanting him back,” Emily said. “He kept me company when I was all alone. I’m really attached to him.” Her heart pounded harder.

“I’m attached to him, too,” Tom said. “And you got to have him all this time.” Next to him, Tori looked around at the bookshelves, avoiding eye contact with everyone.

“I got to have him because you didn’t want him,” Emily protested. “You said it was too hard for you to deal with him while you were moving. But I was moving, too. You never want to deal with the hard parts, only the fun parts.”

Griffin, still mostly naked, crossed his arms across his broad chest. She knew that if she told him to throw Tom and Tori out of her apartment, he would happily and efficiently do it. Instead, he was standing still and keeping his mouth shut, and she guessed it wasn’t easy.

“Andy’s been through a lot already,” Emily told Tom. “You shouldn’t confuse him again.” She glanced back at Andy, who sat on the sofa, looking at her worriedly.

Tom sighed. “Okay, I wasn’t going to bring this up. But what’s going to happen to him if you get arrested?”

“Arrested?” she repeated with shock—as if she hadn’t been obsessively thinking about the same thing.

“She will not be arrested, you plague-sore!” Griffin said.

Tom’s face screwed up in bafflement. “What?” At the same time, Tori said mildly, “Ew.”

Tom told Emily, “Everyone’s saying you had to be involved with the theft. You and maybe your friend Rose.”

Her mouth dropped open. “How do you know about Rose?”

“There’s this guy making videos about it. His girlfriend knows somebody who works with her.” Emily mentally cursed the museum’s social media department. “They say you told Rose to tell her brother thank you. Her brother who’s the ex-con who works at the moving company?”

“You think I stole something with Rose’s brother ? I don’t even know the guy!” Despite her bravado, she felt a little queasy.

Tori asked, “Then why did you thank him?”

“I…” Then she remembered. She’d told Rose to thank him for the clothes he gave to Griffin. “That’s none of your business.”

Tori raised her eyebrows, looking dubious. Emily’s temper rose even higher. The last thing she needed was this woman, right under her roof, suspecting her of theft.

She said, “Just because you two are sneaky doesn’t mean everyone else is.”

Tom’s jaw tightened, and Tori’s face reddened. Griffin nodded meaningfully in mute support.

“I knew you were going to do this,” Tom said. “Make this personal.”

Emily scoffed. “How would this not be personal? Look, I’m flattered that you both think I might be a criminal mastermind. And maybe thinking that makes you feel better about how you screwed around behind my back.” The whole time, they’d acted as though she’d be too polite to mention Tom’s infidelity.

Tom grimaced. “Emily, can we just—”

“If anything ever happened to me, my parents would take Andy. You remember they live out here, right? Not that you ever liked to come home with me.” She shot a look at Tori. “For obvious reasons.”

Tori folded her lips and looked away. Emily never had the opportunity to tell her off before. Part of her wanted to be classy…but making the woman uncomfortable was undeniably satisfying.

She concluded, “Anyway, I’m not getting arrested, I didn’t steal a giant stone sculpture, and I won’t give up Andy.”

Standing at her shoulder, Griffin nodded, looking at her with pride.

Tori shifted from one foot to the other. “Maybe we should adopt a new dog,” she suggested quietly to Tom. “One that’s just ours. He does have a pretty loud bark…”

Tom’s shoulders slumped. “I guess.” He asked Emily defensively, “Can I at least pet him again?”

“Of course.” Although, if Griffin hadn’t been there, she might’ve worried that he’d pick the dog up and leave with him.

Tom went over and stroked Andy’s head. Andy’s tail thumped and he licked Tom’s hand. Tom bent his face down to the dog’s and murmured, “Aww, that’s a good boy. We had some good times, didn’t we?”

Emily swallowed. The day they’d adopted him and brought him home came to her mind, as clear and immediate as if it had happened last week. And how they’d dressed him up as a UPS driver for Halloween in the first year of COVID because they’d ordered so many things online, but he’d wrestled his way out of the dog costume and then destroyed it…

“If you had a shred of wisdom or of loyalty, the hound would still be yours,” Griffin told Tom quietly. “But far beyond that, so would the love of a beautiful, gracious, and honorable wife.” As he said the word honorable , he slid Tori a look of cool contempt.

Tom straightened, another flush creeping up his face. “No offense, but you just met her. You have no idea how difficult—”

“Insult my lady at your peril.”

Griffin didn’t raise his voice, but clearly enunciated every word with a deadly edge, filling the air with tension. Emily had never seen the icy look in his eyes before.

Andy hopped off the couch and trotted off to the bedroom. Emily felt a surge of spiteful happiness at that. Andy seemed no more attached to Tom than to anyone else.

“We should go,” Tori told Tom. “We need to check into our hotel.”

“Aye, get you gone,” Griffin said, still skewering Tom with his glare, “and if ever you return without my lady’s leave, you will not find me in such a generous mien.”

His baritone voice crackled with authority. It didn’t matter that he was standing half-naked in her apartment living room. He could’ve been addressing his army.

Once Emily had closed the door behind them, she sank onto the sofa, clasping the back of her head with her hands. “Ugh.”

Griffin sat down next to her, oblivious to the throw slipping off his waist. His nearness and nakedness swung her thoughts back to their time in the bedroom. God , he’d made her feel so good, and he’d been so passionate. She’d always been the romantic one, but Griffin had been right there with her in those heights and depths of emotion…of love.

Griffin frowned. “So that is the man who hurt you greatly, mon trésor , and not so long before.” He looked toward the door that Tom had just exited.

Emily nodded. “You know, it’s not just that he cheated on me. Although that was horrible. Things were bad for, I don’t know, maybe a year before that. It seemed like he was sick of me being so, I don’t know, sad and sensitive…and I was mad at him for talking me into uprooting my life. We’d have these fights that went on and on…It was like we were stuck in a maze and couldn’t get out.”

“The blame was all on his side,” Griffin said stoutly.

“I don’t know if that’s true…” She looked up at him. “But I have to admit, it felt pretty great to have a handsome knight tell him he’s an idiot.”

“I am happy to do so as often as you like.” A brief smile crossed his face, but the look in his eyes was still wistful.

Emily swallowed. She needed him to understand something. “Tom said I love you on our third date. I hadn’t even thought about love then. But I just said it back, like automatically, because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Besides, I always wanted to be in love, you know? I loved the whole idea of romance, like flowers and poetry and…” she smiled sadly, “knights in shining armor. So I just went along with it, and told myself I was in love. And it turned out to be such a disaster.”

He studied her. “Having suffered with such a husband, it may take some time yet to learn that I am trustworthy.”

“I know you are. You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met.”

At that, he flashed a smile, and then his face grew serious again. “I would speak to you more about the armor.”

“No, let me go first.” Her heart ached. “I feel a little anxious about having it in the apartment, with all the suspicion about the statue theft.” His brow creased, and she rushed to add, “But nobody’s going to come in here and look around. Selling it might draw more attention to it. The other thing is, I just think you should have your own money. Because you…” She sighed and her shoulders sagged a little. “Because you deserve a comfortable, happy life, even if you get tired of me.”

Griffin captured her gaze in his, soulful and vulnerable. “I can tell you plainly that if I lived another thousand years, I would not tire of you.”

Her heart gave a dangerous happy leap at that. She ducked her head.

“It’s just that we haven’t been together long at all…” Then she reached out and took both of his hands, adding in a whisper, “But we do feel very right together.”

It didn’t make any sense. As much adjusting as Griffin still had to do, he shouldn’t feel right to anyone . And no one should feel quite right to him, either.

Try telling her heart that, though.

He took her hand in both of his and lowered his head to press it to his lips.

When their eyes met again, she asked gently, “What else were you going to tell me about the armor?”

“Ah.” He nodded. “To me, the armor does not represent the wars or the tournaments that, indeed, sullied it with shame and sorrow. Over the past hundreds of years, I have endeavored to think little of those times, so as not to go mad.”

Her heart twisted with sympathy. “I wish I’d never asked you about your scars.”

“You may ask anything, and I will always answer the best I can,” he pledged. “Through the torments of hell itself, my good memories have sustained me…and chief among them are the day the armorer fitted me with that beautiful suit, and the day I wore it when I was made a knight, filled with hope for the future and the desire to do good.”

Wow. “I can understand that. Though I can’t really know what you’ve been through…Honestly, it’s amazing that you can still function. You’re very strong.”

“I have not always felt strong,” he admitted. “And now I am in a bright new world, but it is often bewildering, and meseems—” He corrected himself. “It seems to me that as long as I have the armor, I am still myself.”

Oh, Griffin. “I would never want to take that away from you,” she said softly. “I hope you’re having some good days now, too.”

A tiny smile twitched at his lips, and it lightened her mood to see it.

“You know that I am,” he said. “Although my imagination is powerful, I had not even dreamt of such a pleasure as awaited me in your arms. May I make a thousand new memories of—” He paused, appearing to search his mind. “Sunshine, and roses, and swiving, to fill the space where despair and chaos have been.”

“What’s swiving?”

He gave an easy laugh that did her soul good to hear. “A word I should not use with a gentle lady.”

“Is it…what we just did?”

“The very same, sweet bird. I am glad to see you smile. I fear that I have brought you too many frowns and sighs.”

She peered at him. “What do you mean? You make me smile all the time.”

“But as you say, my very presence has brought suspicion upon your head.”

“That’s not going to come to anything,” she reassured him—and herself.

She was not going to Google herself. If she did, she might disappear down rabbit holes for days. It had to blow over. It just had to.

“If I had my old rank and power,” he mused, “few would dare to spread such lies about you, with no proofs.” He gave an ironic chuckle. “Or mayhap even with some proofs.”

Emily drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, facing him. “I know it’s hard not being a nobleman anymore,” she said gently.

He grimaced. “It should not rankle me. I am fortunate beyond measure to be alive.”

“You can at least start sleeping in a king-size bed,” she joked. He looked at her blankly. “My bed. It’s what they call king-size. I was thinking you should start sleeping with me in the bedroom. If you want to.”

A gleam came into his eyes. “Aye, my lady, I should like that very much indeed. Though I do not think we will only be sleeping.”

She felt a twinge of regret. “I’m still sorry I ruined the moment earlier.”

He gave a shake of the head and stroked her hair away from her face. He met her gaze with unguarded sincerity. “The joining of your perfect body with mine was to me such a moment of radiance that no trifling disagreement may cast a very long shadow upon it.”

The bright happiness she’d felt before returned, at least in part. “I feel the same way, my lord.”

His mouth fell open.

She grinned. “That’s how a lady would say it in your time, right?”

“Aye, and I like hearing it from you, more than I can say.”

She snuggled into him, unwrapping the throw enough to cover him up as well.

What an incredible day. She’d had something she’d almost convinced herself was impossible. Closure. And not just because she’d told Tom and Tori what she really thought. It was also because she’d had amazing sex with a virgin knight. He’d been every bit as chivalrous and ardent as in their shared dream. It had been romantic and wonderful.

I’m falling in love with him.

No, I’m not. She didn’t even know who he would be once he’d fully adjusted to the modern world. Considering he’d been trapped in limbo for centuries, this was a fleeting, liminal state, like the one between being asleep and being awake.