Chapter 19 #2
I don’t know how to reconcile these two versions of Dante. The monster and the man who buys me pistachio nuts because I once mentioned wanting to try making macarons.
“There’s more,” he says, reaching into another bag.
He pulls out a book. A thick, heavy book with a glossy cover and photographs of impossibly perfect pastries.
I recognize it immediately. It’s a classic, written by one of the premier pastry chefs in France.
The kind of cookbook that costs an arm and a leg and is practically required reading for anyone serious about baking.
“The woman at the bookshop said it was definitive.” Dante says, holding it out to me.
My hands are trembling as I take the book from him. It’s heavy. Solid. Real.
Our fingers brush during the handover, and I feel it like a small electric shock. Which is absurd. Which is my body being ridiculous and traitorous and completely unhelpful.
I flip it open and breathe in the smell of fresh paper and ink. The pages are glossy and filled with beautiful photographs, step-by-step instructions, diagrams of technique. It’s gorgeous. It’s perfect.
It’s the nicest gift anyone has ever given me.
No. Not a gift. A manipulation. He’s trying to make me like him, trying to make me forget what he is. This is all part of some strategy, some plan to keep me compliant and grateful and too comfortable to try escaping.
Except that doesn’t quite fit either, does it? Because I’m the one who’s supposed to be doing the manipulating. I’m the one with the grand scheme. Dante doesn’t know I’m playing him. Dante just... bought me a cookbook.
“Thank you,” I manage, and my voice cracks embarrassingly in the middle.
“You’re welcome.”
We stand there in the tiny kitchen, surrounded by baking ingredients and the weight of things neither of us are saying. The book is heavy in my hands. Dante’s eyes are dark and intent on my face, watching my reaction like it matters to him.
It does matter to him. That’s the terrifying part. It actually, genuinely matters to him whether I like his gift.
“I could try making them now,” I hear myself saying. “The macarons. If you wanted to watch. Or help. Not that you have to help, obviously, you probably have better things to do, more important things, torture things, wait, no, forget I said that, I didn’t mean...”
“I would like to watch,” Dante interrupts, mercifully putting an end to my verbal catastrophe. “If that’s alright.”
“It’s alright. It’s fine. It’s grand. It’s fantastic, actually, because macarons are tricky and it helps to have someone else there in case I mess up, which I probably will, because I always mess up macarons, that’s the whole point, the whole reason you bought all this stuff, which was really thoughtful by the way, did I mention that? Really, really thoughtful.”
Stop talking, Dylan. For the love of all that is holy, stop talking.
Dante’s lips twitch. Not quite a smile, but close. That almost expression that I’m starting to recognize, the one that suggests he finds my rambling more amusing than annoying.
And God help me, he has a nice mouth. Full lips, the bottom one slightly fuller than the top. The kind of mouth that probably looks devastating when it actually smiles properly. Not that I’ve seen that yet. Not that I’m hoping to.
This is just how I am around attractive men.
It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve always been a disaster around anyone remotely good looking.
There was that incident with the delivery driver last year that Sean still won’t let me live down.
And the time I walked into a door because I was distracted by a customer’s forearms.
The fact that Dante is objectively, irritatingly handsome is simply an inconvenient complication. Nothing more.
“Do you need anything else?” he asks. “For the macarons?”
I look at the spread of ingredients on the counter. Almond flour, powdered sugar, egg whites. Butter and cream for the filling. Vanilla, rose, pistachio for flavoring. He even bought gel food coloring, those little bottles that are better than liquid dye for getting vibrant colors.
“I think you covered everything,” I say. “Did you memorize a recipe or something?”
“I asked the woman at the specialty shop. She was very helpful.”
I imagine Dante, intense and serious and more than a little intimidating, standing in a fancy baking supply shop and asking about macaron ingredients. Probably making the poor shop assistant nervous with those dark eyes and that jawline and that general aura of contained danger.
The image is so incongruous it almost makes me laugh.
Almost. I’m not quite ready to laugh with my captor. Even if he does buy me cookbooks and remember throwaway comments and look at me like I’m something precious.
That’s the manipulation talking, I remind myself firmly. He’s keeping you docile. Making you comfortable. It doesn’t mean anything.
Except it feels like something. And that’s the dangerous part.
“Right,” I say, clapping my hands together in a way that comes across as far more enthusiastic than I actually feel. “Macarons. Let’s do this. Prepare to witness a disaster of epic proportions.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
“They won’t be. Macarons are temperamental beasts. They require perfect technique and ideal conditions and probably a blood sacrifice to some ancient baking deity. I’m zero for three on all counts.”
Dante moves to sit at the tiny kitchen table, the same spot he occupied during the scone incident. The scone incident. That’s what I’m calling it now. As if it was a natural disaster rather than a morning of intense awkwardness and accidental innuendo.
“Tell me what to do,” he says. “If you need help.”
He’s rolled up his sleeves at some point. I don’t know when. I don’t know why I’m noticing now. But his forearms are right there, olive skin over corded muscle, and I have to physically turn away before I do something stupid like stare.
I have a problem with forearms. It’s a known issue.
I pull out the cookbook and flip to the macaron section.
The pages are crisp and new, unblemished by flour fingerprints or butter stains.
Give it time. If I keep baking, this book will end up looking like Aunt Moira’s old recipe collection, held together with tape and love and years of accumulated kitchen debris.
If I keep baking. If I’m still here. If this strange, terrible, confusing situation continues.
I push the thought away and focus on reading the recipe. Almond flour, sifted. Powdered sugar, sifted. Aged egg whites at room temperature. Everything precise, measured, exact.
The technique the book describes is different from my prior disaster attempts. That’s hopeful. But it also scuppers my attempt for today.
“I need to age the egg whites,” I say, more to myself than to Dante. “That means separating them and letting them sit out for a day or two. Something about the proteins relaxing. The book says you can skip that step if you’re impatient, but your shells might not be as smooth.”
“We have time,” Dante says.
We have time. Such a simple statement. Such an enormous implication.
I’m not going anywhere. He’s not letting me go anywhere. We have all the time in the world, trapped together in this flat with its locked doors and metal shutters and horrible orange sofa.
My hands are shaking again as I separate the eggs. Yolk into one bowl, white into another. It requires focus, precision. A single drop of yolk will ruin the whole batch.
“You’re good at that,” Dante observes.
“Practice. Aunt Moira made me separate a hundred eggs before she let me move on to actual baking. Said you had to master the basics before you could attempt anything fancy.”
“She sounds like a wise woman.”
“She’s the best person I know.” The words come out fierce, protective. “She took me in when my parents didn’t want me. Taught me everything. Gave me a home when I didn’t have one.”
The silence that follows is heavy. I can feel Dante’s eyes on me, that intense gaze that sees too much and reveals too little.
“You were unwanted,” he says finally. Not a question.
“My parents had two sons. One was perfect, charming, destined for great things. The other was... me.” I crack another egg with more force than necessary. “Guess which one they kept?”
“Declan.”
Just the name makes my stomach clench. My brother, my identical twin, the person who shares my face but nothing else. The person whose mistakes and choices landed me in this nightmare.
“He was always better at everything,” I continue, even though I don’t know why I’m telling Dante this.
It’s not part of the plan. It serves no strategic purpose.
But the words just keep coming, like water from a tap I can’t turn off.
“School, sports, making friends. He was charming where I was awkward. Confident where I was nervous. People loved him. They barely noticed me.”
“Their loss.”
I look up sharply. Dante is watching me with that soft expression again, the one I don’t know how to interpret. The light from the single overhead bulb catches his features in a way that’s frankly unfair. High cheekbones, strong brow, that mouth I’m definitely not thinking about.
He can’t be much older than me. Late twenties, maybe early thirties at most. Too young to be this dangerous. Too handsome to be this kind.
Wait, no. He’s not kind. He’s a murderer. A torturer. The fact that he has nice bone structure doesn’t change that.
“You don’t know that,” I say. “You don’t know me. Not really.”
“I know you make excellent scones. I know you ramble when you’re nervous and blush when you’re embarrassed. I know you’re kind to someone who doesn’t deserve your kindness.” He pauses. “I’m learning more every day.”
My face is doing that thing again. That red, splotchy, tomato-with-sunburn thing. I turn back to the eggs and concentrate very hard on not dropping any yolks.
This is manipulation, I remind myself desperately. He’s being nice because he wants something. He’s being nice because he’s keeping me prisoner and this is how you keep prisoners complacent. It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything.
And the fact that he’s attractive is irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. I’m just flustered because I’m always flustered around handsome men. It’s a character flaw, not a sign of anything deeper.
But my traitorous heart is beating too fast, and my hands are trembling for reasons that have nothing to do with fear.
I separate the last egg and set the bowl of whites aside. They need to sit at room temperature, covered loosely, for at least twenty-four hours. Tomorrow I can attempt the actual macarons.
“Tomorrow,” I say aloud. “I’ll try making them tomorrow.”
Dante nods. “I’ll be here.”
Of course he will. Where else would he be? This is his flat. His prison. His carefully controlled world, where I’m the newest and most confusing addition.
I start cleaning up the eggshells and wiping down the counter. Normal activities. Mundane activities. Things that don’t require eye contact or emotional vulnerability or processing complicated feelings about complicated men.
“Dylan.”
I freeze with a handful of eggshells hovering over the bin.
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I’m glad you’re here. Said softly, sincerely, with none of the usual intensity. Just a simple statement of fact.
He’s glad I’m here. In his prison. Against my will. He’s glad.
I should be horrified. I should be angry. I should be plotting his downfall with renewed determination.
Instead, I’m just confused. And tired. And something else, something small and warm that has no business existing in a situation like this.
“I’m going to go lie down,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. “Rest. Like you suggested. Before.”
Dante nods. “I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”
I escape to the bedroom and close the door behind me. Then I lean against it and press my hands to my burning cheeks.
What is happening to me? What is this? Why does my chest feel tight and my head feel fuzzy, and why is my heart beating strange rhythms against my ribs?
It’s the situation. The stress. The trauma bonding or Stockholm syndrome, or whatever clinical term describes developing inappropriate feelings for your captor.
Not that I’m developing feelings. I’m definitely not developing feelings. I’m executing a plan. A strategy. A carefully calculated scheme to ensure my survival and eventual escape.
And if Dante happens to be unfairly good looking, well, that’s just biology. That’s just my stupid brain responding to symmetrical features and nice forearms the way it always does. It doesn’t mean anything.
I close my eyes. Images flash. The cookbook on the kitchen counter. The pistachio nuts and rosewater and three different types of butter.
He remembered. He listened and he remembered, and he went to multiple shops to get exactly the right things.
I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to my chest.
I am in so much trouble.