Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“Cachama,” he says, lifting the knife to flick a smear of green off the blade. “We’re roasting it whole. Fresh this morning. Your father says the ambassador likes a show.”
The fish lies on a sheet, skin cleaned and scored, white flesh peeking through neat diagonal cuts. The sight of it calms me the way clean lines calm anyone who lives under chaos.
I step closer, my blue skirt swooshing around my ankles. “What are you putting on it?”
He doesn’t answer. He reaches for a bowl and sets it closer to me. “Smell.”
It’s lime and garlic and something smokier. Cilantro, chopped until it looks like confetti.
He hands me a wooden spoon and a wedge of lime. “Finish,” he says and nods at the bowl.
I squeeze the lime and stir. “I’ve…never done this,” I say.
He grins. “I see you watching. Reading cookbooks. It’s time to learn.”
I taste the sauce with the tip of the spoon. My eyes flutter. Acidic and garlicky and so delicious. I want to climb into the bowl and live there.
“Good,” I say and smile despite myself. “It’s—”
“Don’t taste with the preparation spoon,” he says, but he isn’t scolding. He’s amused. He takes a different spoon, dips it again, and holds it toward me. “Taste properly.”
I do. The lime lifts and the cumin warms.
When I set the spoon down, he’s closer. He takes my hand, pinches the pad of my index finger, and guides it across a streak of marinade that has slopped onto the rim. “This is how chefs taste when they’re too lazy to dirty another dish,” he says lightly. He lifts my hand—my finger—to his mouth.
He shouldn’t.
But he does.
His tongue is quick, a damp swipe, and then he chuckles like we’ve shared a private joke.
“I’m sorry,” I say, even though sorry isn’t the right word. I’m not sorry for my hand. I’m sorry for existing in here.
“Don’t be.” He looks me over, touching the full skirt of my dress. “This color makes promises you should be careful making.”
Heat surges up my neck. I step back. “I should— They need me in the parlor.”
“They don’t,” he says, arranging the fish on the tray. “Stay here. Learn something useful.”
I stay. He hands me a bowl of minced garlic. I tip it into the marinade and stir. “How much salt?” I ask.
“A dash,” he says and nods toward the walk-in pantry. “More cumin. Top shelf.”
The pantry is cool and smells like dry things—grains, spices, the whisper of onions. I reach for the cumin and set my fingers on the jar when the door swings shut behind me.
It isn’t the loud thump of someone slamming. It’s a deliberate click.
Fear surges through me.
“Chef?” I say, half laughing, because I’ve learned that laughing makes everything a bit more tolerable. “Is there a trick to the latch?”
He answers by closing the distance between us. The shelves dig into my hips, and I let go of the jar of cumin. Chef sets his hand on the shelf beside my shoulder and leans in close enough that I can smell his breath—a strange mixture of garlic, onion, and peppermint.
“Your father expects you to be charming tonight,” he says. “Do you want me to tell him you were hiding in the pantry while the guests arrived?”
“No,” I say. My voice cracks. “I came to— I just— The marinade.”
“Mmm hmm.” He sets a fingertip under my chin and lifts it a fraction, enough that I have to look at him or close my eyes.
I close them.
He laughs, low. “Blue suits you,” he says.
Next he…
I can’t think.
I can’t move.
The girl in that pantry is sixteen and afraid and trying to hold onto a shred of herself in a house that expects too much from her. So she does what girls do when grown men corner them in rooms with no windows.
She survives.
Mouth open.
Throat gagging.
Big smelly dick in her mouth.
Hammy hands on her cheeks.
And movement. Lot of movement.
When the door opens again, the kitchen looks the same as it did five minutes earlier, and I look almost the same, if you don’t know where to look. Chef goes back to the fish. I go back to the marinade. My dress is still blue.
On my way out of the kitchen, he grins again, raking his gaze over me. “Wear that again. It’s lovely.”
Present Day…
Back in Raven’s kitchen, the present snaps back over the past like a fitted sheet. I’m holding the counter with both hands, arms locked, shoulders burning.
Wear the blue thing I like.
I swallow bile. He wants me dressed the way I looked when he figured out precisely how far he could push me before I broke.
Belinda.
I shut my eyes and picture her innocent beauty, her blondness, her immature intelligence and her mature musical talent. The way she plays scales too fast because she wants to get to the actual music.