Page 66 of The Wrong Man

I don’t know how to reconcile these two versions of Dante. The monster and the man who buys me pistachio nuts because I once mentioned wanting to try making macarons.

“There’s more,” he says, reaching into another bag.

He pulls out a book. A thick, heavy book with a glossy cover and photographs of impossibly perfect pastries. I recognize it immediately. It’s a classic, written by one of the premier pastry chefs in France. The kind of cookbook that costs an arm and a leg and is practically required reading for anyone serious about baking.

“The woman at the bookshop said it was definitive.” Dante says, holding it out to me.

My hands are trembling as I take the book from him. It’s heavy. Solid. Real.

Our fingers brush during the handover, and I feel it like a small electric shock. Which is absurd. Which is my body being ridiculous and traitorous and completely unhelpful.

I flip it open and breathe in the smell of fresh paper and ink. The pages are glossy and filled with beautiful photographs, step-by-step instructions, diagrams of technique. It’s gorgeous. It’s perfect.

It’s the nicest gift anyone has ever given me.

No. Not a gift. A manipulation. He’s trying to make me like him, trying to make me forget what he is. This is all part of some strategy, some plan to keep me compliant and grateful and too comfortable to try escaping.

Except that doesn’t quite fit either, does it? Because I’m the one who’s supposed to be doing the manipulating. I’m the one with the grand scheme. Dante doesn’t know I’m playing him. Dante just... bought me a cookbook.

“Thank you,” I manage, and my voice cracks embarrassingly in the middle.

“You’re welcome.”

We stand there in the tiny kitchen, surrounded by baking ingredients and the weight of things neither of us are saying. The book is heavy in my hands. Dante’s eyes are dark and intent on my face, watching my reaction like it matters to him.

It does matter to him. That’s the terrifying part. It actually, genuinely matters to him whether I like his gift.

“I could try making them now,” I hear myself saying. “The macarons. If you wanted to watch. Or help. Not that you have to help, obviously, you probably have better things to do, more important things, torture things, wait, no, forget I said that, I didn’t mean...”

“I would like to watch,” Dante interrupts, mercifully putting an end to my verbal catastrophe. “If that’s alright.”

“It’s alright. It’s fine. It’s grand. It’s fantastic, actually, because macarons are tricky and it helps to have someone else there in case I mess up, which I probably will, because I always mess up macarons, that’s the whole point, the whole reason you bought all this stuff, which was really thoughtful by the way, did I mention that? Really, really thoughtful.”

Stop talking, Dylan. For the love of all that is holy, stop talking.

Dante’s lips twitch. Not quite a smile, but close. That almost expression that I’m starting to recognize, the one that suggests he finds my rambling more amusing than annoying.

And God help me, he has a nice mouth. Full lips, the bottom one slightly fuller than the top. The kind of mouth that probably looks devastating when it actually smiles properly. Not that I’ve seen that yet. Not that I’m hoping to.

This is just how I am around attractive men. It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve always been a disaster around anyone remotely good looking. There was that incident with the delivery driver last year that Sean still won’t let me live down. And the time I walked into a door because I was distracted by a customer’s forearms.

The fact that Dante is objectively, irritatingly handsome is simply an inconvenient complication. Nothing more.

“Do you need anything else?” he asks. “For the macarons?”

I look at the spread of ingredients on the counter. Almond flour, powdered sugar, egg whites. Butter and cream for the filling. Vanilla, rose, pistachio for flavoring. He even bought gel food coloring, those little bottles that are better than liquid dye for getting vibrant colors.

“I think you covered everything,” I say. “Did you memorize a recipe or something?”

“I asked the woman at the specialty shop. She was very helpful.”

I imagine Dante, intense and serious and more than a little intimidating, standing in a fancy baking supply shop and asking about macaron ingredients. Probably making the poor shop assistant nervous with those dark eyes and that jawline and that general aura of contained danger.

The image is so incongruous it almost makes me laugh.

Almost. I’m not quite ready to laugh with my captor. Even if he does buy me cookbooks and remember throwaway comments and look at me like I’m something precious.

That’s the manipulation talking, I remind myself firmly. He’s keeping you docile. Making you comfortable. It doesn’t mean anything.