Chapter 3
IVY
Imay not know much, but there’s one thing I’m sure of. No matter how good-looking my captor is, everything he told me had a good chance of being a lie. Maybe he guessed I had a brother. Maybe I should be trying to break out, to escape.
The moment I close myself in his guest room, I turn my phone on. Surprise, surprise, amid the flood of messages, there’s one from my brother about me staying with his friend, Ace. So not a kidnapping.
I stay in my room, pacing back and forth, trying to come up with a plan.
A girl shows up sometime later with a bag of clothes and food.
She introduces herself as Ace’s assistant and offers to show me around the house.
I decline because I don’t want her to think I’m here to stay.
The clothes come in handy, though. A silky pajama set, a pair of shorts, a dress, and a couple of shirts. A bikini, some underwear.
The evening brings me no ideas. A cook brings me dinner, no questions asked. I take a long bath in the ensuite bathroom, change into the pajama set and go to sleep. Ace might be right. I need some time off to think this through.
I get up with the sun rising. Never been a girl for waking up this early, but I went to sleep too soon.
I take a quick shower, change into shorts and a shirt, and leave the bedroom.
It’s obvious he has not kidnapped me from the fact the door is unlocked.
After pricking up my ears to make sure there’s no one around, I take my time to explore.
I don’t know where my brother met this Ace guy, but he’s loaded.
And not old money, like my family, but his own fortune.
The architecture is slick and modern, opposite the old house my parents still live in.
The living room looks little used, though, with the books on the coffee table untouched, photography books from places far away, countries I don’t know if I’ll ever visit.
The kitchen, on the other hand, looks well used.
Everything is sleek and made of brushed steel, the newest, most expensive appliances taking a side of the room in furniture of their own.
But there’s more. There are cookies in a jar and fruits in a bowl in the middle of the island.
Said island has a couple of stools looking out into an immense window.
There’s so much blue out of the window I think we’re in the middle of the sky. But no.
It’s just the ocean.
An urge takes over me. It’s been forever since I felt it, with the wedding and everything, and I rush back into the rooms looking for paper.
I need to draw. It’s been so long since I had the time and the urge to draw.
I find a small office with a couple of bookshelves, but before I have the time to go over the books, I find myself some paper and a pencil and rush back into the kitchen.
I plop down on one of the stools and start to sketch.
This is amazing. I can almost hear the ocean. There’s so much peace while I’m sitting here, my hand moving on its own, creating shapes and swirls on the paper. A smile stretches my lips. I can’t help but feel more content than I’ve felt in a long while.
In the distance, I hear a door opening, but I don’t stop. Steps sound closer, but still, I keep going. It’s like I’m in a trance, and I only break out of it when a mug of steaming coffee appears next to my hand.
I stop, looking up. Ace stands next to the island with an amused smile on his face, but that’s so not the first thing I see.
He’s shirtless, sweaty, his golden skin glinting.
Holy moly, this is not what I expected. My jaw drops as I gape at his defined chest and those yummy abs and how ridiculously big this man is.
He’s huge, with broad shoulders and arms as thick as my thighs, which are not skinny at all.
Ace has a smattering of hair curling down his stomach that disappears behind the waistband of his sports shorts, and I have to snap my mouth shut to stop myself from drooling on my drawing.
When I meet his eyes, he’s smirking. Asshole.
“Like what you see?” he asks, but his voice doesn’t betray humor. It has a darker tone, for some reason.
“No,” I shoot back. “Not at all. Not even a bit.” Stop talking, Ivy.
He chuckles and turns around to the fridge. “What do you want for breakfast?”
“What?” That catches me off guard. I never have the chance to choose what I want. It’s always what my parents want.
He looks over his shoulder at me. “Breakfast. What do you want for breakfast?”
“Mm... I like pancakes.” And I was about to have some yesterday if I hadn’t been interrupted. My parents never let me have them. They say it doesn’t help with my size.
Ace nods once, then picks up ingredients from the fridge and pantry. Without another word, he goes about doing pancakes.
I chew on my bottom lip. “I thought you had a cook.” Or did I imagine that person yesterday?
“She only comes when I need her. I’m not often at home, so it’s no use for her to be here all the time.”
“So you called her because of me?”
“Of course.” And he shoots me one of those panty-melting grins. “Can’t have a guest starving.”
I roll my eyes, just to look like I disagree. “The food was amazing. Thank her later for me, please.”
He nods again, then takes a beat. “What are you drawing?”
“I don’t know.” I stare down at the piece.
It doesn’t make much sense, just a bunch of lines curving and swirling.
A big messy doodle. It makes me smile. When I look up, Ace is smiling back at me, a soft smile different from his smirks and grins, something that feels like... Feels like it’s for my eyes only.
My stomach does a weird flip. Stupid stomach. It must be hunger. Yes, it has to be it.
“That’s beautiful,” he murmurs, his eyes darting between my drawing and my face. My cheeks grow warm. He surely means the drawing... Right?
“Thanks,” I reply and grab the coffee mug to chug it down. The bitterness of the coffee helps. It centers me, and it keeps me quiet until Ace turns around and goes back to the oven. It gives me a chance to admire his defined back... something I shouldn’t be doing.
Something tells me this time here will be way harder than I expected.