Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Noemi
Three days later, I’m watching Rian try to cook for me. He stands at the stove of his absurd penthouse kitchen with his sleeves shoved up, frowning down at a mandolin like it owes him money.
I have the luxury of sitting at the kitchen counter and watching him. He moves through the world impatiently. Yanking drawers out, gritting his teeth as he slices things, looking like he has never been in a kitchen before, much less has the patience for it.
"You usually have a chef?" I ask. It comes out as if I don’t want him to cook for me. And I don’t have a problem with that, per se.
But he fumbles through the kitchen like a grizzly bear scrounging for food. It’s a little painful and scary to witness.
“No.” Rian doesn't look up. "Someone comes in once a week to clean. And of course there’s my valet, Justin. People in my space make me… twitchy."
“Huh. But you force me to stay because…?”
“I need you here,” he says simply. “And it’s safe.”
“Right.” My tone is droll. After recovering somewhat, I’ve found my sarcasm again. “So you’ve said.”
It’s not even that weird anymore. I've been in this man's penthouse for days and the list of things I've stopped flinching at keeps getting longer. I perch on a stool at the island and watch him work, because there isn't a lot else to do.
And because, god help me, he's interesting to look at. Attractive, tall, blond in a way that makes him seem like a freak of nature. Honestly, he’s making me wonder if I have always had a thing for huge, growly guys.
Is it possible that I just haven’t known any? My cheeks heat and I look down at my hands.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He nods, not looking up from his knifework. “Anything, Noemi.”
“Were you… um… following me? Before the auction, I mean.”
Rian nods. “I shadowed you every day for the past few months. One look at you, and I lost the choice to do anything else.”
I glance up at him sharply. “You stalked me.”
My words aren’t as much an accusation as they are a confirmation of facts.
“That’s not the word I would use.” He looks up at me, his green eyes pinning me in place as he licks a drop of liquid from his thumb. “I prefer to say that I was keeping you safe from a distance.”
A huff breaks over my lips. He’s delusional. “Right.”
Rian plates the food he’s been chopping and slides it in front of me. I look down, ready with a bitter word, expecting to keep sparring. Suddenly, my whole chest goes tight in a way that has nothing to do with panic and everything to do with memory.
Orange and olive salad. Thin-sliced oranges, good oil, the dark wrinkled olives my mother used to drive across town to buy. Red onion, shaved thinner than paper.
I remember that my mother would drive to the one specific deli that carried olive oil imported from the part of Italy my grandmother was from. I lean forward and inhale the scent. Not quite the same, not made with Umbrian olive oil. Rich, complex, ending with a bitter note.
But still. I pull the plate closer, looking up at him.
"How do you know how to make this?" My voice comes out breathy.
Rian leans back against the opposite counter and crosses his arms. "It's not complicated. Oranges, olives, oil."
"That's not what I asked." I push a slice around the plate.
"This is my mother's recipe. People don't just make it.
My grandmother taught her, she taught me.
It's not in cookbooks." I look up at him.
"And this morning you handed me a cornetto and an espresso.
Which is also exactly what I'd eat if I were home and not, you know, kidnapped. "
Rian has the audacity to look a little sheepish. He rubs the back of his neck. “I told you; I notice things.”
I lean down, taking a huge whiff of the salad. He might move through the kitchen like some kind of Frankenstein’s monster, but the oranges and cracked pepper waft up to my nose and make me salivate. “This is more than just noticing.”
He throws up his hands. “I’ve seen you buy the ingredients, okay?
" He shrugs one shoulder. "You threw your grocery receipts away, which told me more or less what you like to eat. It took a little sleuthing online. I just figured if you’re stuck here, you should at least eat what you like.
I learned to make a few things. There are videos online for everything. "
I stare at him. Rian delivers devastating information like this, in the flattest possible tone. As though he hasn't just told me he reverse-engineered my dead mother's recipes from my grocery receipts.
"That's insane," I tell him. “And it’s wrong.”
“Wrong like morally wrong?” He goes still.
“Probably, yes. But I’m actually talking about the recipe.” I slide him a smile.
“Yeah?” His eyes light up. “How so?”
"The olive oil. You used something grassy.
My grandmother's was from Umbria, almost peppery.
It catches at the back of your throat." I push a slice of orange through the dressing.
"The deli on Court Street still carries it.
Bottom shelf, a label nobody can read." I hear myself doing it, handing my dead mother's grocery list to my kidnapper. "You'd have to ask for it by name."
Rian pulls a pen out of nowhere and writes it down.
“What, you’re making notes?”
His gaze flicks to me. “For next time.”
I snort. "You know, most people would learn someone's coffee order. A normal stalker. You went and learned my family's food." I set my fork down because my hand isn't entirely steady. "Why would you take this much interest in what I like to eat?"
He's quiet for a second. When he speaks, the dryness has dropped out of his voice. Which is worse, because the earnest version of him is the one I have no defenses against.
"You're the first woman who's ever been interesting to me," he says. "In thirty-one years, I’ve never desired a woman’s company. So I've spent the last four months learning how to make you happy. That's the whole answer. I know… I know it's not a normal one."
I don't know what to do with that. He’s a gorgeous man begging for my attention. And I’m not immune to him.
He’s six plus feet of ripped, raw man. The only man outside my family that I’ve been around for any length of time, really.
The problem is that he's saying these words in a penthouse I'm not allowed to leave, after he paid actual money for me at an auction. The two parts of him refuse to sit next to each other politely in my head.
"I'd be flattered," I say carefully, "if you weren't keeping me here against my will."
Something flickers over his face. Hurt, maybe? I’m not sure that he’s capable of it.
"I didn't mean it like that," I blurt out. “Oh, god damn it.”
I'm annoyed at myself, because why am I softening it? He did kidnap me. A good salad doesn't change the math. Even this salad, so fragrant and fresh.
"You meant it exactly like that." He pushes off the counter. "And you're right. So let me prove something. You’re not just serving a sentence to amuse me. I'm a useful tool. Give me the chance and I'll show you."
"How?"
He tips his head, considering me. "What do you want? Right now. I’ll do anything you want that won’t hurt you."
The honest answer is that I want to go home. But home is a boarded-up bookshop and an apartment full of rotting groceries and an aunt who probably hasn’t even noticed yet that I’m gone. So that's off the table.
The second honest answer surprises me. "I want to be somewhere that isn't these four walls," I say. "I love your, frankly ludicrous, apartment, but I've memorized every inch of the living room. I'm climbing the walls."
The corner of his mouth moves. He ducks his head, amused.
"There's a restaurant on the roof on top of the building. It’s private, food is pretty good, and it has a view that'll ruin you for every other view.
" His eyes sparkle, an expression I’ve not seen before.
"I could assemble a team of bodyguards to accompany us tonight, if you want to go. "
“Of course I want to go. But…” I look down at myself. I’m wearing one of his shirts and a pair of his dark sweatpants. “I can’t go like this.”
He nods. “I’ll get you a dress.”
“Oh. Can you get some panties, too?” I nibble my lower lip. “Actually, can you get me more than that? I hate to keep borrowing your clothes…”
“I love seeing you in my shirts. It’s so fucking sexy.” He looks at me, dead serious. “But I’ll get you some things.”
Hearing Rian say I’m sexy makes me press my thighs together. I’m a captive here, and yeah, my sexual experience is almost nothing. An embarrassment. But I keep watching this guy who claims to be obsessed with me and wondering about why he hasn’t come onto me, not once.
He says I’m beautiful. I can’t figure out what he wants from me.
He nods as if we've struck a deal.
We go back to eating, and for a few minutes it's almost normal. I tell him about the salad, about how my mother fought with the deli owner for years and then wept at his funeral. He listens the way he does to everything, completely. No part of him anywhere but here. It's unnerving.
It's also the most anyone's listened to me in years.
As we talk, the bookshop comes up, because everything circles back to the bookshop. It's the one thing I have left of my parents.
"My uncle Marc inherited the building after my parents died," I explain.
“About six months ago, he sold the building. The shop, the offices upstairs, the whole thing. He told me it was a tax move. My theory is that he just needed cash for whatever he got into with the Vitellis.” I pause, thinking.
“I guess the shop was never really mine to begin with.
I was too busy keeping the lights on to notice the ground was already gone. "
Rian goes very still. “You grew up around the bookstore?”