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“I ensured your comfort.”
She tilted her head to the side and regarded him through narrowed eyes. “You locked me up. You took me from my home, and you left me here to stare at the four walls all day. You have a very peculiar idea of comfort.”
“And, in retaliation, you smashed my furniture?” Hades cocked his brow.
“No.” She crossed her arms across her chest and puffed out her lips. She didn’t look like she was afraid of him. She actually looked like she was challenging him. Curious, that. “I wanted to get your attention.”
And things were getting more and more curious. Hades blinked in utter surprise. Here he was, being a considerate host. He ensured she had everything for her comfort, a nice warm bed, a spacious room, a journal. The most respectable woman in the mansion brought her food, and two men guarded her room. And most of all, he was far, far away from her. Because he was certain she would not want to see him. And yet, here they were, with her smashing his dishes and furniture to get his attention. Couldn’t she have called?
“The guards refused to call for you,” she said as if she’d read his mind. “And they didn’t allow me to step out of my room.”
Hades studied her as if she was a rare creature he’d never seen because she might as well have been one.
Women never spoke to him this way, brazen and unafraid. Hell, even men didn’t. Hades remembered the day he first saw her in the dungeon of her brother’s coffeehouse. She’d looked frail and frightened. She had stepped away from his gaze. Now she didn’t step away from his presence.
But she wasn’t as fearless as she seemed. Her lips trembled slightly, and her breathing accelerated. She was pretending, the brave little woman. Hades took a step even closer.
She still refused to step back.
Hades turned to survey the littered room. When he turned back, he noticed her eyes were riveted to his left side. Of course, the scar.
Hades smirked. “You seem bothered by something,” he remarked.
Her eyes returned to his gaze. “You looked different,” she said softly. “That day in the dungeon of my brother’s coffeehouse, you looked… different.”
You, too.Hades gnashed his teeth. “You wanted my attention, now you’ve got it. Speak.”
Miss Gunning swallowed. “I want to be allowed to roam the house.”
“Out of the question,” he growled.
She licked her lips, drawing his restless gaze. His cock stirred in the confines of his breeches, and he felt disgust wash over him. She better hurry. His patience was quickly waning.
“You said I am a guest here,” she insisted.
“In this chamber, not in the mansion.”
“Am I to rot from boredom and despair?” she cried, rising on her tiptoes, inching her face closer to his.
“What else do you want?” Hades barked, and she reared back.
Good. She was finally acting accordingly to her situation. She was in the same room as a beast, and she better never forget it.
“I want to go home,” she said quietly after a moment of silence. “But since it seems to be a rather pointless thing to ask of you, at least grant me the freedom to walk around this mansion. I want to do something other than laze around all day.”
“I gave you a sketchpad and a journal.”
“I cannot sketch, and I have nothing to write.” She visibly fought for composure, fisting her hands at her sides. “If that’s too much for you, at least procure me something to read.”
Read?Hades’ eyelids fell closed from pain. Ava used to read to him. Not perfectly. She was just learning. But his reading was worse, so they spent some evenings in the library with her trying to read to him aloud.
An idyllic picture invaded his mind: Eloise sitting by the fire in the library, reading… to him. His head on her lap, his hand stroking her skirts.
Hades scowled. “Do you think I am here to please?”
“I think you are here to intimidate me into submission. With your massive presence, y-your menacing look, your thick, white scar.” She waved her hand to indicate his face.
“Does it work?” he asked silkily after a short pause.
