Page 103 of Silenced

Da.

But when I show her the garden that’s littered with herbs of all varieties, she grows cheerier than before. Even starts smiling when she finds the patches where roses, crocuses, violets, begonias, and larkspurs gather.

“But it’s not even spring yet,” she says like that makes sense.

To a gardener, perhaps it does.

Mostly, I watch her explore and experience a strange warmth that I don’t think I’ve known for years.

Happiness?

Surely not.

She loves flowers and herbs. Her hands, delicate in their touch, smooth over leaves and petals as if she receives sustenance from their beauty.

A part of me wonders if she has a green thumb…

And it’s then that I accept keeping her here won’t work if I don’t give her what she wants.

What she needs.

What feeds her soul.

I’m not Harvey Rundel.

I want to give her the goddamn world. I just don’t want anyone else to look upon her beauty. It’s mine.She’smine. But it’s one thing to make that claim, and it’s another for her to feel it.

For it to be imprinted on her. Branded into her soul.

That’s the only kind of claim that works—one she accepts too.

I made this first step today, agreed to her condition, because of Dmitri and his judgmental and disappointed looks. But now, seeing her here, enjoying her appreciation of a home I didn’t realize I’d built for her until I got the chance to watch her walk around it, I recognize I need to make her happy too.

When we approach the pool which is surrounded by a terrace that’s on higher ground than the house, she shields her eyes to scan the rest of the estate. “The sign... Do you have alligators?”

“We’re in the Everglades,” is all I tell her, my mind still focused onhowto make her happy within the confines of what I can cope with.

After all, it’s not just my control freak nature that needs to keep Cassiopeia locked up inNav—the danger to her is real.

Worse men than me would steal her away and hurt her. Do things to her that makes me want to wrap her in cotton and drag her back to our master suite.

“That doesn’t mean you need to have reptiles for pets. In fact…,” she signs, her face lined with disapproval as she draws me away from my dark thoughts. “…no one should have such creatures as pets. They’re not meant for domestication.”

“I never said they were domesticated. They’d be no use to me if they were.”

She frowns. “I don’t understand.”

Such naivety.

Blyad, is it any wonder that she calls to me like a magnet to metal?

“Perhaps it’s best that you don’t,” is all I say, assuming (incorrectly) that that would make her drop the subject.

She tugs on my hand as I start to walk over to the pool. It’s a surprisingly warm day, even for Florida, and it’s pitifully hot in my suit. A dip in the water would be refreshing, even more so if I got to see her swimming—

Before the idea can bear fruit, she asks, “What are they for? It’s not as if they’re pretty to look at.”

“Depends on your idea of what’s pretty,” I counter, raising a hand so that I can trail my fingers over her jaw. Her blush is beautiful, and because her skin is like porcelain, the rosy hue dances over her throat and down her chest. “You don’t think you’re beautiful, do you? Whereas I do.”

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