Page 42 of Control
“I like these on you more. Feel better?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Define ‘better.’”
“Alive.”
Sinking onto the edge of the bed, she gives a humorless laugh. “Barely.”
There’s a bitterness in her tone that I recognize all too well. It’s the sound of someone who’s seen too much, lost too much.
“Eat something,” I say, handing her a plate of pasta I whipped up in the kitchen earlier.
She stares at it like it’s a foreign object before raising her brows in mock surprise. “You eat and cook?”
I laugh. “Sometimes.”
“Doesn’t seem like your style.”
I smirk. “What’s my style, then?”
“Brooding in the dark. Whiskey. Cigars. Off with his head now.”
She’s not wrong, but I don’t tell her that.
“You’re welcome,” I say instead as I sit across from her. “Now eat.”
******
The bedroom is dim, the only light coming from the lamp on the nightstand. The bed is also unmade, the sheets crumpled from the last time I managed to get more than a few hours of sleep. I guide her to the edge, and she sits down without protest.
“You should rest,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
She looks up at me, her hazel eyes glassy but sharp. “Why are you doing all this?”
“Doing what?”
“Being…nice,” she says, the word seeming foreign on her tongue. “You’re not exactly the nurturing type.”
I shrug. “Don’t read too much into it. You were about to collapse. It seemed practical to let you do that somewhere soft.”
She huffs—a weak attempt at a laugh. “Practical. Right.”
I hand her a bottle of water from the nightstand. She takes it without a word, her fingers brushing mine for a split second. Her hands are cold, even after the shower.
“You’ll stay here,” I tell her. “At least until things calm down.”
She looks at me again with the same sharpness in her eyes. “And what if they don’t?”
Her look doesn’t waver, but there’s a flicker of something in her hazel eyes. Fear? Defiance? Or maybe…curiosity. It’s impossible to tell with her, and that frustrates me more than I care to admit.
“You don’t have to act like you’re protecting me,” she says after a moment. “I know what this is.”
“And what’s that?”
“Damage control.”
Her words are like a slap to my face. Maybe because they’re not entirely wrong. But they’re not entirely right, either.
I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees. “You think I dragged you out of there and put myself on the line just to keep the peace? I don’t do charity, Daniela. If you’re still breathing, there’s a reason for it.”
