Page 29 of Beautiful Ruin

Rowan watches me, his expression flickering like he knows it too. I can see the war waging under his skin and that only makes the heat in my stomach twist harder. I want to make him react, to crack that brutal calm and see what lives beneath it. To prove there is something human under all that obedience.

“I’m not a child,” I finally say.

His eyes darken slightly, though his face barely moves. “No. You’re not.”

The words land between us with a different kind of weight than before. For one terrible second, I stop fighting the urge to reach for him and actually do it. Every rational thought in my head begins screaming at once, frantic and useless against the buzzing under my skin. This is Rowan, my guard. My uncle’s enforcer. A man who has spent the last two weeks following me through this estate assigned to keep me contained.

I should not want to touch him. I should not want anything from him. But my fingers still rise, the distance between us disappearing in increments so small they feel excruciating until my hand hovers right over his chest, just shy of pressing the hard muscle.

He doesn’t move at first, his eyes staying fixed on mine. There is something in them now that looks strained, a flicker of hunger, maybe, buried so deep beneath that familiar mask of control that I can almost convince myself I imagined it.

I can see it in the faint rise and fall of his chest beneath my hand. Feel it in the charged stillness surrounding us. Stupidly, I think he won’t stop me.

I don’t know which one of us is more surprised when he does.

He shoves away from where he has cornered me, the movement sudden enough that I flinch. My hand drops as he widens the gap between us until it feels cavernous. He shakes his head harshly, as if trying to dislodge whatever thoughts had been moving around inside it. It is a command aimed inward, snapping a leash around his own throat before the animal inside him can lunge forward.

“Lunch should be up soon,” he mutters, his body already turning away from me.

My face burns from mortification, humiliating enough to make my stomach twist hard with nausea. I had actually reached for him like an idiot. This impossible man who has given me nothing but refusals and restraint. Worse, I thought he wanted me to. I thought I saw something in him that matched the reckless thing unfurling inside me.

His boots echo down the hallway as he retreats, each step drawing him farther from me until the sound stretches thin and then begins to swallow itself when he disappears around a corner. I stand there alone, frozen between anger and shame. The hallway feels enormous without him.

My cheeks burn so fiercely, I almost lift my hands to cover them. Instead, my fingers curl so tightly, my nails bite into my palms. The sting helps give the shame somewhere else to focus on instead of the memory of Rowan’s chest rising beneath my hovering hand.

A laugh rises in my throat.

God, what is wrong with me?

After lunch, I don’t return to my room.

I can’t bear the thought of spending the next few hours staring at the walls, trapped inside my own head while shame still burns heavily in my gut. If I go back there, I’ll replay what happened in the hallway until I give in to the urge to jump off the balcony.

Even sitting through lunch had been torture. I barely tasted anything and ended up pushing food around my plate while pretending not to hear Rowan’s voice in my head while the phantom warmth of his chest still scorched my palm. I have experienced more devastating things in my life than a man rejecting me, but somehow, this embarrassment feels much more personal.

So when lunch ends, I leave the dining room and let my feet carry me without thought. Down one corridor, then another. The farther I move from the formal rooms, the more the estate changes. The marble gives way to older stone, the walls less decorative, the lighting brighter and less concerned with the ambiance.

I smell it before I see it, garlic first, then rosemary. Butter browning somewhere distant, roasting meat, rich and savory, tucked beneath the bite of freshly cut onions. I follow the scent like a starved dog. The moment I step through the swinging kitchen doors, the noise hits me.

Pans clatter as burners hiss. Someone barks out an order near the ovens. A dishwasher thunders toward the back, steam rolling up from metal sinks. Knives tap against cutting boards in fast, precise rhythms. This place is chaotic in a way the rest of this house hasn’t dared to be. Bodies brush past each other with practiced efficiency, trays being lifted to avoid toppling over when moving, pots stirred and chopped herbs thrown into the broiling liquids, dough rolled beneath flour-dusted palms.

For a second, I just stand there and breathe it all in.

The head chef sees me first.

He is tall and stern looking with forearms like steel cables that are tattooed with black ink. He wears a scowl that seems permanently etched into his face, given the lines pressed into his skin. His knife pauses mid-chop, blade buried halfway through an onion. One assistant stops reaching for a tray as the sudden stillness spreads through him.

“Miss Kuznetsov.” The title is polite. The tone is not. “This is a working kitchen, not somewhere to vacation when bored.”

I lift my chin. “I want to help.”

He stares at me like I’ve suggested setting the house on fire for fun. Somewhere to his left, one of the younger assistants—a boy in his late teens with dark curls escaping from under his cap—snorts softly down at the pot of soup he’s stirring. The sound is quickly smothered when the chef turns his glare on him briefly.

I almost smile. “I can cut vegetables. Or peel something. Or stir… something. Whatever you need.”

A muscle tics in his jaw.

I get the distinct impression that very few people walk into his kitchen and ask to be useful, let alone women with my surname and a guard who typically diverts me away from my expected route. The chef glances toward the door behind me, likely expecting Rowan to appear any minute now and remove me.