17. Elle #2
He rises and leaves without another word. I sigh and pick up the coffee, taking a scalding sip and relishing in the fact that it tastes rich and expensive. Not a watered-down cheap instant version. It’s the real deal.
My stomach growls, and I sigh, but get up to find something I can eat downstairs.
Being stubborn and staying up here when I’m starving is just pointless.
Besides, I need to keep my strength up, and I want to scope out my new prison.
I was in shock yesterday, and then things went crazy.
Today, my brain is more capable of reason, of plotting.
I shove the curtains open and stare out onto a grey London morning.
Nothing new, nothing has miraculously changed because I was abducted.
No one cares. The city doesn’t give a crap.
I grab a pair of leggings and a tee that are more comfortable than clothes have a right to be and head downstairs, looking at everything, every nook, every piece of art, every pretentious bust I can use to knock one of them out if I can pick it up.
The kitchen is a sprawling, open-plan affair that connects to the living area.
I barely noticed it yesterday. Today, I take in the white marble countertops, brushed steel appliances, a fridge big enough to fit my entire wardrobe in back home.
Fintan stands at the stove with his back to me, flipping something in a pan.
He doesn’t turn around, but I know he heard me come down because his shoulders shift just enough.
I take the opportunity to scan the room properly.
The lift panel by the entrance glows red.
Locked. The front door has a digital keypad and a deadbolt that requires a key.
No way out. The windows have locks which I’m sure are engaged, but even if they weren’t, the drop would do me in. Lorcan made that clear yesterday.
I notice it all and store it away.
“Sit,” Fintan says without looking.
I pull out a stool at the kitchen island and sit. The marble is cold under my forearms. I watch him work. He moves with a quiet economy, no wasted motion, no fuss. He plates scrambled eggs and toast and slides it across the counter to me.
“Eat.”
“Does anyone in this family say please?”
He looks at me then. Those blue eyes hold mine for a beat too long before he turns back to the stove. “You want me to beg you to keep yourself healthy?”
I frown. Well, when he puts it like that, it seems a bit absurd. “No, I just—”
“Eat, Elle. Please.”
I can practically hear the laughter in his words.
Arsehole.
I have every mind to go back upstairs, but my stomach growls again, and it pisses me off. I’m beholden to a bodily need. I pick up the fork and eat because my hunger is a traitor with no loyalty to my pride.
Fintan turns back to the stove and cracks another egg into the pan like he’s making enough for an army. Maybe he is. Maybe Lorcan and Tiernan will come stomping in here any minute and demand their share of whatever peace I’ve managed to find in ten minutes of silence.
“Where are they?” I ask, because the quiet feels like it’s waiting for something.
“Working.”
“Doing what? Killing people? Beating them half to death for sport?”
He doesn’t answer that. He slides the eggs onto a plate and leans against the counter to eat standing up, watching me the whole time like I might bolt for the window given half a chance.
I might… if I thought it would get me out of here.
“Billion-pound empires don’t run themselves. Nor do they rely on killing people or using illegal funds.”
“You have standards. Wow. I’m shocked.”
He snorts. “You’re feisty. It’s a shame it will be broken.”
“They won’t break me.”
“They will. And you will welcome it because you know you are fucked up in the head now and what they do to you makes sense.”
My mouth falls open in shock, and I slam the fork down. “How dare you?”
“Are you going to start hitting me with your shoe? Or wait, you’re barefoot. Do I need to remove that fork and make you eat with your hands?”
He isn’t fucking joking.
He scoops up the fork and places it on his plate.
I cross my arms in fury. “All you’ve done is make me not eat. Congratulations. Well played.”
“You will eat that if I have to shove your face into it and keep it there until your plate is clean.”
The blood drains from my face. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
“You cared for me last night and now you threaten me?”
“Are you trying to manipulate me, Elle?” His blue eyes don’t waver, and the question hangs between us like smoke.
“No,” I say carefully. “I’m pointing out that you are inconsistent, and it’s confusing.”
“I’m not inconsistent. I cleaned you up because I wanted to. I took your fork because I thought you were going to stab me with it. Eat, Elle. I won’t ask again.”
I stare at the eggs and then at him. His expression doesn’t shift. He means it. Every word, every threat, every strange act of care wrapped in cruelty. He means all of it, and that is the most disorienting thing about Fintan Keane.
I stare at the plate and feel grateful it’s scrambled and not fried. I grab a piece of toast and then use it to push eggs onto another piece.
He watches me eat. He doesn’t make conversation. He finishes his food and rinses the plate before placing it neatly in the dishwasher, moving through the kitchen with that quiet, contained energy that sets him apart from his brothers.
I focus on trying not to get into a buttery, eggy mess, and when I’m finished, I pick up my plate and shove it straight into the dishwasher, crumbs and all, just to annoy him.
He huffs, but before he can move, I turn to him and grab his tee.
I use it to wipe first my mouth and then my hands, giving him a triumphant look that will probably get my arse tanned and not in a pleasant way.
“Next time you force a woman to eat with her hands, give her a fucking napkin, you Neanderthal,” I say and turn on my heel to walk away. His hand closes around my wrist before I make it three steps.
His grip isn’t rough or painful. It’s just an iron band of certainty that stops me dead.
“You are the most infuriating woman I have ever met,” he says, his voice low and even, which is somehow worse than shouting.
“Cry harder,” I snap.
His grip tightens a fraction. He turns me around slowly, and I let him because fighting it will only make this worse, and I already pushed further than I should have. His blue eyes move over my face with an unsettling focus, like he is reading something written in a language everyone else forgot.
“You think that was clever,” he says.
“I think it was necessary.”
“You used my shirt as a napkin.”
“You took my fork and made me eat with my hands under a threat of violence.”
His eyes do a slow, quiet thing that isn’t anger and isn’t amusement but carries traces of both. He looks at me like I’m a fire he started on purpose and is waiting to see how far it goes.
“Do you know what happens to people who push me?” he asks.
“I have a fairly detailed picture after last night, yes.”
He releases my wrist. He steps back, with one hand gripping the bottom of his tee.
He pulls it over his head in one swift movement, and I nearly choke on my saliva.
His body is rock hard, pure muscle and covered in tats.
He is larger than his brothers and that thought brings the wonder of how big his cock is.
He tosses the tee onto the counter and stands there, letting me look, because he knows exactly what I’m doing, and he has no intention of stopping me.
I drag my eyes back up to his face. “Put your t-shirt back on.”
“No.”
“That’s not—”
“You used my tee as a napkin. It’s greasy and needs a wash now. These are the consequences.”
I stare at him. “That’s not how consequences work.”
“It is in this kitchen.”
He crosses to the coffee machine and starts a fresh cup like he hasn’t just removed his shirt to make a point. I stand in the middle of the room feeling outwitted, which is worse than feeling threatened. I can work with threatened. Outwitted makes me want to throw something.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” I say.
“Doing what?”
“Standing there. Like that.”
He glances over his shoulder at me. “Like what, Elle?”
I press my lips together and say nothing because there is no version of that sentence that doesn’t hand him exactly what he wants.
He turns back to the machine with what I’m almost certain is a smile.
I snatch up his tee and look around for a washing machine. I spot a laundry room through an archway near the back, and I quickly and quietly head towards it, needing to do something with my hands so I don’t touch him.