I snuggled lower in the blanket and quietened my mind.

The outside world didn’t matter—not while we couldn’t access it.

Which meant this inside world was far more important because we had to live together. Hopefully harmoniously.

“I can’t convince you of something you don’t want to be convinced about.” I yawned, trying to stifle it into the pillow. “All I can do is tell you the truth.”

He didn’t move.

I waited for him to feign sleep or finally leave, but he shocked me as he slowly rolled onto his side, facing me. “What truth?”

My gaze locked on his mouth.

So close.

So perfect.

I followed the line of his nose, and I lost myself in his eyes.

I completely forgot what I wanted to say.

His throat worked as he swallowed, almost as if he was just as affected as I was.

Whisper huffed, popping up from the floor as if sensing something was going on that needed to be monitored. He placed both paws on the mattress and went to join us.

“Stay down there, you dumb beast,” Lucien ordered.

“Hey.” I scowled. “I told you not to call him dumb.”

“You’re sticking up for him now?”

I nodded, my hair catching on the pillow. “Someone has to after living with you for so long.”

His lips curved in the corners, almost against their will. Beneath all his lethal, murderous exterior, his soul didn’t seem to be made of the same steel imprisoning it. His heart was undeniably broken from loneliness and slightly insane from being trapped, but it was still functioning. Still...human.

I hope.

My own heart swelled and the constant pain in my head faded a little. Whatever healing I’d given him seemed to work both ways. The longer he lay beside me, hidden in the dark where no one else could see or judge us, the more I found peace that I hadn’t felt since before I became an orphan.

“The truth...” I whispered, wrenching his gaze back to mine as I answered his lingering question. “The truth is that you might be trapped in here because of your family’s company, but I ran away from mine because I couldn’t cope.”

He didn’t speak, his eyes dancing over mine as if trying to rip out my secrets faster than I could spill them.

“Your weakness is forced,” I continued quietly. “But me? My weakness is my own nervous system. I told you I prefer to avoid all kinds of pressure, work, and expectations. I’m sure I come across as lazy and entitled, but it’s a coping mechanism.”

Once again, he stayed silent, letting me try to put into words what the doctors had trouble diagnosing.

“There are few names for it and I’m unsure which one I fall into, but psychogenic syncope or functional neurological disorder is probably the closest.”

He didn’t move, his breathing even and steady.

“I get stress-induced blackouts and trauma migraines. However...” I licked my lips, highly aware as his gaze dropped, locking onto my mouth. “Working for you is the first time I’ve been able to handle stress in a very long time. It’s surprised me, actually. I should pass out every time I’m around you with how fast you make my heart race but...there’s something about you.”

I didn’t know what else to add without sounding as if I was using my own condition to manipulate him. I also didn’t want to sound like I was searching for pity and so...I stopped.

Silence fell again, dense and soft.

Whisper settled on the floor and Lucien rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.

Time ticked onwards until the drowsiness in my system stuck to my thoughts, dragging me slowly into dreams.

And just as I slipped from this world into sleep, Lucien’s voice tangled with the night. “There’s something about you too.”

My eyes flew wide.

He rolled onto his other side, giving me his back as he added, “I just don’t know if I like it.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“GO AND TATTLE, I DON’T CARE.” Moving toward the cat, I ducked and pressed a loud kiss on his giant silky head. “I’m leaving. Tell that nasty boss that I’m taking tomorrow off for sanity reasons.”

I’d hoped after our stolen softness in the dark last night, that my relationship with the master of this mansion might’ve improved.

But it hadn’t.

When I’d woken this morning, Lucien was nowhere to be found and the cloudy, drizzly day did its best to convince me it had all been a strange kind of dream.

By the time Whisper had appeared to drag me to work, I wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t.

No sign that Lucien had slept beside me.

No note. No messages.

Even the apple that he’d snatched from my teeth and tossed across the room had been placed—with a single bite missing—on the kitchen bench.

I’d worked on my own for hours. Doing things for the sake of doing them all while hyper-focused on the smallest sound, waiting for Lucien to appear and continue our...whatever this was.

But he hadn’t appeared and I was sick of toiling.

My feet ached. My back smarted. My hands were chapped and shoulders twinged and all I wanted to do was take a nap.

I missed my lazy lifestyle.

I missed doing nothing whenever I wanted to do nothing.

I missed zoning out and letting life happen around me without having to participate.

Ever since I’d been dragged into Cinderkeep, I’d been forced to be an active participant, and it was getting rather troublesome.

“He hasn’t let me have a day off since I started working for him,” I complained to my manager, the panther, as I headed toward the kitchen. “I’ve been working for free all this time. I have a good mind to write up a contract with employment laws stating how badly he abuses me.”

Whisper snorted as he followed me into the kitchen.

“He won’t pay me, so...I’ll have to improvise.” Beelining for the cupboard holding all the delicious floral, fruity wine, I wrenched open the door and smiled at the mismatched earthen jars.

I pilfered the closest one. A cherry-blossom concoction that I’d tried last week and found to be pleasantly potent.

It would work well as a sleeping draught and hopefully, once I woke up, my constant headache would be gone.

Hugging the wine, I turned to face Whisper.

“See you around, tiny cat.”

My legs broke into a fast walk, eagerness to be alone making me rush.

If Lucien didn’t want to clear the air between us from yesterday, fine. I was stupid to expect anything different. But I wouldn’t let him manipulate me with emotions or work like an idiot.

It was either cold distance or thawing friendship.

Not both.

Whisper shadowed me as I left Lucien’s quarters and made my way down the labyrinth of corridors. Arriving at the octagon-shaped foyer, I hugged the wine jar, ridiculously excited at the thought of a heavenly afternoon doing nothing—

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I squeaked and spun around.

The wine slipped from my arms.

It fell—

In a streak of black, Lucien darted forward and caught the cherry-blossom alcohol before it smashed to the marble floor.

Straightening, he glowered at me. “Stealing?”

I backed up a little. “I thought you were hiding from me.”

“And you thought you’d leave? Without my permission?”

“I’m tired.”

“So?”

“I’m not feeling very well.”

“And I am?”

I scowled. “This isn’t a competition.”

“You’re right. It’s not.” Backing up, he smirked coldly. “You work for me, and you can only go when I say you can go.”

The urge to stomp my feet or sit down in protest made my head throb. “I’ve been working for weeks in a row. I deserve a day off.”

“Deserve?” His eyes narrowed. “That’s a strong word.”

Heat flared in my chest.

Was he deliberately being nasty again after the moment we’d shared last night?

Because if he was...ugh.