Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
His golden eyes hold mine. "Then we'll discuss what happens next."
It's not an answer. It's barely even a promise.
But it's more than I had five minutes ago.
"Okay," I say. "Three days."
A knock at the door keeps him from answering, and a woman carrying a tray enters the room. The smell of fresh bread and coffee hits me, and my stomach makes another undignified noise.
I close my eyes. "Please ignore that."
"I don't think I can," Devyn says. "It was quite emphatic."
My eyes fly open.
Was that—did he just—
His face gives nothing away. Absolutely nothing. But there's something in his eyes. The faintest glimmer of—
He's teasing me.
The mafia king is teasing me about my stomach growling.
I don't know what to do with that information.
"Eat," he says, gesturing to the tray the woman has set on a side table. "Then we'll begin."
"Begin what?"
"Your three days." He moves toward the door. "I'll have Mrs. Lyme bring you appropriate clothes. You'll join me for dinner tonight, and we'll see if you can convince the household you're not a threat."
"And if I can't?"
He pauses at the threshold. Looks back at me over his shoulder.
"Then dinner will be very awkward."
And he's gone.
I stand there, staring at the closed door, trying to process what just happened.
The mafia king made a joke.
Two jokes, actually.
His face didn't even change when he said them. Just that perfectly neutral expression, those golden eyes giving nothing away, and then—deadpan humor, delivered so dryly I almost missed it.
Then dinner will be very awkward.
I press my hands to my cheeks. They're warm. Too warm.
What is wrong with you, Bailey?
My stomach growls again, and I give up trying to understand my own reactions. Food first. Existential crisis about finding a fictional mafia king's dry humor attractive later.
The tray holds fresh bread, still warm. Butter. A pot of strawberry jam. Coffee, strong and dark. A small dish of mixed berries.
It's simple. It's perfect. And the first bite of bread, slathered with butter and jam, is so good I nearly cry.
I eat everything.
And while I eat, I think.
Three days. Three days to prove I'm not an enemy. Three days before a wedding that still looms over everything, even though neither of us has mentioned it directly.
I should start panicking by now.
But all I can think of is how he’s almost smiled.
Twice.
That barely-there crinkling at the corners of his eyes, that shift that suggests amusement without committing to it.
I'm keeping track of those too.
The eyes-to-mouth count. The almost-smiles. The way my heart beats differently when he's close.
I'm keeping track of all of it, and I don't know why.
Chapter Four
MRS. LYME'S HANDS DON'T stop moving.
She's arranging flowers in the hallway—white roses, perfect and unblemished—and she's been answering my questions for the past five minutes without actually telling me anything. It's impressive, really. An art form. Every response is warm and polite and completely empty, like biting into a beautifully decorated cake and finding nothing but air inside.
"And Mr. Chaleur?" I try.
“You mean the king?”
The gentle emphasis has me hastily correcting myself. “Um, yes, the king.” When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? Or in this case, address as the otherworlders do...even if you’re being forced to marry your own...crush captor.
“What is, um, he like?”
"A very private man." Another stem adjusted. Another door gently closed. "As you will surely come to realize in your own time, once you become his proper wife.”
My mouth opens and closes. Mrs. Lyme obviously thinks it’s my honor to marry their king, and so...maybe someone else in his staff thinks otherwise?
Thirty minutes later, and I have my answer.
Zero.
I've already tried the groundskeeper (ten minutes about the roses, nothing useful), the young maid who brought towels (three deflected questions while somehow making me feel rude for asking), and no one has given me anything.
Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m looking for either. A clue maybe, to the kind of paradise imprisonment—either in marriage or in the dungeons—that awaits me?
Hmm.
Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way.
So I go back to Mrs. Lyme and ask—
"What about Abigail?"
Mrs. Lyme is arranging another set of flowers, but this time the question makes her hands stop.
Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough for me to catch the fracture in her composure—something that looks a lot like fear flickering behind her eyes before the pleasant mask slides back into place.
"I wouldn't know anything about that." Her voice is steady, but her hands have resumed their work with just a little too much focus. "Will there be anything else?"
She's already stepping back as she says it. Creating distance.
I let her go. Because pushing won't help, and because I recognize that fear. Whatever happened to Abigail, the staff knows. And whatever they know, they're too afraid to talk about.
Which means I need to find answers somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn't have a pulse and can't be trained to keep secrets.