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I wait for it.

Look at you.

Somebody always has something to say about my body. My father had a comment ready before I sat down. Giuseppe would say it louder and mean it kindly, which is somehow worse, because kindness makes it harder to tell him to shut up.

Torin just refills his wine and looks out the window.

I reach for the cheese.

“It's delicious,” I tell Caitlin when she comes back through. “I don't have much of an appetite. I haven't for a while.”

“It's alright, love,” she says, heading toward the door. “It'll take time. There, now, I'll leave you alone for a bit.”

I take another bite, and the flavors explode in my mouth. It tastes so damn good.

He doesn't comment, just sips his drink and looks out the window at the darkening sky. I look at the side of his face, the scarred jaw, the particular stillness of a man who has learned to wait.

Outside, somewhere past the garden, the Irish Sea crashes against the cliffs.

I don't want to be here. I didn't choose any of this. And yet…

I reach for a second piece of cheese.

He notices.

His knee is six inches from mine. I'm aware of it the way you're aware of an open flame—its presence, its warmth, and its potential for absolute destruction.

I close my legs and turn away.

“We’re going to bed,” he says abruptly. “Your room is connected to mine.” He polishes off his drink, places the glass down, and stalks away. I stare, my food still halfway to my lips.

What if I wasn't wrong? What if it was the McCarthys who kept me prisoner?

I set the food back down.

The jury's still out.

Caitlin finds me in the hallway maybe fifteen minutes later, or maybe an hour. I've been looking at the family photographs on the wall, taking inventory as I always do.

“Come, love,” she says. “You must be exhausted. We've made up a room for you right next to Torin’s.”

I follow her up the stairs. The house is quieter now, voices settling behind closed doors.

She stops at a doorway near the end of the hall. The room is warm and simply furnished—a bed that looks like it will actually hold me, a window facing the sea, and curtains already drawn against the dark.

“There's everything you need,” Caitlin says. “And if there isn't, just knock.”

I thank her. I mean it.

She nods toward the closed door at the far end of the hall. “Torin's just there if you need anything.” She pauses for a moment, then she's gone.

I close my door, then stand in the middle of a borrowed room, in a house that belongs to strangers, with the sea crashing somewhere below me in the dark.

And I wonder. Who was behind my kidnapping? Is it really as simple as one family? Were the McCarthys truly innocent?

When will I know the truth?

And did I imagine there was any chemistry between us?