Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
He held himself with all the dignity he could manage with her laughing her ass off at him. “There’s nothing wrong with being concerned with my wife’s health.”
“Look at my plate.” She waved at it, still laughing, though she made a blatant effort to get her glee under control. “I’m sorry—except sort of not sorry—but you caring about what I eat or don’t eat is adorable.”
He didn’t see what was so adorable about it, but the conversation could very easily have devolved into her furious at him for trying to meddle in her nutrition, so Dmitri considered being laughed at the lesser of two evils. “If you say so.”
“I do. I do very much say so.” Keira shook her head, still grinning. “Now, pick that fork back up and eat before it gets cold. I find myself eager to move on to dessert.”
Eager did not begin to cover it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Keira barely focused on the food in front of her. It tasted good, but beyond that, nothing mattered except eating enough to satisfy Dmitri so he’d have her for dessert. He never took his attention off her as they ate in comfortable silence, and she couldn’t help replaying his filling her plate over and over again in her mind.
He was… taking care of her.
There was no other way she could explain that action. She was functioning just fine, so there was no reason for Dmitri to be overly concerned with what she ate or her weight, but he obviously was—and not in a creepy douchey way, either. He wanted her healthy. He was offering to give her tips to help her get her muscle mass up to par, for God’s sake. That was not normal.
Or, rather, it wasn’t normal if he was thinking of her as a sexy lamp like she’d originally feared. It could be a manipulation tactic, but really, why bother to go through the trouble to lie so thoroughly? She was here, exactly where he wanted her. He didn’t have to put forth an effort, because she wasn’t going to leave as long as he kept his word and did everything in his power to maintain peace between himself and her family.
And yet he was making an effort.
She finished her pork chop and sat back, pleasantly full. The whole dinner had been so comfortable, she worked up the courage to ask him something she’d been wondering about since she got to New York. “What was it like growing up in this house?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just…” She waved a hand, trying to find the words. “It’s intimidating and kind of over the top. I mean, our town house in Boston is, too, but it’s a totally different feel from this place.” It might be the color choices—the walls and carpet skewing toward the darker end of the spectrum—or the furniture, all heavy and made of dark wood, or the striking lack of windows, but it kind of felt like she was in a modern-day gothic mansion. “You don’t have your first wife locked up in the attic, do you?”
He snorted. “I’m hardly Rochester.”
Of course he knows I’m referencing Jane Eyre. “I don’t know. You both have the brooding loner thing going for you. Being compared to Rochester isn’t a bad thing—he’s sexy in that should-definitely-be-in-therapy-but-is-still-a-hot-bad-boy kind of way.”
Dmitri shook his head, though his gray eyes shone with amusement. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Do that. My word is excellent even if my taste in men is questionable at best.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, back to the original question—Child Dmitri and this big, scary house.”
“I never found it scary.” He shrugged. “It’s home. It’s always been home. Though I suppose it looks that intimidating from the outside.” He hesitated as if considering imparting something else, but finally nodded almost to himself. “It reminds me a bit of my father, to be perfectly honest.”
A piece of personal information? Talk about striking gold! She strove to keep her tone nonchalant. “Oh?”
“He was forbidding. It’s not easy to hold a territory, let alone to build one, and he wasn’t interested in compartmentalizing. Everything was for the good of the family, whether it was good for the individual or no.”
“I’m familiar with the sentiment.” Her father had been the same, though she didn’t get the same angsty feeling from Dmitri that she got from most of her siblings. Seamus O’Malley was a piece of shit, and he was more than happy to pave his way to more power on the backs of his children. Their mother wasn’t much better, but she at least threw them an emotional bone every once in a while. “You loved him?”
“Love is a strange word. It calls to mind a particular feeling, which I don’t associate with my father, but I suppose I did.” Another shrug. “I respected him. I realized early on that his actions ensured the safety of our family and our men, and I watched closely so that I would be able to do the same when the time came.”