Torn:Dark Legacy Duet, Book 2
By: Natasha Knight“What would you like to eat?” I ask Helena.
She looks up at the girl. “It doesn’t matter. Anything is fine.”
The girl looks to me, and once I give her a nod, she disappears.
“Do they have to ask permission to breathe?” Helena asks.
I smile. “You’re in fine form. I’m glad to see it.”
“Where are Ethan and Lucinda now?”
“They won’t hurt you again.”
“I asked where they are.”
“If Lucinda’s smart, she’s deep in hiding,” Gregory says.
“We’ll find her,” I say.
“And then what?” she asks.
“Let me worry about that.”
“You won’t bring them back here, will you?” she asks.
“I’ll deal with them, Helena. You don’t need to worry about them.”
She considers, gives a half nod and turns to Gregory.
“Did you tell him what I think?” she asks him.
“About?” Gregory asks.
She faces me.
“Lucinda told me she was sending me home. She gave me that letter and said you’d been keeping it from me. She said Remy was waiting for me on the boat. She gave me my passport and told me to go, that she’d arranged a flight, which was a lie, obviously.”
“Ah, she lies?” I ask.
“You all lie. It’s a Scafoni family trait,” she replies.
“Something we have in common with the Willows,” I say.
“Just some of the Willows.”
“I missed this, you know that?” I ask.
“What? Irritating me?”
I give her a grin.
“Remy obviously wasn’t on the boat. It was Ethan. But there was a second man. He was the one who grabbed me. Put that rag of chloroform over my mouth.” She glances at Gregory. “And I remember he lit up a cigarette just before I passed out.”
“I already told you, Helena, I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Gregory says. “If I wanted to kidnap you, I’d kidnap you. And I know what my mother’s capable of. I saw what she did to you. Believe it or not, I don’t want that for you.”
I look at my brother. Watch him watch her and I want to know what she’s thinking. If she believes him.
If I do.
We’re interrupted by the girl bringing Helena’s dinner, a simple pasta dish with fresh tomatoes, olive oil and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.
“Thank you,” she says, picking up her knife and fork. She seems different, stronger somehow.
I reach over and pick up the spoon, slide the knife out of her hand and slip the spoon in its place.
She turns her gaze to our hands.
I get up to move behind her chair.
She looks cautiously up at me and I close my other hand over hers.
Gregory finishes his drink, pushes his chair back. “Excuse me.”
Neither of us look up as he retreats into the house. Helena’s eyes are on her plate as I move her hands, taking a forkful of spaghetti and rolling it against the spoon.
“Like this,” I say, turning it, holding the forkful out to her.
She keeps her gaze on mine for a moment, and this gesture, if she accepts this, it means more than that forkful.
Helena opens her mouth and I feel a sense of relief. It’s strange and not what I expect to feel.
I let her slide her hands out from beneath mine and prepare another bite for her.
She opens when I offer it, and takes the next bite too, and the one after that.
“It’s enough.” She says once the plate is half-eaten. She picks up her napkin and wipes her mouth. “Thank you.”
I set the utensils diagonally across her plate and put my hands on her shoulders, rub them, then move them to her arms.
She doesn’t pull away.
“Did you mean anything you said when we were in Verona?” she asks.
I pull her to her feet, turn her to me. I touch her cheek, cup her face. “Every word.”
I kiss her.
It’s soft, this tasting of her lips. Like it’s our first time.
I wrap one arm around her waist and cup the back of her head with the other and I nudge her lips apart, deepen the kiss, slide my hand down to cup her ass. She’s still tender there, I can tell by how she sucks in a breath.
But when I pull back, she shakes her head, wraps her hands around my neck, digging her fingernails into my shoulders.
