Page 117 of Cruel Promise

“You could say that.” I grab a cup of coffee and practically down it. It doesn’t make me feel better at all.

“Well, a nice plate of food always helps with that,” Claude says, handing me a plate filled with so many breakfast items, it’s almost overwhelming. “Eat it all. You’re getting too skinny.”

“Is that your purpose? To make me gain weight?” I take a bite of the French toast. It’s heavenly.

“Yes,” he says point blank. “The fatter the people, the more food they eat, and the more money I make.”

“You work for Nikolai,” I point out. “He’s not overweight.”

“No, but he works out and has a huge appetite, which makes me happy. Whereas you …” He looks me up and down. “You don’t work out. So, getting fat is the better option for me.”

“Claude, you’re terrible,” Mrs. Brown scolds, but there’s laughter to her voice. “Eat up, dear.”

The more I eat, the better I feel. “Claude, you’re getting better at making me eat, I’ll give you that.”

He gives me a grumpy but appreciative smile, and I smile in return.

Then Nikolai enters the room, completely changing the mood.

He looks at me with his usual intensity, but it doesn’t mean much now that I know he doesn’t truly care for me. If he did, he never would have left me last night.

“Ava,” he says in his gruff voice.

“Nikolai.”

He continues to look at me, making both Claude and Mrs. Brown avert their eyes. The whole room feels awkward.

After a long moment, he grabs a cup of coffee, and the intensity dissipates.

“I was just telling your wife that I need to fatten her up,” Claude says, chuckling.

“Don’t talk about my wife,” Nikolai snaps.

Claude instantly looks embarrassed, and he goes back to chopping celery. For what? I have no idea.

“Claude was just making a joke,” I say. I can’t believe I’m at a point where I’m siding with Claude, but here we are.

Nikolai sets his intense eyes back onto me. It takes everything inside me not to flinch. “Claude is my chef. He’s not your friend. And he would do well not to get too comfortable with you. You’re mine, Ava.”

“I can talk to whoever I want.”

“That may be a problem.”

I stand up, my heart beating fast. “No. You don’t get to control me. Not after last night.Youleft. Not me.”

For a moment, Nikolai looks chastened, but then his usual gruffy demeanor takes back over. “I have to go to work.”

“I have to go to school.”

He nods once and then leaves.

Mrs. Brown looks at me with wide eyes. “What was that about?”

I crumple back onto my seat, trying not to cry, but when Mrs. Brown asks me again, how I am, I can’t hold back the tears.

“Dear,” she says, taking my hand. The comfort reminds me so much of my mother. I know Nikolai is looking into her disappearance, but he hasn’t found anything yet. Now I’m worried he won’t continue to look for her as a punishment to me.

I run out of the kitchen and stop Nikolai in the foyer. “Wait.”

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