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“You notice everything, don’t you?” She caught his amused expression. “What? I almost never eat breakfast. Plus, I was way too tired to eat. Someone kept me up far past my bedtime.”
“Regardless. Are you hungry?” he repeated.
She sighed. “Starved. But if you keep insisting I eat all the time, you can’t complain when I gain a hundred pounds.”
Kaspar laughed as he picked up the phone and she heard him order food, all her favorites, of course, then he headed back to her and joined her on the sofa. “You should never skip breakfast, elskan.”
“See?” She poked him with her foot. “Bossy.”
He grabbed her foot, grinning as he massaged it. “Perhaps this new development is a relief, hmm?”
Jesska sighed, and shifted to give him better access. “Well, yes, considering I didn’t really like my job.” She grimaced. “But I only have a few months of savings and a little money left over from my trust fund, so I’m going to have to look for something else pretty quick.”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He paused in his attention to her feet. “I will take care of you.”
Jesska snorted. “I have never—and I mean, never—wanted anyone to take care of me. Hence the reason I moved out of my parents’ house the day I turned eighteen.”
Kaspar cocked his head.
“What?” she challenged.
“Was that the real reason?”
She stared at him. “No. The real reason was they had me committed to the psych ward two days before I turned eighteen.”
“Is that why your relationship is strained?”
Jesska frowned. “It’s a little early in the morning to psychoanalyze my relationship with my parents, Kaz.”
“Do you think they might have wanted to take care of you?” he continued.
She pulled her foot from his hands and sat up. “By putting me in the loony bin? I was restrained, Kaspar. Tied down. I wasn’t allowed to pee.”
He grabbed her hand, tugging her onto his lap. “I’m not saying that what they did was right, elskan, but I can sympathize with them. How frightened they must have been to find you passed out and losing blood.”
She blinked back tears. “I was fine.”
Kaspar linked his fingers with hers. “You were passed out in a pool of your own blood.”
Jesska nodded. “So?”
“So. That’s the very definition of not fine.”
“Your point?” she snapped.
“When I saw you bleeding, I nearly lost my mind, Jesska, and that was a small nick. What your parents must have thought when they found you nearly dead...”
She slid her face into his neck. “You might be right.”
“I will admit, I don’t agree with the severity of their actions, sweetheart, but I can sympathize with their predicament. And I wonder, if they hadn’t acted so rashly, would you be gone from this world?” He lifted her chin. “What then, hmm? I would have never found you.”
“Perhaps I’ve been a bit too hard on them.”
“I think you might have been, elskan. And I’d like to meet them before I take you home to Iceland. They must have done something right, because they made you.”
