Page 7
No. Not food.
His frown mirrored mine.
“Okay,” I muttered and followed him out of the door, glancing once more at the windows and wondering about the mysterious aroma.
I trailed downstairs after Dylan and into the kitchen, past an all-white living room where I glimpsed French doors that led onto the garden. The kitchen was spacious, and here Dylan had departed from the clinical theme—almost. The sleek modern storage units were pale gray, the worktops were white-and-gray marble, and a large island with a breakfast bar lined with white wooden barstools stood in the middle of the room. Between the island, and more French doors that opened onto the overgrown garden, there was a glass-topped dining table surrounded by eight see-through chairs. The kitchen could easily have featured on the pages of a glossy home decoration magazine, and Dylan with his good looks fitted right in.
He took two white bowls from a deep shelf neatly stacked with crockery, set them down beside the stove, and ladled soup into both, before placing them on clean gray mats set out on the breakfast bar.
Dylan is a neat freak.
“Sit,” he ordered.
I hesitated, my stomach rebelling at the thought of food.
“Please, Emily. You have to eat,” he pleaded.
I sat down and toyed with my soup spoon.
Vegetable soup. Hmm.
I coated the back of the spoon with soup and tentatively licked it.
Not bad.
Because he was watching me, I made a supreme effort and took a mouthful. Dylan perched on the barstool beside me, and we ate in awkward silence. In spite of my rebelling stomach, I managed half a bowl.
Once he’d finished, Dylan turned to me. “So, you prefer the back bedroom?” It was a question and a statement.
He studied me carefully as I considered both. I remembered the serenity, the way the sun shone through the dust-covered windows, and there was something about the atmosphere that was calming.
Yes. I prefer that room. I gave him a small nod.
He leaned back and smiled. “You should think about what you want to do with it.” At my puzzled look, he continued. “I’ll call our local Bulgarian builder and decorator. He can decorate the room.”
“Bulgarian?”
“Yes, he and his team are very good. They have refurbished all of the downstairs and rewired and replumbed the entire house.”
“Okay.” I smiled, and this time, I didn’t have to force up the corners of my mouth.
“Are you going to finish your soup?”
“I can’t.”
He sighed but decided not to push me. Rising from the barstool, he took my bowl, emptied the contents into the sink, and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher.
He has a dishwasher.
My mother would kill for one of those. Would have killed for one of those…
But then again, the kitchen at home was small, and Dad and I did most of the washing up.
But no more.
Dylan interrupted my gloomy thoughts. “Do you want to see the rest of the house so you know where everything is?”
Nodding out of courtesy, I followed him into the living room I’d glimpsed earlier. It was spacious and uncluttered with a high ceiling, like all the rooms in the house, and housed a pale-gray L-shaped sofa that could seat at least eight people, an enormous smart TV, and a modern, stainless-steel wood-burning stove within an old fireplace.
