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“Oh yeah. I completely forgot about that. Your mom and I are social media buddies now. She liked a bunch of my old pictures like a total stalker. Is a follow request from your dad coming next?” I joke.
He shakes his head, pushing off the counter and coming to join me at the island. “As you might expect, he doesn’t do social media. I think he has a profile somewhere that his assistant set up for him so she could tag him in certain things, but it has zero posts, and he has never logged into it.”
“I can’t even imagine your father on social media. I can’t even picture him on a computer. Your dad is frozen in the 1920s in my head, reading his physical newspapers and entertaining sketchy people at the family restaurant with his devoted moll by his side.”
“Yeah, they’re kind of throwbacks.”
“Probably why you’re so… unique.”
He laughs. “That’s a word.”
An odd swell of protectiveness wells up inside me. I don’t know where it comes from. His words might be playfully self-deprecating, but it’s not like I’m unaware of his ego. I know he’s perfectly fine with who he is.
Even the joking sense that he isn’t bothers me, though. It makes not one bit of sense.
I look over at him. “Can I ask you something?”
He loses the smile, sensing I’m serious, and nods. “Of course.”
“It’s personal. I’m just curious. We’ve never really talked about it. I’m not even sure how exactly to ask.”
His brows draw together fleetingly and he kind of smiles like I’m being weird. Which is fair because I am. “All right…”
“Um… Well, surely you realize your courting habits are a bit odd.”
His lips quirk. “Sure. Unique is the word I think we decided to use,” he adds with a wink.
I shoot him a look, but I still feel awkward. It occurs to me that it’s absurd that he feels perfectly comfortable kidnapping me, yet I feel awkward bringing up the anti-social qualities of his behavior.
“And you said you’re not usually like that with other girls you’ve dated.”
“No.”
“But I feel like, while I get that maybe I have different qualities that triggered different behaviors, I couldn’t have created them, you know? Those impulses must have already been alive inside you. And while I’m not in your head so I can’t know for sure, it doesn’t seem like anything you’ve been remotely surprised by or conflicted over, so it doesn’t feel like this is the first time they’ve emerged. I’m not calling you a liar or anything,” I add quickly, before he takes it the wrong way, “but if I’m not the first girl you’ve felt this way toward… if there have been others… I’d like to know how it ended with them so I can form a better idea of what to expect.”
He’s silent for so long, I’m not sure he’s going to answer me. His palms are braced on the island, his jaw locked and his shoulders tense.
I feel immensely awkward and think about trying to walk it back, but before I can land on anything, he finally speaks.
“Sophie, I don’t know how I could possibly be clearer about my intentions.”
“I understand your intentions. Everybody starts out with good intentions. Well, maybe not everybody, but mostly everybody. Intentions aren’t reliable predictors of the future. The past is, so I’m just wondering if there are any possible roadmaps you’ve already traveled that I could have a look at.”
“Okay, you’re right. Intentions don’t mean shit, butactionsdo,” he states, looking over at me. “Where in my actions could you have possibly found a corner to peel up to convince yourself I’m unreliable and I’m going to bail on you at some point? I have gone far outside the lines of legalityandmorality to lock you down. I feel like I’ve proven how much I want you.”
“I know, but it’s all still very new. You’ve only recently acquired me, so I wouldn’t expect your passions to cool yet. I’m wondering what comes next now that you have me.”
He stares at me. “Now, I enjoyhavingyour crazy little ass.”
I bite down on my lip to stifle a smile at his annoyance. “Right. But after that.”
He stares at me for another moment, then he takes out his cell phone. I frown but wait for him to finish texting. When he does, he grabs the chicken and puts it in the fridge. He turns the stovetop off.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “We need to make dinner.”
“No, we don’t. I have servants and an inheritance so large I could buy a small country if I wanted one. You don’t have to lift a goddamn finger to do anything ever again if you don’t want to. I’m not indulging your self-sufficient bullshit tonight.”
My jaw drops. “Excuse me?”
