The words came out steadier than the impulse behind them. He wasn’t offering comfort.He didn’t deal in comfort. But there was something in the way she looked at the candle instead of him that stirred a hard, protective instinct he hadn’t invited.
Her gaze lifted.“That sounds like a promise.”
“It isn’t,” he said.
Her brows drew together slightly. “Then what is it?”
Magnus leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table as he held her gaze. The distance between them shrank, and he saw the instant she noticed.
“A fact,” he said.
The truth was simpler than she expected.As long as she was in his house, no one touched her.Not the Donatis.Not those who had once owned the debt tied to her name.Not anyone who valued theirlife.
Elia didn’t look away. She held his gaze as if she were listening for something beneath the words, as if the silence itself carried meaning. The air between them shifted, thickened. He saw the moment she understood there was more behind what he’d said than he was willing to voice. Her eyes moved over his face, searching, not fearful but cautious, as though she were testing the word in her own mind and deciding what it might cost her to believeit.
Magnus picked up his fork but didn’t eat. Instead he studied the way her fingers curled around her own. The faint tension in her wrist. The awareness she carried even while pretendingcalm.
“You’re not eating,” she said.Her tone wasn’t accusatory. It was observant, and theway she said it told him she’d been tracking him just as closely as he’d been trackingher.
“I am.” He didn’t look down at his plate. He didn’t bother pretending.
“No.” She tilted her head slightly, studying him across the candlelight. “You’re watching.”
He let the silence stretch instead of denying it. Because she was right.
He hadn’t tasted anything since she’d sat down. His attention had been fixed on the subtle shifts in her posture, the way her fingers curved around the stem of her glass, the faint parting of her lips when he leaned forward. He’d been measuring her reactions. The second uncertainty gave way to awareness.
Magnus reached across the table with careful deliberation, giving her every opportunity to withdraw.
She didn’t.
He closed his fingers around the fork still resting in her hand and eased it from her grasp.Her eyes widened, not in fear but in surprise. The brush of his knuckles against hers was light. Intentional, along with the warmth of her skin againsthis.
“What are you doing?” she asked, and the question carried something new beneath it. Not protest. Anticipation.
“You’re holding it wrong.” His tone was calm, almost instructional, but his pulse had begun to thicken underhis collar.
A faint crease appeared between her brows. “No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
He let his thumb slide once across her knuckles before drawing the fork fully away. The touch was minimal. It still sent a visible tremor up her arm.He saw it.And he liked that she didn’t pretend she hadn’t reacted.He cut a small bite from her plate and lifted it toward her mouth.“Open.”
She stared at him. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
The silence stretched.She leaned forward.Her lips brushed the fork as she accepted the bite.The contact was light, but it struck him, intimate, immediate, and hot.He set the fork down.“Does that satisfy you?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
He picked up a slice of pear from the small plate between them and held it out to her.“Your turn.”
She tilted her head. “You want me to feed you.”
“I want to see if you will.”
She studied him for a long moment, then reached forward and took the pear from his fingers. Instead of placing it on his plate, she leaned across the table and lifted it toward his mouth.“Open,” shesaid.
