your favorite treat? You want cookies? Milk?”
“I was just looking for Klara,” I tell him, trying to sneak by on his right side.
He straightens up, stepping in front of me to block my path.
“I know how to cook, too,” he says. “You know Klara’s my cousin? Anything she can do, I can do better . . .”
I try not to let my face show how disgusted I feel. Jonas always makes everything sound like sexual innuendo. Even if I don’t understand his meaning, I can tell he’s trying to provoke me.
“Let me pass, please,” I say quietly.
“To go where?” Jonas says, in a low voice. “Do you have some hiding spot I don’t know about?”
“Jonas,” someone barks from the doorway.
Jonas whips around even quicker than I do. We both recognize Mikolaj’s voice.
“Hey, boss,” Jonas says, trying to recover his casual tone.
There’s nothing casual in Mikolaj’s expression. His eyes are narrowed to slits and his lips are pale.
“Odejdź od niej,” he hisses.
Get away from her.
“Tak, Szefie,” Jonas says, with a little bow of his head. Yes, boss.
Jonas hurries out of the kitchen. Mikolaj doesn’t move to let him pass, so Jonas has to turn sideways before scurrying away.
Under Mikolaj’s blazing stare, I feel like I’ve done something wrong, too. I can’t look him in the eye.
“Don’t talk to him,” Mikolaj orders, low and furious.
“I don’t want to talk to him!” I cry, outraged. “He’s the one bothering me! I hate him!”
“Good,” Mikolaj says.
He has the strangest look on his face. I can’t understand it at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think he was jealous.
I expect him to say something else, but instead he turns and stalks away without another word. I hear him go out through the conservatory door, and when I peer out through the window, I see him striding off across the lawn, to the far end of the grounds.
I’m confused and infuriated.
Of all the people in this house, I think about Mikolaj the most.
I don’t want to. But I can’t help it. When he’s in the house, I feel like I’m trapped inside a tiger’s cage with the tiger roaming around. I can’t ignore him, I have to keep track of where he is, what he’s doing, so he can’t creep up behind me.
But when he’s out it’s even worse, because I know he’s doing something awful, probably to the people I love most.
I don’t think he’s killed any of them yet. I don’t believe he has. I’d hear his men talking about it. Or he’d tell me himself, just to gloat.
But I can feel the wheels turning, rushing us down the track to this destination he’s set. The train keeps chugging on.
Which is why I should hate him, more than I hate Jonas.
It should be the easiest thing in the world to despise him. He kidnapped me. He ripped me away from everything I love, and locked me up in this house.
Yet, when I look in the bubbling mixture of emotions swirling around in my guts, I find fear, confusion, anxiety. But a strange sense of respect. And even, sometimes, arousal . . .
I want to know more about my captor. I tell myself that it’s only so I can stand up to him. Or maybe even escape.
But there’s more to it than that. I’m curious about him. He was so angry about those tattoos. I want to know why. I want to know exactly what they mean to him.
That’s why, once I know he’s out on the grounds, I get a very stupid idea in my head.
I want to see what’s in the west wing.
He told me not to go there, in no uncertain terms.
What’s he hiding there? Weapons? Money? Evidence of his dastardly plan?
There’s no door to keep me out. Just a wide, curved staircase, the twin of the one that leads to my own rooms.
It’s so easy to run up those steps, to the long hallway that leads west instead of east.
I expect the forbidden wing to be even darker and creepier than my own, but the opposite is true—this part of the house is the most modern. I see a lounge with a fully stocked bar, and then a huge study. This must be Mikolaj’s office. I see his safe, his desk, his computer. If I actually care about his plans, this is where I should snoop around.
Instead, I find myself continuing down the hall, to the largest room at the end. The master suite.
It’s huge, modern, and masculine. As