Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Henry
I’d barely left my office over the past few days. Not since I stormed into the study and snatched Spencer’s copy of The Secret Garden out of Ariana’s hands.
I hated myself for my behavior immediately afterward, but not enough to apologize. The more space I put between us, the more I treated her like the deplorable human being she was, the easier this would be.
Cato exhaled from beside me on the couch in my office, as if he was able to read my thoughts and disagreed with them.
The Secret Garden rested in my hands. Worn cover. Cracked spine. Dog-eared pages that had once been enjoyed by a boy who deserved so much more out of life.
“ He says it’s the Magic that’s making him well… ”
That line always got me. Maybe because Mom used to whisper it like it was a secret between the three of us. Maybe because back then, I actually believed in magic. In goodness. In the possibility that something broken could bloom again.
We all did.
Until he stole that from us, too.
And I hadn’t done a goddamn thing to stop what happened. To my brother. Or my mom.
My grip tightened around the book. It didn’t matter that thirty years had passed. Time didn’t soften the edges of grief. Not when guilt was the glue that held it in place.
The camera monitors across from me flickered, a soft blip of motion drawing my attention.
Ariana .
She washed her plate. Wiped the counters. Turned off the light. Then disappeared into the living room and up the stairs.
I waited for the tension to ease from my spine, but it didn’t. If anything, it twisted tighter.
Cato nudged my arm with his nose.
“Don’t start,” I muttered.
But he just stared, ears up, tail thumping against the leather cushion. Like he was telling me to stop hiding behind steel walls. Like he knew damn well the real reason I was avoiding Ariana.
It was safer this way. For her. For me. For my plan.
She was supposed to be a tool. A pawn. Leverage to make Victor Kane bleed.
But even now that Ariana’s disappearance had made headlines and Victor’s distress was front-page news, it didn’t feel as satisfying as I thought it would.
Closing the book, I dropped it onto the couch beside me and stood, slipping out of my office now that Ariana had gone up to her room for the night.
No. Not her room. It was technically my room. I was just letting her use it.
I moved silently toward the darkened kitchen and opened the refrigerator. A storage container sat on the middle shelf with a note stuck to the lid in neat handwriting.
Figured you hadn’t eaten. This is pesto pasta with chicken and tomatoes. I didn’t poison it. Feel free to check your surveillance footage for proof.
I chuckled under my breath. I could practically hear her defiant tone in my head.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from her attempt at cooking.
She had chefs at home. People whose job was to indulge her whims. Granted, I’d watched as she cooked for herself the past few days.
She didn’t seem completely incompetent, but it was obvious she wasn’t accustomed to having to do so. How good could this really be?
But after I heated it up and took that first bite, I couldn’t help but be surprised.
It was good.
Really good.
The chicken wasn’t overdone. Neither was the pasta. And the sauce had the perfect combination of pesto and parmesan. Bright. Creamy. With just the right bite of garlic. I couldn’t eat it fast enough, shoveling forkful after forkful into my mouth like I hadn’t eaten in weeks.
Cato sat patiently beside me, hoping for a few scraps. But I wasn’t going to share any of this with him.
Garlic was bad for dogs anyway.
“Do you like it?” a familiar voice cut through from behind me.
I spun around, fork halfway to my mouth.
Ariana leaned against the archway, arms loosely crossed over her chest. Her hair fell in a tangle of soft waves, catching the dim kitchen light.
She wore a simple hoodie and leggings, but it didn’t matter.
It never did. My heart rate kicked up, my body responding to her proximity like a teenager dealing with hormones for the first time.
“I… It’s good.” I cleared my throat, forcing my expression neutral. “Thanks.”
Her lips curled slightly. “Of course.”
The silence stretched, thick and taut, as I stared at her. Silence never made me uncomfortable before. I usually relished in it. Right now, it was excruciating.
Cato gave me a gentle nudge, as if silently telling me to man up and apologize already.
Sometimes I hated how perceptive my dog was.
“You didn’t—” I began at the same time as she said, “I just wanted to…”
We both stopped ourselves, and I motioned. “You first.”
She gave me a sincere smile, at complete odds with the forced one I’d seen her wear these past several months.
“I wanted to apologize for the book.” She chewed on her lower lip before lifting her eyes back to mine.
“I could tell it was…personal. I thought maybe it would tell me something about you. About who you are underneath all this.” She gestured vaguely, like the layers of walls I’d built were something she could see.
“Why do you care?” I asked, sharper than I meant.
She didn’t flinch. “Because you intrigue me.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
My body moved instinctively toward her, betraying every rational thought I’d clung to for days. Now that I was mere inches away, I could smell the citrus in her shampoo, the faint spice of the pasta still clinging to the air between us.
“I’m not a good man,” I said roughly.
She didn’t retreat. Didn’t back down. If anything, my admission made her double her efforts.
“I don’t believe that.” Her lashes fluttered as her eyes searched mine.
I laughed, low and bitter. “You should.”
“I know bad people. And you, Henry Fontaine…” She moved closer still, “aren’t a bad person.”
“I’m holding you captive,” I reminded her, unsure if it was more for her benefit or mine.
“If you were truly the monster you claim to be, I wouldn’t be standing here. You wouldn’t let me sleep in a soft bed or roam freely around the house. You’d keep me locked in some cold room with just scraps to eat. So no. I don’t believe you’re a monster.”
She craned her head back, close enough that if I moved an inch, our mouths would brush. Her lips were parted, breath shallow, her chest rising and falling in a quicker pattern.
My hand twitched, ready to reach for her. My eyes roamed over her mouth, pink and soft and so damn close. Heat swelled in my gut, dark and hungry. I licked my lips, starving for a taste of her forbidden fruit.
“Say it again,” I rasped, my jaw tight with barely restrained need.
She didn’t have to ask what I meant. She knew. As if she had a window into my mind.
She inched her lips even closer. “You are not a monster, Henry Fontaine.”
I nearly broke.
The need to touch her, to consume her, was overwhelming. Every second I remained a breath away from her made it worse. My fingers twitched, desperate to pull her against me. To shove her against the wall and bury myself in her until I couldn’t remember why I was supposed to hate her.
She was the wife of my enemy. A distraction. A pawn.
But right now, I didn’t give a fuck about who she was. Or the fact that she was only a few years older than Sarah. All I cared about was these feelings she brought out of me.
I dipped my head lower, my lips tingling with the promise of her kiss.
Suddenly, a loud beeping ripped through the space. I jerked back, snapping out of the spell she so easily cast over me, like the siren she was. Pulling my phone from my pocket with trembling fingers, I read the alert from the security cameras in place around the property.
Motion detected. Perimeter Camera 4.
“Is everything okay?”
I looked at Ariana, and all I saw staring back at me was weakness.
My weakness.
The one thing I couldn’t afford right now.
I was here to get justice for Sarah. For yet another person I wasn’t there for when I should have been. Who I abandoned.
I couldn’t let some woman get in the way of making the person responsible pay, regardless of how beautiful she was.
“It doesn’t concern you.” My voice turned cold, even as the heat from her body still burned on my skin.
“Despite what you want to believe, I am holding you captive. I did take you. I may feed you. May allow you a warm place to sleep. But I’m more than happy to deprive you of these comforts if that’s what it takes to remind you of your place. Of what you are to me.”
She straightened her spine, her chin lifted. “And what exactly am I to you?”
“Nothing.” I let the word hang like smoke between us. “You are nothing to me.”
I turned from her, storming back down the stairs and into my office, Cato at my heels.
I snatched my jacket off the hook and shoved my arms through the sleeves, zipping it up before tugging on gloves and a knit cap.
With my rifle slung over my shoulder, I exited through the secondary stairs and door leading directly outside.
I didn’t even need to call for Cato to follow me. He knew.
The temperature was colder than I expected. A thin layer of fog crept across the ground, and the snow had melted and refrozen into slick patches along the path. I moved deftly, my boots crunching beneath me.
It wasn’t completely out of the ordinary for one of my perimeter cameras to alert me to motion, considering the wildlife roaming the vast wilderness surrounding my cabin. I normally didn’t bother to investigate, other than checking the camera feed.
But I needed something to distract me from Ariana fucking Kane.
From her sultry stare. Her smart mouth. The way she made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t in years.
I clenched my jaw and pressed forward, heading deeper into the woods.
But it didn’t help. Ariana’s voice still lingered in my mind, low and soft, threaded with compassion. Her bright eyes haunted me. And those lips…
Jesus. Those lips.
I shouldn’t have wanted to taste them. Shouldn’t have imagined the feel of her skin, the heat of her breath against mine, the way her body might fit with me if I let go of every instinct screaming at me to stay away.
She was married. Not just that. She was married to Victor Kane. The goddamn enemy. She was the very definition of off limits.
Despite that, she still had me twisted in knots.
Maybe she was just playing a game. Some kind of long con or strategy to chip away at my defenses.
If she was, it was working.
But I’d learned to read people. And something in my gut told me she wasn’t the person I thought she was. Now that I’d spent time watching her outside of the public eye, she wasn’t the spoiled trophy wife I’d observed for months.
There was steel under her softness. Pain behind her smile.
So who the hell was Ariana Kane?
And why did I care so much?
A sharp bark snapped me out of my spiraling thoughts.
Cato .
I looked behind me, confused why he hung back instead of remaining by my side as I’d trained him.
“What are you doing, buddy? Come on.” I turned, continuing through the heavily wooded area.
But when I took my next step, I realized why Cato had stopped.
I’d been so lost in my thoughts of Ariana, I’d lost my bearings.
The ground shifted beneath me with a soft, sickening crunch. Then it gave way entirely. I had just enough time to realize where I was before I went weightless.
Shit .
I knew this drop by heart. The ravine. It was shallow but dangerous. I’d marked the surrounding trees. Avoided it hundreds of times.
But tonight, I let her get under my skin.
The last thing I saw was the jagged edge of a stone slicing up through the fog as my head slammed into it.