Page 55 of The Wrong Man

“I think I’ll start with something simple,” Dylan says, surveying his new domain with a critical eye. “Scones, maybe. They’re forgiving, and they don’t need to rise for hours. Plus, they’re best eaten warm, so we can have them with tea.”

We. He said we.

“I’ve never had homemade scones,” I admit.

Dylan stares at me like I’ve just confessed to a crime. “Never? Not once in your entire life?”

“I grew up in... unconventional circumstances. Home baking wasn’t really a priority.”

Something flickers across his face. Curiosity, maybe. Or sympathy. He doesn’t push, though, doesn’t ask the questions I can see forming behind his eyes.

“Well,” he says instead, “we’ll have to fix that. Tomorrow, I’ll make you scones. Proper ones, with clotted cream and jam. It’ll change your life.”

He’s teasing me. Gently, carefully, but definitely teasing. It’s such a normal thing to do, such an ordinary human interaction, that for a moment I forget where we are. Forget what I am. Forget that he’s here because I kidnapped him and tortured him and refuse to let him go.

For a moment, we’re just two people in a kitchen, talking about scones.

Then reality crashes back in, and I have to look away before he sees whatever is showing on my face.

“I should let you rest,” I say. “You’ve been on your feet too long.”

“I feel fine.” But even as he says it, I can see the fatigue creeping back into his features. The adrenaline of excitement is wearing off, leaving behind the bone-deep tiredness of a body still recovering.

“You feel fine now. You’ll feel terrible in an hour if you don’t rest.”

He sighs, but doesn’t argue. “Okay. Fine. But tomorrow...”

“Tomorrow you’ll make scones. I promise.”

That smile again. Warm and genuine and utterly devastating.

“It’s a date,” he says, and then immediately blushes at his own words. “I mean... not a date. Obviously. Just... a plan. An appointment. A...”

“I know what you meant,” I say, and I can hear the amusement in my own voice. Amusement. When was the last time anyone made me feel amused?

I walk him back to the bedroom and wait while he settles into bed. He’s asleep almost before his head hits the pillow, exhaustion finally winning out over excitement.

I stand in the doorway for a long moment, watching him sleep. The rise and fall of his chest. The way his hair falls across his forehead. The peaceful expression on his face, so different from the terror that defined his first days here.

Something is happening to me. Something I don’t understand and can’t control. Something that feels like falling, except I’ve never fallen before and I don’t know what waits at the bottom.

I’ve spent my whole life building walls. Learning to be hard, cold, impenetrable. Emotion is weakness. Connection is vulnerability. Care about nothing, and nothing can be used against you.

Dylan is dismantling those walls one smile at a time. One thank you at a time. One brush of fingers against my arm at a time.

And the terrifying thing is, I’m letting him.

I close the bedroom door quietly and retreat to the living room. To the horrible orange sofa that’s become my bed. To the silence and the solitude that used to feel like safety and now just feels like absence.

Tomorrow he’ll make scones. Tomorrow we’ll sit together and eat something he created with his own hands, in a kitchen I stocked for him, with equipment I bought because I wanted to see him smile.

Tomorrow I’ll fall a little further.

And I still won’t be able to stop myself.

Chapter seventeen

Dylan