Chapter Seventeen #2
She finally looked at him. “Are you worried about my eyesight?”
“I'm worried you'll give yourself a headache and become even more unpleasant.”
“Even more?”
He considered the correction. “Considerably more.”
“Better.”
Taddeo gathered his phones. “Eat.”
The single word made her narrow her eyes.
He caught it before she could respond. “That was a recommendation delivered efficiently.”
“That was absolutely an order.”
“You can stay here and develop a migraine if preserving the principle matters more than dinner.”
Isolde looked at the scan.
Then at him.
“I hate when you make the reasonable option feel like surrender.”
“I've noticed.”
She followed him anyway.
Elettra had apparently abandoned any pretense that two people required the formal dining room, because dinner waited in the kitchen beneath covered serving dishes with reheating instructions written on a card.
Taddeo removed his jacket and folded his sleeves while Isolde opened the cutlery drawer, took out two forks, and placed them beside the plates without thinking.
Her hand stopped.
Taddeo noticed.
Isolde looked at the open drawer. “I know where you keep silverware.”
“Yes.”
“That feels inappropriate.”
“Why?”
“Because I shouldn't know where anything is in this house well enough for it to be automatic.”
“You've eaten here repeatedly.”
“That doesn't make it less strange.”
Taddeo carried the vegetables toward the island. “I could move everything while you sleep.”
“That sounds like the domestic version of what you did to security after I escaped.”
“You exploited the security.”
“Your fault for making it predictable.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do you want dinner or another review of the storm?”
“Dinner.”
“Then sit.”
Isolde sat automatically, realized what she'd done, and looked up.
Taddeo was already watching her.
“You told me to sit.”
“You were holding a plate while standing in front of the chair.”
“You enjoy giving orders.”
“You enjoy objecting to them.”
“I didn't object until after I obeyed.”
“I noticed.”
The warmth underneath his voice made her stomach tighten.
She reached for the wine Elettra had left on the counter and poured half a glass.
Dinner drifted into conversation without either of them consciously starting it.
Taddeo asked whether museum conservators chose their own projects, and Isolde explained the uncomfortable intersection of curatorial priorities, grant requirements, donor expectations, and the occasional wealthy person who believed a six-month treatment could be completed before a gala because somebody had used the phrase light cleaning.
Taddeo told her about a shipping executive who once sold a Bellandi company six containers of electronics without mentioning that two had spent three days partially submerged after a port accident.
“You still bought them?” Isolde asked.
“The usable four.”
“What happened to the executive?”
“He refunded the difference.”
“That sounds suspiciously peaceful.”
Taddeo took a drink of water. “There was persuasion.”
“And there it is.”
“You asked.”
“I did.” Isolde turned the stem of her wineglass between her fingers. “I'm beginning to understand that asking you normal questions is usually where things go wrong.”
“You ask criminal questions.”
“I ask perfectly ordinary questions. Your answers happen to involve felonies.”
His mouth shifted.
The ease of the conversation unsettled her because she liked it.
There were no guns on the counter. No documents between them. No immediate argument about Corwin or Mauro or security. For a few minutes, it was possible to imagine they were simply two adults eating late after working too long.
Isolde refused to let the feeling remain unexamined.
“That scares me more than the guards sometimes.”
Taddeo's expression changed. “What does?”
“This.” She gestured between the plates, the kitchen, the easy conversation. “How normal it can feel.”
He was silent for a moment. “It isn't normal.”
“No.”
“I don't think you should pretend it is.”
“I don't.” Isolde held his gaze. “But I don't think you do either.”
“No.”
The answer was quiet.
She looked down at her glass. “Good.”
Taddeo leaned one forearm against the island. “You think I might start convincing myself you're here because you want to be.”
“Sometimes.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“You asked,” Isolde said.
“I did.”
“You don't get to punish me for answering.”
“I'm not.”
“I know.”
Now it was his turn to give her the look.
A reluctant smile pulled at her mouth. “I heard myself.”
“Good.”
The tension eased, but it did not disappear.
Taddeo's attention moved briefly to her lips before returning to her eyes.
Isolde noticed.
She had been noticing all day.
“You've been doing that since breakfast.”
“Doing what?”
“Keeping distance whenever we're alone.”
His gaze sharpened. “We spent eight hours at the same table.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Taddeo stood on the opposite side of the island, both hands resting loosely against the stone. “Because I want you.”
The directness still had the power to disrupt her breathing.
“You wanted me yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“And before that.”
“Yes.”
“Then wanting isn't the new problem.”
“No.”
“What is?”
He looked at her for several seconds before answering. “What I might start treating as permission if I'm careless.”
That quieted her.
Taddeo continued before she could respond. “You came to me because you chose to. I believe that. It doesn't mean I get to assume the choice renews itself every time I want you.”
Isolde stood.
His attention followed her as she carried her wineglass to the sink and set it down. “You realize there is a point where being careful can become another way of deciding for me.”
Taddeo's expression hardened slightly. “I'm not refusing you.”
“You're standing across a kitchen island as though proximity requires legal review.”
“That may be because you spent the entire day trying to make me lose concentration.”
“I played Fleetwood Mac.”
“That was only one method.”
She almost smiled. “Did it work?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Isolde.”
The warning in her name warmed her more than it should have.
She walked around the island.
Taddeo stayed where he was.
When she stopped in front of him, enough space remained between their bodies to make the lack of contact deliberate.
“You told me before that you didn't want to benefit from choices you've taken away somewhere else.”
“Yes.”
“I agree with you.” Isolde rested her hands lightly against the front of his shirt.
His body tightened beneath her palms, though he still did not touch her.
“I didn't choose Northglass. I didn't choose the car that brought me here.
I didn't choose guards, or monitored movement, or losing control of my phone.”
Taddeo's jaw flexed.
She kept going because she needed him to hear the whole thing rather than pulling away at the part that made him uncomfortable. “None of that changes because I want you. I know that.”
“I know.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I heard you.”
“Better.”
His mouth almost moved.
Isolde stepped closer. “But those choices being taken from me don't mean every choice I make afterward stops counting.”
Taddeo's eyes became very still.
“This one counts,” she said. “It belongs to me.”
His hands remained on the counter.
“Tell me clearly.”
She understood why he needed it.
Not because he thought she was confused.
Because he was unwilling to let desire do the interpreting for him.
“I choose this.”
Something in his expression changed.
“Again.”
The authority in his voice sent heat through her, but the demand itself did not feel like control. It felt like insistence that her choice be unmistakable.
Isolde moved one hand to his neck. “I am choosing you, Taddeo.”
Only then did he touch her.
One hand settled at her waist, the other lightly along her jaw. The contact was controlled enough to make the restraint behind it obvious.
“If you change your mind, you tell me.”
“I will.”
“If you want me to stop, you tell me.”
“Yes.”
“Even after we start.”
“I understand.”
His thumb moved once beneath her jaw.
“Still your choice?”
“Yes.”
Isolde kissed him before he could ask anything else.
The restraint he had maintained all day did not vanish so much as change shape.
Taddeo pulled her closer only after she leaned into him, his hand moving around her waist as the kiss deepened.
There was heat in it now without the uncertainty of their first night together, but the underlying difference remained important: this was not Isolde proving she could still choose something.
It was Isolde making the choice again because she wanted to.
When they eventually left the kitchen, she was the one who took his hand.
At the top of the stairs, she turned toward his bedroom.
Taddeo stopped before the door.
Isolde looked back. “What?”
“You don't have to come in.”
“I am aware.”
“You can decide you want your own room.”
“Yes.”
“And if you come inside, you can change your mind five minutes later.”
Isolde stepped closer and placed both hands against his face, forcing him to look directly at her. “I need you to stop treating acknowledgment of my captivity as evidence that I can't be trusted with the choices I still have.”
His expression shifted.
She softened her voice. “I didn't choose to be here. I choose this. Both are true.”
Taddeo looked at her for a long moment.
Then he opened the door.
Isolde walked through first.
The door closed behind them with a quiet, deliberate click.
Taddeo didn’t rush. He stood watching her in the low light of his bedroom, giving her one last chance to walk back out.
The silence stretched between them, thick with everything that had led them here—the museum, the blood, the captivity, the days of wanting and restraint.
When she stayed, when she didn’t move toward the door or speak a single word of hesitation, something in his expression shifted.
Acceptance, possession, hunger held under iron control.