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He shot me a wicked smile. “I didn’t buy you underwear. Do you really think I’m going to buy you swimsuits?”
I let out a huff of disbelief. It was one thing to walk around with my nipples poking through my shirt. It was another to be completely naked in Marco’s house.
“Marco might see me,” I reminded him.
“You seem very concerned about that.”
My cheeks flamed. “Of course I am. I don’t like him.”
Joseph’s smile melted. “I know he intimidated you. And I know it must have been scary when he abducted you. But he would never hurt you, I promise.”
I wasn’t sure I could fully believe it. “That doesn’t mean I’m okay with him seeing me naked.” I countered. The fact that Joseph didn’t share this viewpoint was bizarre. I understood that—despite having completely different personalities—Marco and Joseph were best friends. What I didn’t understand was why Joseph didn’t seem as possessive of me around him as he had been back in Cambridge. Had his protective behavior been a carefully crafted lie to make me trust him?
Joseph’s eyes searched my face, reading my displeasure.
“Okay, angel,” he allowed, his tone contrite. “I’ll get you swimsuits. I don’t want you to be unhappy here.”
I breathed a small sigh of relief. If he’d refused, there would have been nothing I could do about it. It sank in that I was completely reliant on him for everything as long as I was trapped here.
I’m not trapped. He’s keeping me here because it’s the safest place for me. I’m choosing to stay until the danger passes.
Despite my rationalization, my unease lingered until Joseph swept me up in a mind-numbing kiss. I fell into his arms, forgetting all my worries.
Chapter Nineteen
Ashlyn
I surveyed Marco’s bedroom when I stepped out of the bathroom, my hair damp from the shower I’d just taken. The room was a mess, Marco’s belongings still strewn about from my frantic search for a tablet the night before.
I expect this mess to be cleaned up by this time tomorrow. His stern words echoed in my head. I still internally balked at being ordered around like an unruly child, but I didn’t dare test Marco. If he told me to clean up the room, I’d clean it up. Besides, I had been the one to make the mess, and it was his room I’d torn apart.
I wondered why he was even letting me stay in his bedroom, but I decided it didn’t matter. Maybe he liked one of the other bedrooms in the house better. It wasn’t really any of my concern.
What I was concerned with was getting the room tidy before meeting Joseph downstairs for dinner. After spending the afternoon cuddling on the couch and binge-watching Stranger Things, he’d told me he needed to take a phone call from his father. I’d decided to take a shower while he talked to his dad, and I hoped Marco wasn’t around when I did go down to meet Joseph for dinner. I really didn’t like being near him, so I hoped he ate his dinner and left before I arrived in the kitchen.
But first, I had to clean up the mess I’d made. Before I’d tossed Marco’s things around the room, it had been neat as a pin, everything organized and in an orderly place. Even his pencils were carefully laid out in a neat row in the top drawer, each one sharpened to a perfect point. Why one person needed so many pencils, I didn’t understand.
It didn’t matter why he had them; all that mattered was that I put them back into their orderly little row. I’d also thrown several books around—mostly biographies. I put them back on the bookshelf where they belonged, even placing them in alphabetical order by author when I realized the pattern of the books that remained on the shelf. I didn’t want Marco to be able to accuse me of doing a bad job at cleaning up. I didn’t want him to have any reason to get all intimidating and insert himself in my space again.
When the books were back in order, I returned to the desk. I put some notepads back in place on the polished mahogany surface before moving to shut the drawers I’d nearly yanked out of the desk altogether in my desperation.
My eyes caught on a large, leather-bound book that had been hidden in one of the drawers. It was soft to the touch, the forest green leather worn from extensive handling. There weren’t any markings on the cover, and it seemed too large to be one of Marco’s numerous non-fiction titles that he stored on the bookshelf.
Curiosity urged me to pick up the book and flip it open.
My heart stuttered.
The leather cover didn’t conceal an obscure biography or novel. This was a sketchbook. And the first sketch was…unsettling.
