Chapter 23 Chapter Twenty Three
"I…"
I had an answer ready that I'd rehearsed on my way here in case anyone noticed the giant red handprint on my face that was now turning into an ugly bruise.
It was perfectly reasonable, one that wouldn't reveal anything about my broken family life, and I was about to deliver it when my stomach growled loudly, finishing the sentence for me.
Jace looked down at my stomach.
I looked at the door frame and cleared my throat. "Uh... Can I come in or...?"
He stepped back and jerked his head in a come-in motion, then turned and walked toward the kitchen, leaving me standing on the doorstep deciding whether my dignity could survive the next few minutes.
It was going to have to.
I braced myself and followed him in.
The kitchen was quiet and bright, morning light streaming through the large windows and landing across the marble island in long gold strips.
Jace went straight to the fridge, pulling out eggs, milk, butter. Then to the pantry for flour. Had a mixing bowl on the counter and was cracking eggs into it before I'd fully processed what was happening.
"No wait… You don't have to do that…"
"Sit down."
"I'm fine, really, I already ate…" I lied.
"Lena." He set the whisk down with a small deliberate click, his voice low and more than a little irritated. "I didn't ask you to argue with me. I asked you to sit down."
"But I'm not hungry."
He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "I said sit."
I pulled out the stool and sat.
"I was going to eat at home," I said, mostly just to have said it. I couldn't have him misunderstanding the situation and thinking my family was so poor we couldn't afford food.
Knowing him, he would probably just turn that into another weapon against me.
"And did you?" He asked, whisking the batter with practiced efficiency.
I looked at the counter blankly. Truthfully, the answer was no. I wanted nothing to do with my mother after her betrayal, not even her food. I was also afraid I would run into Gerard, so I never went to get breakfast in the kitchen.
"That's what I thought." He turned on the stove, let the pan heat, and added a pat of butter that sizzled immediately.
I watched him pour the first pancake, the batter spreading into a perfect circle. He moved around the kitchen with an ease that surprised me—flipping it at exactly the right moment, sliding it onto a plate then starting the next one.
He set the plate in front of me and glared at me till I took one bite off my fork.
It wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was probably the best tasting one I'd ever had in my life.
I had to bite back a small moan because it was incredible. So light and fluffy and... hold on a second.
"Is there something in this?" I asked.
He looked up from the stove. "What do you mean?"
"The pancakes." I gestured at them with my fork. "Is there something in them?"
He stared at me, then repeated, "Is there something in the pancakes?"
"I'm just asking."
"Do you think I poisoned them or what?"
"I think you're being suspiciously nice to me and I'm not sure what to make of it."
I saw the corner of his mouth twitch as he came very close to actually smiling before he caught himself and stopped.
"You watched me make them, so you tell me."
"Okay," I said.
"Eat the food, Hartwell. Besides, if there was poison in them, it would be too late to question it now because you'd already be dead."
He muttered, turning back to flip another pancake.
He went back to cooking and I went back to my plate and the kitchen fell into comfortable silence, which was so deeply odd given everything that had happened between us that I decided not to examine it right then.
There would be plenty of time to think about it later, but first I had to focus on work.
To my surprise, I actually finished the whole stack, scraping up the last bit of syrup and setting my fork down and sitting there for a moment feeling more at rest than I had since yesterday morning.
I picked up the plate and took it to the sink to rinse it, muttering a small, "Thank you."
The water ran warm over my hands and I rinsed it slowly, looking at nothing in particular through the window above the sink, noticing now that the garden outside that used to be dotted with white and pink flowers was now just pink.
Every single white plant—the ones that had caused me to sneeze yesterday—had been removed and replaced at Jace's command.
I didn't know what to make of that either, and it was in my half-confused state that I felt him before I heard him.
That shift in the air, the warmth of another person close behind me, and then his arm came past my shoulder, reaching up to the cabinet above, putting the flour back where it belonged.
He was so close that I could feel the heat coming off his bare chest, his breath on my neck while his arms kept me trapped against the sink and I stopped breathing for a second.
He didn't move away immediately and neither did I.
Instead, he spun me around to face him, and I turned with the rinsed plate still in my hands, trapped between him and the sink.
He was right there, close, looking at my face with focused attention, and then his hand came up to touch my cheek.
I shrank back, tilting my head out of his reach, my eyes wide. "Don't—"
He tilted my chin up anyway, just with two fingers, turning my face slightly toward the light, and I let him because I was tired and off balance and having a proper meal for the first time in months had apparently dismantled some of my defenses.
His eyes moved over my cheek and his jaw tightened.
"Let go," I said quietly. "Please."
"You still haven't told me where you got this."
We were close enough that I could see the way his eyes had gone still and dark and dangerous, and I couldn't take my eyes off his.
"I fell," I said.
He looked at me with clear disbelief. "I may not be the smartest person in the room, Lena, but I wasn't born yesterday. Tell me who did it."
"I fell," I said again. "I was tired on my way home from the funeral and I tripped. It's nothing."
He held my gaze for a long moment, looking like he was going to push it and force the answer out of me, but ultimately he dropped his hand and stepped back.
I breathed a sigh of relief, set the plate in the drying rack and straightened my bag on my shoulder. "Can we focus on the work please? I'd appreciate it if you didn't ask me any more personal questions."
"Martin's still in the shower," he said.
"That's fine, I can set up downstairs and…"
"Someone's coming to clean the kitchen in twenty minutes. It'll be loud." He picked his phone up off the counter. "We'll work upstairs."
I looked at him.
"You mean… in your room?"
"Is that going to be a problem?"
"Jace," I said his name carefully. "I don't think that's the most professional thing for me to do right now. Besides, the last time we were alone together… it didn't end well for either of us...."
"That was last week."
"It was two days ago."
"Ancient history." He was already moving toward the hallway. "I won't bite you, Hartwell. Probably."
"That's really not reassuring at all."
He reached the foot of the staircase and turned around, one hand on the bannister, looking back at me waiting for me to follow.
"Well?" he asked. "Aren't you coming?"