Page 59 of Bought for Blood

I reach a hand out and brush a silky curl from her cheek. She doesn’t flinch. “You are as lovely as the sunshine.”

Her eyes are wide on my face. Neither of us says anything.

Eventually, she breaks the silence. “Do you miss it? The sun?”

“Every day.” And then, before I’ve decided to: “Until—”

“Until what?”

Until you.

I don’t say it. Crowe was right. She’s a drug, and I’m addicted. And now I’ve brought her into my home and put the terms of my next fix into her hands.

It’s a game. All part of the game.

She watches me not finish the sentence. She could press me for an answer. She lets me off instead.

“I explored today,” she says, and picks her spoon back up. “Found the walled garden and the library. You have a lot of books. And clocks.”

“Ah,” I say, wondering how long it will be before that starts to go dull.

“There are worse ways to spend a day than in a house like this one.” A small shrug. “Like being locked in a living blood bank.”

“The bar isn’t high, then.”

She flicks a look up at me. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for being out of there. And that’s because of you. Plus, it was nice to get to know Marthe and the others.”

My staff. A house full of people who will always be careful with her. I didn’t think this through.

Of course you didn’t.

I acted on impulse. Getting her out of there outweighed common sense.

“There are grounds to explore too,” I tell her. “The forest is unspoiled.”

“Yes.” Her head bobs. “Yes, I’d like that.”

Yves appears before I can say anything else, and one look at his face tells me the evening is finished.

“My lord. A car at the gate.”

“Whose?”

“Crowe’s man. He says it’s urgent and wouldn’t tell me more than that.”

Putain!

I’m on my feet. Weeks of waiting for exactly this kind of urgency, and it’s chosen tonight to arrive.

“I have to go.”

“Now?”

“Now. I have business to attend to.”

“All right.” Her hands stop on the table, and if I didn’t know better, I’d read it as disappointment. “Will you be back tonight?”

“I don’t know.”