Ages are as The Proviso opens. The story spans August 2004 – January 2009
KNOX HILLIARD, 36. Chouteau County prosecutor and UMKC law professor who can be rather … insane … at times. Murderer, blackmailer, internet troll, and all-around asshole who’s spent his life dating cougars.JUSTICE McKINLEY, 22. Law student, political blogger, constitutional scholar, and farmer-by-necessity who really doesn’t want to believe all those nasty rumors about that dreamy Professor Hilliard for whom she is determined to work, come hell or high water.A tortured soul who takes it out on the rest of the world, his life a Shakespearean tragedy, of which he is fully aware. Not only that, but he’s moved from the May end of the dating spectrum to the December end, and he’s not happy about it.Poor girl woke up one day and went to class and boom. Life changed. Be careful what you wish for. You might get it. Stockholm syndrome? Death wish? Savior complex? Desperation? Who knows why women stay with bad boys. Once upon a time, Knox was a happy-go-lucky semi-pro surfer with a pure heart, a love of God and family, and a desire for a wife and family. Then he fell into a mud pit of corruption and couldn’t fight his way out. He fell out with his best friend of almost ten years over a lie Bryce’s wife told. He tried a serial killer and lost—and decided to do something about it.Justice’s life with Knox isn’t the fairy tale she’d thought it would be. In fact, she didn’t think past roses and candlelight at all, and it suddenly occurs to her that a man fourteen years her senior might be a bit more than a scandalous headline, a carelessly generous curmudgeon, or clever internet troll who named his cat Dog.Knox knows he doesn’t deserve Justice’s forgiveness, but with her, he can relax back into the personality he ripped off when he sent a serial killer to hell after making him beg for his life on his knees.What surprises Justice the most is that the Knox who terrified her at the beginning of her road with him is a man who can protect her and will stop at nothing to do so—and that is something no one had ever done for her.DOG
