Page 41 of Bitter Desire
I liked the way my clothes looked here, even if it was only a few things. I shut the light off and left the closet, making for the kitchen. When I entered the kitchen I stopped dead in my tracks and my mouth fell open.
There wasn’t just the coffee and bacon that I had smelled, there was a full breakfast spread on the kitchen table. How early had this man gotten up? Since when did he know how to make pancakes and frittatas?
“Mornin’,” Law greeted me from where he was setting down a bowl of fruit salad at the table.
“Good morning,” I returned, trying not to sound as shocked as I felt.
“What is it?” he asked me, raising an eyebrow at the look of shock on my face.
“Did you make all of this?” I asked, nodding at the table. I hitched a hip against the counter beside the coffee maker and reached for the cup Law had set out.
He laughed. “Fuck no. I tried to make some bacon, fucked that up and remembered this is New York and you can get anything you want at any time, so why not use that for breakfast. I did make the coffee, though.”
I grinned, pouring the coffee into my cup. “Okay that makes way more sense.”
“Oh, you doubt my kitchen skills then?” he asked, hands going to his hips, and I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Did we forget about the macaroni debacle?” I teased.
Law’s face went grim. “Let’s not talk about the damn mac and cheese incident. Besides, I got it down in the end.”
I giggled and added a splash of milk to my coffee. “I don’t care if you made it or not, this looks amazing. Thank you for this,” I said, pushing away from the counter and walking towards him. Law held out a chair for me and I sank down into it with my cup of coffee in hand. When I was seated he slid into the chair beside mine and surprised me when he grabbed my hand.
Law was affectionate with me. Always.
But it was the way he held my hand. I could tell he needed the contact, and that was different.
“What is it?” I asked, setting down my coffee.
“We have to talk, Honey.”
My anxiety spiked at those five words. We have to talk was never a good thing to hear when you were with someone. It never meant good things. Had never meant good things for me in the past with an exit following shortly after ‘the talk’, but that couldn’t be what Law was aiming for now, could it? He wanted to be with me. He said he was going to keep me safe, asked me to trust him, and I believed him.
How could that have changed overnight?
He’d said he loved me.
He couldn’t be leaving. He just couldn’t.
I swallowed hard and forced my breathing to come out even. “About what?”
“About you,” he said, “about your past. Your story. I gave you mine last night and now I need yours.”
“My story?” I asked, the relief at Law not using this ‘talk’ to leave, to find an exit when things had gotten too real was sudden and overwhelming and I blinked, trying to get my head back on straight and focused.
“Yes, princess. If we’re going to put the pieces together to find out who ordered the job on you then we have to lay it all out there.”
I swallowed. He wasn’t leaving. Of course he wasn’t. Why had my brain gone there so quickly? I sucked in a breath and gave him a shaky smile. “Honey? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
His eyes narrowed. “What did we say about lying?”
I blushed hot and ducked my head. “That it’s not allowed.”
“Then why are you doing it now?”
“Because I thought-” my voice broke off and I shook my head, not able to look up at him. How could I have thought he was leaving me? Law loved me. This man was not like the others. He was not like the ones that I had believed before. This man was real, the depth of what he felt for me was true, and he wasn’t going anywhere. “I thought you were going to sit me down and break up with me?”
