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Well, of course, I really do. But then again, important is relative, and I can’t think of anything I would rather be doing. “No,” I tell her. “I need to eat, like any human. You need to eat. This makes sense.”
Carina makes a humphing kind of noise, I can’t tell if she doesn’t believe me or she’s just not satisfied with the reason. Either way, I steer the conversation onwards. “What do you normally do with your day?” I ask. “What would you be doing, if you weren’t here?”
Carina shoots me a suspicious look. “Why?”
She isn’t going to make this easy for me. I want to get to know her better, but she doesn’t want to talk. I get it. After all, I’m the reason why she isn’t enjoying that normal daily routine right now. But I will get through to her. “I’m making conversation,” I say.
“You don’t need to. I’m just your prisoner, aren’t I? Let’s not pretend this is anything different,” Carina says sharply.
I’m about to lose my patience. This woman – I can see she will challenge me. Fine. I’m prepared to take it on. People don’t ever challenge me, not since I first proved myself on the streets. She refreshes me. “Alright. What about your father?” I ask. If I pretend this is all about the money, she might even open up a bit more. “You say you look at his books. Can he pay me?”
“I don’t look at the books,” Carina says scornfully. “I balance them. I do all of the accounting for the bakery.”
I look her over. “You’re not qualified for that.”
Carina laughs, a sharp noise. “I’m eighteen years old. I went to math class. I’m qualified. We can’t afford to hire someone to do it for us.”
I stifle a chuckle of surprise. She’s feisty, alright, and smart, too. “The food’s getting cold, accountant,” I tell her, taking the serving spoon and ladling spaghetti onto my plate. “You should eat.”
For a moment she looks like she’ll resist, refuse, but then she picks up the parmigiana and starts to eat it. I smirk. Looks like I’m not getting any of that dish tonight. I watch her eat, almost mesmerized. It’s like poetry in motion. I can see she loves food. She loves this food, even if she wouldn’t want to admit it to me. I have a great chef, and he works very well with traditional dishes. The enjoyment is written all over her face.
I want to see that look on her all the time – for other reasons, too. It makes my own mouth water, and my blood rush down below my waist. I distract myself with more questions about her father, the business, gradually teasing out tiny pieces of information about her. What she does, what she likes, who she is.
The more I get to know her, the more enchanted I am by her. This woman full of contradictions, feisty and fiery, yet nervous, lacking in self-confidence. Smart, but seemingly without ambition. She tells me she will stay at the bakery and work instead of going to college in the fall. Beautiful, voluptuous, and seemingly unaware of it.
Ambition, confidence, self-awareness. These are things I can give to her, more precious than any gift. I will give them to her, if not only in the space of this week, then over our lives together. Because she will be mine – she just doesn’t know it yet.Chapter SixCarinaAfter we finish eating, I expect that Tommy will leave. Of course, he will. He’s not here for a social visit. He’s trying to find out information about Dad’s business. Now that I’ve told him everything he’s asked, I’m sure he will leave me alone again.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, tomorrow, my meal is a bowl of soup served alone. This whole thing was designed to impress me into giving him the insider track. Unfortunately, for both him and me in terms of leverage, there isn’t anything to tell. The bakery is just a bakery, and Dad will struggle to find the money, and that’s it.
But he doesn’t leave right away. He hangs around, moving his chair to sit by the window, still close to me. I watch his tall body, the way he moves with a languid grace after eating his fill, stretching out like a panther.
“So,” he says, drawing my attention to his dark eyes. “You never answered my question. What would you be doing right now, on a normal day?”
“I don’t know what time it is,” I point out. “You took my phone.”
Tommy smiles, though he quickly hides it. I still catch just a moment of it. I think he’s laughing at me. “No watch?” he says, flicking his wrist to look at his own, an expensive-looking timepiece. “It’s ten in the evening.”
I look away for a moment. “I would be sleeping,” I say. For some reason, I feel tired. It must be because my nerves are all on edge. It’s been an eventful day. “We wake early to start baking.”
