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I breathe, then shove the spilled food away. “Come,” I beckon, not thinking she would obey. I am surprised when she scoots closer to me, almost coming into my arms. “You are right; everything else might have been poisoned.” I brush her hair behind her ear.
I think it through. I need to make her eat. She is visibly shaking, and it has to do with the fact that she has not eaten since yesterday.
“What if we cook something?” I suggest, and she flips her eyes to me in a way that tells me she might like that idea or she has been considering it but didn’t know how to ask. “I can cook with you to make the work easier or just keep you company, staying out of your way.”
“I would love that,” she mumbles, and I like it. I like it a little too much.
Chapter Fifteen
OLIVIA
I want to cook with Ronan, and I want to look good doing it—as good as I can look.
He doesn’t care about those things, but I do. And that’s okay. I care about looking good around him but fundamentally, it is the fact that I like to make an effort for him. So, I try to fix my hair as best as possible, and then I place my hand on his, and he leads me out of the bedroom that has been my prison for the past few days.
I can’t say how many days it has been because I stopped counting. In the end, some things lose relevance when another life-threatening event occurs.
I give him a small smile as we step out of the room, and he throws me a glance over his shoulder. He looks as tantalizing as ever. A green petrol cardigan, darker than his eyes, is drawn up above his wrist on black jeans. His dirty blonde hair stroked to the side with a roughness around the edge.
I squint as we saunter down the stairs. The hallway has little to no light, but with each step down, it gets brighter until the glow of the champagne gold light from the chandelier in the parlor welcomes us.
It is almost as if I forgot how magnificent the place is.
I didn’t know how dangerous his world was, and I thought I could comprehend it or I had comprehended it when he shared some of it, but being the target has shown me that I am basically drowning in ignorance.
Part of me would love for it to remain that way. But I want the man, and I cannot have him without fully embracing his world.
We enter the kitchen. I stop in my tracks. Now, this could become my new home, I could just move into this room until the end of my days.
There are splashes of red, gold, and brown from the wood. And glossy. Everything in here, including the man now standing beside me, sparkles.
“You like it,” he is not asking, but I nod.
Like? I love it.
I get the same rush I always get when I step into a kitchen, and my hands begin to itch, wanting to meddle with ingredients.
“What are we making?” I spin to face him, and this time, my smile is solid, bold, and wider.
“Anything you want to make,” he shrugs, coming a little closer.
“How about everything?” I rub my hands together, my mood picking up. “Everything,” I smile to myself this time as images of all the things I used to make with him, all the things I wished I could make with him, and all the things I’m looking forward to making with him splay through my mind.
He goes over to a drawer, opens it, and comes back with something in his hands. He spreads it out, and I see that it’s an apron. He goes behind me and gently ties it behind my back.
It’s a simple tying of the straps around my waist, but it feels like he is stroking feathers along sensitive parts of me.
He closes the distance, and the urge to lean back, to smother my body against the hard press of his body, snakes through my spine, but I hold still.
He brings his hands forward, this time to pull the straps for the neck up, and his thumbs brush lightly on my breast before he takes the strap to my neck. Does he do it on purpose?
I inhale sharply as he ties the strap in place and his fingers keep stoking the nape of my neck.
He steps away from me, and I can finally breathe again.
He strides to what looks like a pantry. I can see from here that it has everything I need to make anything I want to cook.
I scamper past him and start picking everything I will need.
