I shake my head, like that would even be an option. I need to get these thoughts out of my head. He’s not into me and us running off together can’t happen. He’s clearly too honorable to his family to ever be willing to break the promise, right?
“Jo?”
I blink, he’s standing in front of me with two plates. It looks like in the end he just scooped the egg filling onto the plates and we’re having scrambled eggs. I take a step back, realizing he’s wary of me standing so close to the door. “Sorry.”
He holds the plate out to me. I take it as he motions for me to go back to the bed to eat it. I do without hesitation, the chainclunkson the hard floor as it follows me. I set my coffee on the floor. I wish we had a table to eat at or something, it would be nice not to have to hold my food.
Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, I pull my legs up to sit cross-legged. Oh god, I can smell my arousal. I didn’t think it was that bad. Can he smell it, too? Who knows what he would think of it. The burnt smell is probably covering it, I’m being paranoid. I take a bite of the eggs and nod. “Not bad.”
He grimaces. “I was really aiming higher than not bad, but I’ll take it since I burnt it.”
I raise a brow at him. “I’m serious about cooking for us if you’ll let me. You can stand by the front door the entire time and chain me back up after if you really don’t trust me. I just want to be able to eat food that doesn’t smell burnt while we’re here.”
His nose wrinkles as he takes a bite of the food and then sets his fork on his plate. His gaze meets mine. “If you’re honest about not snitching on me or my family, we don’t have to be here much longer. We just have to wait for your father to report you missing and think Sacha took you. Then I can return you to him. So another day or two.”
Yeah, my father should notice soon that I’m not around. Ensley has his number in case of emergency, she should be contacting him soon if she hasn’t already. I shrug a shoulder. “Or, we could stay here longer, until we can’t anymore. Like a vacation. Just make your family think you’re turning me and I’m resisting, but almost there.”
He raises a brow. “You want to willingly stay here with me? Even after everything? I assumed after everything was all said and done, you would want nothing to do with me, and I would be banned from your bakery.” His voice falls a bit at the last part.
Does he look forward to him coming to the bakery nearly every morning as much as I do?
“I was mad, no I am mad, Cason. At you, at my family. I don’t like knowing that everyone has kept such a big secret from me all my life. Do you know how that feels? I feel like I’ve been living theTruman Showand I’ve just figured out what everyone has known all along. I feel like a moron. But even with that anger there, I don’t think I could ever hate you or not want to see you. You’ve been a big part of my life. Knowing you kill people is hard to digest, but I’d rather know about it and have you in my life, than know about it and not have you here.” My heart thuds against my breast bone. That was practically a confession of love. How is he going to take it?
Cason’s adam’s apple bobs as he uses his fork to play with his food. I guess he doesn’t like it at all.
I take another bite. It’s not terrible. The peppers and ham he put into it are good.
“Spending time with you would be nice. We haven’t gotten to really hang out since you were a kid, and I haven’t had a day off in I don’t know how long. I’m sure you could use longer than a day off as well. I know you still go to the bakery even when it’s closed to bake other things. Some time off for the both of us would be good.”
Well, it wasn’t a rejection. I’m not sure he fully understood what I said, but I’ll take it. He probably thinks I mean in a platonic capacity. A brother and sister hanging out together and having fun. My nose wrinkles at the thought of him being like a brother to me. I already have one, more if I count the other Bancrofts. I kind of grew up with Silas and Beckett as well. They used to play with me before they got too old to want to play with a kid. Rosalie is the only Bancroft who wasn’t years older than me. And, due to her upbringing, she didn’t stay a kid for long either.
“What are you thinking about?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. It’s just crazy how life happens. One second you think you’ve got a handle on everything for once. Nothing is slipping anywhere and then something comes out of nowhere to knock it off-kilter again. It’s like your spinning plates constantly, and no matter how hard you try, one of them ends up falling and crashing to the floor. You know? Nothing can ever be good for long. Something always suffers so something else can keep going.”
He nods and stands. “I feel that every day. Something always suffers. This time it’s you, and I’m sorry. I will keep saying that until the end of time.” He frowns at his plate. “I don’t think I can eat this. Do you want yours? I can take it from you. I need a shower... I mean bath, and then together we can work out something else to eat. You can be off the chain as long as I’m with you.”
Hell, the thought of him in the bath, being naked feet from me. I don’t know if I can handle that. I look at the food. It might not have been terrible, but I don’t want any more of it. “That sounds good. I can take stock of what there is and plan out some meals for us.”
Cason takes the plate from me and nods. “And if we decide to stay longer, and make my father believe I’m still working with you, then he’ll bring us more at the end of the week. I don’t think we’ll be able to go longer than that. He’ll want it handled after fourteen days. We also don’t want him to think we’re shacking up and breaking the family promise.”
My heart falls a bit, he sounds super unwilling to ever go against his family and the promise. Even here, in the middle of the woods, with no one around to tell on us, I can’t have him.
Chapter Eleven
Cason
I brushthe food off the plates and into the trash, before putting them in the sink. My mind is abuzz with so many thoughts. She wants to stay here with me for a week or longer. Not because we have to, but because she wants to hang out. Could there be another reason behind it? She made it sound like she couldn’t live without me, and most people don’t think of people they see as siblings in that sense. At least, I never had. I would be devastated if one of my siblings died, but I would be able to carry on without them.
My hands shake as I think about Josie dying, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I don’t think I would be able to function, or I wouldn’t want to. If this all turned out different and I had to put her down, I don’t think I would be able to handle it. I would get the job done, but in the process, I would follow her. Then Michail could think that It was a murder-suicide. He might hold it against my family, but the culprit who took his daughter away from him would be dead. There would be no revenge to be had.
I shake my head. I shouldn’t be thinking about things like that. She’s already said she won’t say anything. I can watch her for the next week to make sure that’s true. In the end, none of us will know what she’s going to do until we get her back to civilization, but I can at least try to make her fully see we aren’t the bad guys. At least, not when it comes to her.
My phone buzzes in the pocket of my black sweats. I’ve been wearing the same thing since everything went down. I don’t care for baths, but I’ll take anything right now, just so I don’t feel like I stink in front of her.
I pull my phone out. Michail. I figured he would be calling me soon. I already reported to him that Sacha never showed for the shipment and that I would be out looking for him in all his usual haunts.
“Hey. I haven’t been able to find him. It’s like he disappeared out of the city. Don’t worry, I’ll catch the bastard. He’ll be dead soon.”
