I move back to my side of the counter, fixing my own plate, acting as if my words didn’t just hang heavy between us.
She takes a bite—small, testing. Her tongue darts out to catch a crumb at the corner of her mouth. My jaw flexes. I look away.
But I don’t miss her mutter, so low I almost have to imagine it: “You’re impossible.”
I drag my gaze back to her, letting the heat in it burn through the distance. “And yet,” I say softly, “you’re still here.”
Her cheeks flush, and for a second she looks like she might throw the fork at me—or herself into my lap.
The knife-edge is the only place I want her.
So I let the moment dangle, cruel and sweet, while the house stays too quiet without Kate, and Brooklyn keeps trying to eat around the fact she’s mine already, whether she admits it or not.
I watch her chew, watch her throat work the way my hand did last night. She tries to eat neatly, carefully, as if she can make this normal.
She should know better by now.
I lean against the counter, arms crossed, letting the silence sharpen between us until she squirms. “Finish your plate.”
Her fork stalls midair. “I am.”
“No.” My voice drops, the kind that coils around her spine and pulls. “You’re picking. Nibbling like a little bird. I said finish it.”
Her chin lifts. That defiance again. That beautiful, suicidal streak. “You can’t tell me?—”
I cut her off with nothing more than a look. Dark, steady, unflinching. Her words choke themselves off.
That’s better.
I step forward, close enough that the heat of me bleeds against her skin. I take her fork from her hand, stab a piece of salmon, and bring it up to her lips.
“Open.”
She hesitates. Not because she doesn’t want to obey, but because she does. Because her body betrays her before her pride will. I tilt the fork just enough that the butter glistens down, threatening to stain her dress.
She parts her lips. Good girl. I slide the bite past her mouth, watch her chew, watch her glare up at me with eyes that beg even while they spit fire.
I don’t move back. I rest my hand flat on the table beside her plate, caging her in, my shadow covering her food. “Here’s how this works, Brooklyn. You eat. Every bite. No matter what I do. No matter what I say. You finish your plate.”
Her breath hitches. Her fork trembles when she picks it up again.
I lean down, mouth near her ear, voice rough silk. “And if you drop so much as a crumb, if you stop before I say you’re done—I’ll drag you across this table and remind you exactly who you belong to.”
She shivers, stabs a bite of toast, and forces it past her lips like she can out-stubborn me.
I chuckle low. “That’s one.”
Her brows pinch. She swallows. “One what?”
“One bite. Let’s see how many you can manage before I make you forget your own name.”
Her throat works, but she doesn’t stop eating.
Exactly the way I want her—defiant, trembling, and mine.
She cuts another piece, hands trembling just enough for me to notice. She thinks she’s hiding it behind the scrape of her knife, behind the perfect way she lifts her chin when she chews.
She doesn’t realise I see everything.
