The fog of sleep thinned slightly when I sensed myself be lifted. My eyelids briefly fluttered open, and I saw that dusk had almost fallen. I was cradled against Dane’s chest, and he was walking. Drained and relaxed, I didn’t move a muscle; just let him carry me, my mind so hazy the whole thing felt very dreamlike.
I barely stirred when I felt myself be lowered to the bed. I was too tired to even open my eyes. The weight of the soft coverlet came over me, and I almost let out a contented sigh.
Fingers brushed my hair out of my face, and a warm mouth grazed my temple. “You should have known better than to think I’d so easily let you go,” he whispered, the words so low and soft I barely caught them.
I felt something flick my engagement ring, adjusting its position, and then footsteps padded out of the room. Sleep tightened its grip on me and swept me under yet again.
Chapter Twenty
Well, this was different.
Feeling somewhat befuddled, I stood in the doorway of the kitchen the next morning and just stared at my fake husband. Not once in the entire time I’d lived here had I come downstairs to find him cooking breakfast for us. There were occasions when we’d sort of “crossed paths” in the kitchen and so we’d eaten toast or cereal or Danish pastries at the same time. But neither of us had ever prepared food for the other in the morning. Until now.
I wasn’t complaining. It smelled so good, and I was famished. But, yeah, it made me a little suspicious. Perhaps that just meant I was cynical. I supposed I’d soon find out.
As if sensing me, Dane glanced over his shoulder. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
He tipped his chin at the island. “Sit,” he invited and then went back to plating the food.
I crossed to the island and slid onto a stool. There was a mug of steaming coffee waiting for me, along with cutlery. How solicitous. And very un-Dane-like.
He set two plates down on the island that were topped with eggs, bacon, sausages, toast, and breakfast potatoes. My brows lifted. He’d gone all out.
“Thank you,” I said, picking up my cutlery.
He sat on the stool opposite me. “Sleep well?”
“I did, thanks. You?”
He shrugged and dug into his food.
I did the same and, damn, it was good. One thing I’d learned about Dane was that he knew his way around the kitchen. He was competent at so many things; it made me feel a little inadequate. I’d have been able to better enjoy the meal if it weren’t for the nagging feeling in my gut that this apparent good deed wouldn’t be “free.”
Halfway through my meal, I asked, “Okay, what is it that you want from me? I’d rather just know now.”
He lifted his mug. “I must have an ulterior motive if I cooked us breakfast?”
“You generally don’t do things out of the goodness of your heart,” I pointed out. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that you cooked, no matter why you did it. I’d just prefer to know now what it is that you’re after.”
“All I want is for you to finish your breakfast.” He took a sip of his coffee and then went back to his meal.
Still uneasy, I nonetheless turned my attention back to my food. No matter what the dude said, I was quite sure this wasn’t merely a kind or courteous gesture. Maybe he’d done this to soften me up. It was possible he worried I might still be too upset to stay; that he thought trying his hand at being “nice” would make me less likely to walk. Dane’s motivations sometimes only made sense to him.
Feeling his eyes on me, I looked up to see him studying me over the rim of his mug. I frowned and swallowed the last of my eggs. “What?”
“You should invite your family to come here for dinner one night.”
He … he wanted people to come to his house? This was new. “Why?”
“Because you miss them.” He put down his mug. “You went from visiting them often to barely seeing them. Why?”
“They kept asking if something was ‘wrong at home’ because I visited them so frequently; they thought you and me might be having problems, especially since you didn’t go with me to see them.”
His brow furrowed. “I was with you when you last saw your foster parents, and the last two occasions you visited Simon.”
“Yes, and they watched us like hawks the whole time, looking for clues that our marriage might be on the rocks already.”
“That’s all the more reason to invite them here. They need to see that everything is fine.”
But things didn’t feel fine. Not when I was now aware of just how easily this man could hurt me. The crush had allowed for a degree of emotional separation. I didn’t have that anymore; he’d penetrated my defenses, and the strong sense of possessiveness I felt shook me up.
In general, I struggled to lower my guard around people. I was too wary, too distrustful. It didn’t matter how nice a guy was, I always seemed to be waiting for him to mess up. I hated that about myself; hated that I expected people to hurt me. It wasn’t fair to them.
Dane wasn’t sweet or cuddly or kind, and I suspected that that was why he’d been able to slip around my defenses. I hadn’t expected him to be a real threat to them, so I hadn’t been fully on my guard. I’d pretty much handed him the power to hurt me on a silver fucking platter, and it sucked large.
“I don’t know how good I’d be at convincing my family that all is ‘fine.’” It wasn’t just that I was so emotionally off-balance; it was that I was somewhat pettily pissed that I was the only one having this emotional crisis. If he’d been sent incriminating pictures of me, he’d have been angry that I might have broken my word, but he wouldn’t have felt any of the black jealousy that had slithered through me last night.
“Why is that?”
“Having people play games all the time is starting to get to me,” I fudged. “I think it would affect my … performance, shall we say?”
“Performance?” he echoed, a dark note in his tone.
I pushed my empty plate aside and shrugged one shoulder. “Isn’t that what we do? Perform?”
“Hmm.” He pinned me with that hunter stare, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. He edged off the stool and crossed to me, never once moving his eyes from mine. “Tell me.”
I felt my brows draw together. “What?”
“Tell me what’s on your mind. Don’t say nothing. You were fine until you received the flash drive—and once I can prove Heather was behind it, I will make her pay. Now you look like you’re carrying a heavy weight on your shoulders.”
There were times when I really despised how perceptive he was. Like seriously despised it.
“You said you believed my explanation of those photographs,” he went on. “Was that the truth?”
“Yes. I believe you.”
“Then what is it that’s bothering you?”
“Like I said, having people play games with us is getting to me. I’m tired of it.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
Dane put his face closer to mine. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered. “Something’s wrong, and it’s connected to that flash drive. We’re doing enough lying to the outside world, Vienna. We can’t bullshit each other as well; we need to be on the same page. Last night, you said you need me to be straight with you when it counts. I will be. You have my word on that. I told you everything you wanted to know. Now, I need you to be straight with me.”