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Chapter fourteen
When I was younger, I used to sneak into the kitchen and watch Chef Duncan prepare our meals. My mother hated it. Every time she caught me sitting on the butcher-block island top with my legs dangling while Duncan chopped vegetables, she would drag me out of there, telling me a queen’s place wasnotin the kitchen. Being in the kitchen with Duncan made me happy. Shouldn’t a queen’s place make her happy?
Somehow, I always ended right back up in the kitchen, and she ended up dragging me out again. After she died, I never stepped foot in that kitchen. The chefs would leave trays of cookies in the breakfast area for Liam and me. They even left bags of popcorn when they knew we were watching a movie or playing a game. All of our meals were prepared and served without us ever touching a skillet.
Cooking was not my strong point.
Yet here I was, tossing pasta into a pot of water and searching the cabinets for some kind of sauce to put with it because I couldn’t spend one more second in that room staring at the walls, waiting to hear footsteps come up the stairs, wondering what was going to happen next. I despised my thoughts right now. Every one led back to Chandler, to the way heat licked at my core when he’d forced himself into my mouth. My ears went hot with shame. It was wrong. I knew that in the deepest part of my being. But that didn’t stop my nipples from hardening or goosebumps pebbling on my skin every time I thought of him.
Chandler was a villain, and I’d always been fond of the villain. But he wasmyvillain, and this was a story of survival, not a romance novel.
Twenty-four hours of plotting my escape, and I was no closer now than I was when Grey left me. I needed to do something or else I was going to lose my mind. Besides, if I ever did get out of here, I was going to need my energy. That, and I was starving.
While the pasta boiled, I belted out the words to Mariah Carey’sFantasyand danced to my own beat. I had nothing on Mariah, but I swayed my hips and sang to the top of my lungs like I was aiming for a Grammy. In the middle of adversity, it was nice to feelnormalagain, even if it was for a moment.
The elevator doors slid open just as I drained the noodles and covered them in tomato sauce. I spun around, wooden spoon as a microphone, ass bouncing up and down, to find Chandler standing there with his hands in his pockets and one eyebrow cocked.
Shit.
I dropped the spoon on the countertop and clamped my mouth shut. The room went silent, leaving only the sound of my heart thundering in my chest.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he said with a smirk. His eyes were bright green rather than the stormy seas they were when he left, and his voice was smooth like melted chocolate.
His white button-up shirt was covered in blood on one shoulder. The selfish part of me was thankful that blood wasn’t mine. Another part—a deeper, more depraved part—wanted to know more about the kind of man who walked around with blood on his shirt like it was no big deal.
His sleeves were rolled up to expose his veiny forearms and one of his expensive watches. The way his hands were tucked into his pockets pulled his gray pants snugly over his ass. Something had changed since he walked out hours ago, and I didn’t just mean his clothes. Anger didn’t roll off him in waves anymore.
Probably because he took it out on whoever left that stain on his shirt.
I cleared my throat, then stirred the sauce into the pasta. “I was just making dinner.”
“At eight thirty at night?”
I shrugged, then started opening cabinets to look for plates. “I was hungry.” Starving, actually. It had been almost two days since my last meal.
He closed the gap between us in three long strides, stopping directly behind me. My pulse heightened as the string that had been plucked earlier tightened and waited in anticipation of being plucked again. It seemed as though that sliver of a crack in my soul opened up every time he was near, letting a little more of the darkness seep out. Images of him towering over me with his head thrown back while he fucked my mouth slammed into me like a wrecking ball. My thighs clenched on instinct.
My body was a sneaky little double-crosser.
I ignored his closeness when he reached around me, leaning in so that the scent of woods and spice saturated the air between us. Here I was trying to escape him, but my body was frozen in place.
He breathed in. “Something smells delicious.”
My stomach tightened at his words, even though he probably meant the food.
He opened the cabinet and pulled out two ceramic dinner plates, then backed away.
I turned around to grab the plates, almost crashing into him. He was close, so close—not more than a step away—close enough to rob my breath. A shudder of electricity gripped me from my stomach to my toes. I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Thank you.”
The blood stain glared at me.
Every step I took, he was right there, floating behind me, like a shadow. His scent lingered, as if my body would have ever forgotten how it felt to have him close.
I debated not giving him any food. I didn’t want to share a meal with him. I didn’t want to shareanythingwith him. But I let out a breath, scooped two spoonfuls of pasta onto both plates, then set them on the counter.
Chandler smirked as he stabbed a fork into the pasta and took a bite. His entire face pinched. “Jesus fucking Christ. Who the fuck told you this was food?”
Ouch.
