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I swallow thickly, wondering if it’s appropriate, given what happened in the basement between Lucien and me the other morning.
“It’s cold out.”
“It’s heated and enclosed, you know that.”
“I don’t have a bathing suit.” That’s not a lie. It’s not something I thought to bring with me to the coast in the wintertime.
“You don’t need one.”
I open my mouth to argue that it wouldn’t be appropriate, but he glowers at me.
“You don’t have to make up excuses, petit corbeau. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.”
I nod. “No. I want to go; it’s just…” I recall the angles of the pool that the cameras cover in Lucien’s room.
He sits back, crossing an ankle over his knee, thoroughly amused. “Go on…”
“I don’t want to upset Lucien if something were to happen.”
“Do you want something to happen?”
“No. Yes. Fuck, I don’t know. This place and all of you are… getting to me. I don’t know which way is up or down, and—” Movement outside the door catches my attention: the tail end of a white gown, slowly inching away as if someone’s lurking.
A woman.
“Sera?” Elias asks as I get up from my desk, shove my chair away, and rush toward the door. The complete opposite of what you should do if you think you’ve seen an intruder.
“Hello!?” I call, sprinting into the hall.
No one.
A hand on my shoulder causes a scream to erupt from my chest, and I turn to find Elias beside me. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. I thought I saw…” Admitting I think I saw someone in the house is the smart thing to do, but what if I’m losing my mind?
What if it’s all in my head?
“Saw what?” he presses.
“Nothing. I didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all. I think I need more coffee.”
“I think you need to relax. How about coffee and then a nice long swim?”
In my dazed state, feeling as though I probably shouldn’t be left alone for my sanity, I nod. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”
“Come on then, let’s get you an infusion of caffeine.”
I follow after Elias dutifully, like a puppy preening for a treat, but I have the distinct feeling that to deal with a man like Elias, I’m going to need all the caffeine I can get.
Still, a buzz lingers in my veins from Lucien’s attentiveness the other night. But it’s not enough to warm my bones from the icy fingers of death currently gripping them.
With coffee in hand, I watch Elias slink into the pool, tattoos I didn’t know existed on his skin stretching and shifting with each step he takes deeper into the water.
Even though the pool’s water is heated, the poolhouse is just as cold as the world outside, and steam rises off the water’s surface, giving it an eerie feel befitting Ironwood Estate.
“Coming in?” he asks, turning and floating on his back after dipping below the waterline to tame his god-like brown hair.
I lift my coffee and give him a grimace.
