CHAPTER EIGHT
Liam
It had been a week since Maeve came to the house, and my men were still looking for answers.
Everything they found ended up being nothing.
Every address we went to was a dead end.
I didn’t like waiting for answers, but there was nothing else I could do.
The only thing that mattered was keeping Nora safe until we found out what was going on.
Things had changed a bit during the week.
Nora wasn’t locking herself in her room all day anymore.
She was eating with everyone and was back to reading books in the library.
When the weather was nice, she’d walk in the gardens with one of my security guards watching her.
We’d talked a couple of times since we kissed, but not for very long.
Our conversations weren’t as argumentative as they used to be.
I’d even apologized for kissing her. I didn’t say sorry for wanting to kiss her, because that would’ve been a lie.
It was impossible for me to pretend I didn’t notice her now. She was everywhere. I noticed the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was concentrating on a book.
And I noticed her body in ways I had no business noticing. The curve of her waist when she reached for something on a high shelf. The way her clothes moved against her when she breathed. I almost walked into a door yesterday looking at the sun in her hair.
The crazy thing was that none of it was deliberate on her part. She wasn’t trying to attract my attention. I was simply finding reasons to look at her.
Nora accepted my apology, but she didn’t say she forgave me, which felt fair.
She still didn’t trust me completely, but she didn’t look at me like I was someone she needed to escape from.
I was working in the study when I heard a knock on the door.
I looked up and saw Nora standing in the doorway with her arms crossed.
She didn’t look angry or scared…she looked really bored.
It took me a moment to realize it was because she had nothing to do.
She was wearing a simple shirt and jeans, nothing that should have distracted me from the fact that she was complaining about her boredom. Somehow, I still found myself lost in her brown eyes again.
She walked into the room, sat down in the chair across from my desk, let out a sigh, and looked at me with frustration.
She told me she was running out of things to do because she could only read, walk, and watch TV.
She reminded me that she had no phone, no job, and no friends to visit.
She couldn’t leave the estate. Listening to her complain was actually nice, because it sounded like she wasn’t trying to escape anymore.
It sounded like she was okay with staying here for now.
I realized she wasn’t looking for something to pass the time. She was looking for something that felt normal.
Nora leaned back in her chair and looked at me. Then she smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her smile in days, which made me a little suspicious.
“Let’s play a game.”
I stared at her for a second, because it sounded like a good idea. “What game?”
“Truth or dare.”
“Well, I think that’s very childish.”
She shrugged and said, “You haven’t come up with anything. Do you have a better idea?”
I agreed to play, even though I knew it was a bad idea.
Nora smiled with satisfaction as I pushed the files away from me and leaned back in my chair.
It was a victory for her, and she looked as though she’d just won a much bigger battle than she had.
For the first time in days, Nora wasn’t talking to me about locked gates, security guards, or the argument that had followed our kiss.
I had somehow become part of Nora’s solution to saving herself from another afternoon of boredom.
“If we’re doing this,” Nora said, pointing a finger at me, “then we need rules. Otherwise one of us is going to change them halfway through the game.”
I leaned back against the sofa and smiled. “One of us?”
“You will.” The confidence in her voice made me laugh. She looked far too serious for someone talking about a game, which told me she had no intention of letting me find an advantage.
“What kind of rules?” I asked.
Nora rested her chin on her hand, thinking for a moment before she spoke. “First, no questions about the investigation. Or the people who attacked me,” she added. “I’ve spent enough time thinking about them. I don’t want this turning into another strategy meeting.”
“Fair enough,” I said without hesitation. “This isn’t about them.”
She nodded, clearly pleased. “Second, no dangerous dares.”
“I wasn’t planning on asking you to jump off the roof.”
“I know you weren’t.” She gave me a dry look. “But I’m just making sure. And no dares that are only meant to embarrass the other person.”
“So no making you sing in front of the guards?”
“Exactly.” She laughed.
“There goes my best idea.” I sighed dramatically. “Where did you even come up with all these rules?”
“We used to play all the time in high school. My friends started it whenever exams got too stressful.” She laughed softly. “Someone always regretted saying yes.”
For a moment I pictured a version of Nora I’d never known: a younger woman surrounded by friends, laughing until she couldn’t breathe while everyone argued over impossible questions and ridiculous dares.
The Nora I knew had been shaped by work, responsibility, and survival.
It was strange to remember she’d once had a life before all of that got so heavy.
“You look like you’re thinking too hard,” Nora said, tilting her head.
“I was just trying to imagine you in high school.”
She laughed. “Trust me,” she said. “You wouldn’t have survived me.” She studied me for a moment. “Don’t tell me you’ve never played.”
“I haven’t.”
Nora laughed, but the sound faded when she realized I wasn’t smiling back.
“My life wasn’t exactly built around party games,” I said.
The words came out more quietly than I’d intended, and I saw the understanding reach Nora’s eyes before she said anything.
“I’m sorry,” Nora said.
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. If anything, it felt comfortable, as though we were both beginning to understand that neither of us had grown into the people we were by accident.
After a moment, Nora clapped her hands together softly and smiled again. “Well, we need to decide who goes first.”
“You,” I said.
Nora frowned immediately and reminded me that we were sitting in my house, which meant I should be the one setting the example.
I pointed out that it had been Nora’s idea from the beginning, so it seemed fair that Nora should have the honor of answering the first question.
Nora argued for another minute, insisting I was changing the rules before we’d even started.
“What? Deciding who goes first wasn’t one of the rules.”
“Fine,” she said at last, giving in with obvious reluctance. “I’ll go first. If this ends badly, I’m blaming you.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
She settled deeper into the chair, tucked one leg beneath herself, and looked at me with a mixture of confidence and curiosity. I caught myself looking at the way she’d folded herself into the chair. There was something innocent about the gesture that made me almost chuckle.
When I asked whether she wanted truth or dare, she chose truth without hesitating for a second, explaining that accepting a dare before discovering how ruthless I intended to be would be a terrible strategy.
I took a moment to think about my first question, because the game would be over before it had properly begun if I pushed too hard too soon. We needed something harmless, something that would make her laugh instead of putting her guard back up.
“So,” I said, “what’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?” She covered her face with one hand and groaned before a laugh escaped her. “I thought I was being kind.”
She shook her head, still smiling, before admitting that during her first year at university she’d decided to cook spaghetti without checking whether there was any water in the pot.
She’d switched on the stove, wandered off to do something else, and only realized she’d made a terrible mistake when smoke started drifting out of the kitchen.
Somehow she’d managed to burn dry pasta before it had even started cooking, and the smell was so bad that half the people on her floor came running because they thought the building was on fire.
By the time she finished talking, I was laughing harder than I had in weeks, and judging by the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, she was too.
It wasn’t just the story that amused me.
It was the way she told it without trying to make herself look better, laughing at her own mistake as though it had happened to someone else.
The laughter stayed with us for a while after Nora finished telling the story. Every time we were about to calm down, one of us would snicker, and then we’d both start laughing all over again.
When the room finally became quiet, it felt nice. The silence wasn’t awkward anymore. It felt easy. As we kept playing, the game became a reason for us to sit together without thinking about all the bad things that had happened, like kidnapping attempts and arguments.
Nora tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I think we’re bad at this game,” she said. “We keep choosing truth every time.”
“I don’t see what the problem is,” I said.
She smiled. “That’s not how you’re supposed to play truth or dare.”
“So we’re both scared.” I shook my head, pretending to be upset, and her smile got bigger.
She started laughing quietly. It was nice to see her like that, while she wasn’t trying to hide her feelings.
She still had some caution, but it wasn’t as bad as before.
For a while I could see the person she’d used to be before fear took over her life.
And I wondered whether she could see the same thing in me.
“My turn,” I said.