I slide to the floor just as I decide to run out of the kitchen altogether.
Chapter 12
Corvus
Iknewitwasa mistake to let him roam.
No amount of sticky notes or good will would prevent a trapped man from seeking freedom, so of course Dalton caused a fire once he realized none of the doors and windows open to just anyone. But he’d miscalculated and now… now…
“I’m here to see Dalton Cross,” I tell the nurse at the reception, my throat tight as I imagine what could have happened if the fire service hadn’t automatically been made aware of smoke in my home. Because Dalton doesn’t have a phone and I—a landline.
I wipe the sweat off my hands on the front of my coat and clear my throat. I’m still disturbed by the scenes I saw once I arrived home, and the fear of someone from the services finding out what’s in the secret room in my basement still lingers like a tight cage around my heart.
But it’s fine. The bookshelf attached to the door is weighed so it always closes on its own, and if they found anything amiss, I’d be in the back of a cop car, not seeking my renegade fiancé at the hospital.
I recognize his laugh before I even see him, so I guess he’s fine, despite coughing right after. He’s behind a blue divider, and so many feelings I can’t control flare up in me all at once as ifI’mthe pot of oil on fire. I saw the remnants of the kitchen disaster, so that’s what must have happened.
I’m worried about his health, furious that he tried to escape, that he fucked up my kitchen, but also dying to find outwhois making Dalton laugh. Is he fucking flirting with a nurse? After what he’s put me through today?
I pull away the fabric divider in a gesture that feels a bit overdramatic even to me, but what’s done is done.
Green eyes dart to me almost immediately, and Dalton grins at me from under the tube attached to his nose. “Um… sorry?”
I can imagine the male nurse standing over him would laugh even at something so very unfunny as my home almost burning down. “Hi, honey,” I say dryly, and the nurse clears his throat before excusing himself and leaving us on our own.
By the way Dalton’s face falls, I’m guessing he didn’t imagine I’d find him so quickly. If he thinks he can run from me, after lulling me into a false sense of calm with his dick, he has another thing coming. No more nice Corvus.
He opens his mouth to spill more lies at me, so I cut him off, while pulling the divider behind me. “Really? You try to burn my house down after I decided to let you out? I put trust in you, and you pay me back by endangering not only your life, but also my freedom? You know some of my things are,”—torture devices and evidence of crime—“private,” I say through teeth clenched so tightly it’s making my jaw muscles ache. “I saved you. I’m prepared to give you a lifeyou probably never dreamt of. Why would you run? Why would you sabotage me?” I hiss, clenching my hands on the folds of my coat as he stares back at me with eyes red from all the smoke.
I almost feel sorry for him.Almost.
Dalton scowls at me. “What?That’swhere your mind goes to? What is wrong with you? I almost died!” He didn’t, I already got the report. “I… wanted to cook something nice for you. It’s not my fault your favorite cookbook is clearly too advanced for peasants like me.”
I stall, leaning over him, and massage my aching throat. “My… cookbook? What cookbook?” I mutter while nurses chat someplace close by. I worry that I might know what he picked up.
I don’t like the rasp in Dalton’s breath and wish to check whether the oxygen is still flowing through the pipe in his nose.
“The… handmade one? With the weird recipes?” Dalton looks away with a grunt. “You had some marked as favorites so… yeah, that’s what I thought I’d cook.”
I cover my mouth with my hand as the reality of what happened claws into my flesh. I knew I wouldn’t take everything into account, but I really didn’t pin Dalton for someone who’d cook anything beyond eggs and chicken, unless forced to. And here he was, recovering after a disastrous attempt to please me with a recipe from my father’s book of poisons.
Recipes for substances useful in my trade were disguised as harmless with a special code known only by two people. A code Dalton most definitely did not know.
“What… did you try to cook?” I mumble as he watches me with his pretty green eyes, which for once look so very innocent and sincere I’m ashamed of my suspicions and the outburst I’ve greeted him with.
“The pancakes with chicken and—”
“And did you not see how ridiculous that recipe was?” I ask, pulling in a stool to sit next to his bed. I wish one could smoke at a hospital, because I really need a cigarette right now. I gently grab his hand when I spot that it’s wrapped with a bandage.
He chews on my words but doesn’t pull away. “So it’s a prank book?” he mutters, and his shoulders slump. Lies are most effective when the target already believes them, but I don’t have the heart to just confirm it, so I stroke his bare forearm with a deep sigh. It’s so strange to be touching another man like this in public. Sure, we’re alone here, but someonecouldcome in.
“It’s complicated,” I mutter when Dalton glances at me again before breaking into a coughing fit the moment he attempts to speak.
I rush to the side table and bring over a cup of water he empties, still agitated by the fumes he’s inhaled. “I didn’t think you cooked,” I add, because the silence between us feels pregnant with accusation.
“Not much, but I can follow a recipe. Unless it’s a fucked-up one. What’s curious though is that when they ran my blood work, they discovered trace amounts of dexosomething. A potent synthetic aphrodisiac, apparently. Any idea howthatcould have gotten into my system?” he asks, the accusation clear in his gaze, and while I don’t apologize or recoil, shame burns deep inside me.
I clear my throat. I rub my nose, but when he doesn’t budge, I meet his gaze with a deep sense of failure. “I figured it would smooth things over… and it is harmless in the right dose.”
