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“Angel, are you there?”

I rolled my eyes, grateful that he couldn’t see me. “Yes, Jacob,” I replied in a soft voice, instead of asking him where else he thought I’d be.

“Are you feeling better?”

I inhaled a deep breath, telling myself to not react if I wanted to achieve the end goal. “Yes. I’m sorry I was rude earlier. I was hungry and upset about being locked in here.”

“I understand, angel,” he replied with his usual warmth. “And thank you for apologizing; it means a lot.” Knowing that he couldn’t see me, I flipped him the bird while smirking. “Did you eat your breakfast?”

“Yes.”

I’d forced myself to eat the bowl of bland grits, which turned out to be the best decision I’d made in recent days when a bowl of pea soup was pushed through the hatch several hours after Jacob left me. The grits were manageable, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat more than a few spoonfuls.

“What about your lunch?”

I chewed my bottom lip. There was no point in lying; that seemed counterintuitive to gaining his trust. I released my lip. “No.”

His disappointed sigh floated through the door. “And why not?”

It took every effort to keep my irritation out of my voice. “I told you, I don’t like pea soup.”

“Angel, you’re a smart woman. I would have thought you’d have learned by now.” A frown creased my brow, and after several seconds of silence, he continued. “You denied my request to wear the clothes I picked out for you the first day I brought you home. I thought serving you meals you despised would encourage you to wear the dress I’d picked out for you that night, but you denied me again.”

Like the wind had been knocked from my sails, I could only stand gaping at the door, my head spinning with his revelation. I’d never been a violent person before; if anything, I shied away from confrontation. But right then, my fists clenched, and I had the overwhelming urge to punch Jacob in the throat.

How had I not realized that him controlling what I ate was another attempt at making me comply with what he wanted?

My mind flashed to a couple of days ago, when we argued about me going to college, and I’d refused to eat dinner. The next day, Wallace had served up grits for breakfast and pea soup as a lesson I didn’t know I was being taught.

Rage simmered under my skin, but mixed in with it was determination. Determination to get the hell off this island and as far away from Jacob as possible, and the only way I was going to do that was by winning Jacob over.

I took a steadying breath and unfurled my hands. “I’m sorry for not doing what you asked of me, Jacob. I promise I will do better.”

“Angel, that makes me so happy. See, you can learn.” I could imagine the satisfied grin on his lips while I stewed behind the door. Patronizing asshole. When I didn’t reply after several beats, he continued. “I imagine you’re hungry, angel. Pass me your dirty bowls out, and I’ll give you your dinner.”

The door on the hatch clicked, and it fell open. Keeping everything crossed that dinner was going to be more appetizing than lunch, I crouched down and passed the bowls through as Jacob had instructed. When he slid the dinner plate through, my hope waned.

It wasn’t soup, but a single chicken breast, two small new potatoes, and my arch-nemesis: peas. “Please make sure you eat it all, angel. I don’t want you wasting away in there.”

Gritting my teeth, I picked up the plastic plate, along with the blunt plastic knife and fork, and took my seat on the floor again, settling the plate on my outstretched legs. Focused on eating the dry food without puking, I didn’t pay attention to whether Jacob had walked away after serving me dinner.

With sheer determination, I forced every morsel down, grimacing with every pea I put in my mouth. I pushed the plate aside when I finished, and rested my head back against the door with my eyes closed. I may have hated each mouthful, but for the first time in a few days, I wasn’t hungry.

“Are you all done, angel?”

My eyes snapped open. So he had stayed outside, no doubt to check I’d eaten everything and not flushed it down the toilet. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Good,” he replied before a gentle thud echoed from outside, and when Jacob spoke again, it sounded like he’d lowered himself to the floor and was sitting with his back against the door, mirroring my position. “I missed you last night, angel. When I was in bed, I couldn’t get to sleep for ages without you in my arms.”

I feigned a gag. He spoke with his usual tenderness, and in days gone by, if he’d have said that to me, I would have wanted nothing more than to feel his arms wrapped around me, but my walls were firmly in place.

“I missed you too,” I lied, hoping this would be my first step to earning his trust. Jacob released a contented sigh, and taking advantage of his seemingly lightened mood, I added, “If you let me out, we can cuddle in bed tonight.”

I waited with bated breath for his response, but not surprised when he answered with, “I can’t. I don’t think you’ve learned your lesson yet, angel.”

“But-”

“No, Charlotte,” he barked before softening his tone again. “I want to let you out, and I will, but only when I know you’ve learned from your mistake. It’s up to you to show me that you’ve learned.”