Mrs. Chambers makes her way from Snow’s room straight to the office without missing a beat. The moment she denied food, I expected our housekeeper to be at my door, and here she is with annoyance written all over her face.
The moment the door swings open, she’s storming in, her finger jabbing into my chest. “You told me you were going to take care of her, Elijah. You promised she would not be harmed while she was here.”
“I haven’t harmed her.” I shrug, moving back behind my desk where I can see my Snowflake. She hasn’t moved from beneath the blankets, and I don’t think she will until I go move her.
Mrs. Chambers sighs and collapses into the seat across from me. “Just because you haven’t physically hit her doesn’t mean you haven’t hurt her. You’ve stolen her from her family, deprived her of the outside world, and left her with only a few short conversations with me each day while you’ve been in here. I agreed to this because you told me she’s the one, but so far, you’ve spent twenty minutes together.”
I drag my eyes away from the screen and look across the desk at the woman who raised me. She cleaned my wounds when my father hurt me and fed me even when she wasn’t supposed to. She hid toys when I was young so I wouldn’t miss out on being a child. She’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mother, and as much as I hate to admit it, she’s right. I’ve done everything to bring Snow here, years of planning, moving chess pieces and waiting for the right time, and now that she’s here, I haven’t spent any time trying to convince her this is the best thing for the both of us.
“If you don’t make her trust you soon, she’s going to run. She’s going to find a way out of this house and she’s going to run as far as she can from you. You’ve given her no reason not to. You have to give her a reason, Elijah.”
I scrub my hands down my face and sigh. She’s right. Snow’s been sneaking around the house at night looking for a way out, but she’s not going to find one, at least not where she’s looking. But she’s crafty, and at some stage, she’s going to work it out. She’s been escaping from places and people she shouldn’t have her whole life, and no matter how many measures I put in place to avoid it happening, she’ll do it again.
“I’ll talk to her.”
“She’s not eating. She barely ate dinner last night, and she’s flat out refusing to eat this morning. You need to fix this before I make good on my promise and get her out of here.” She stares at me pointedly, resting both hands on her hips like a disappointed parent.
“You will not,” I growl.
“Oh, but I will, Elijah. That poor girl lost her parents a few months ago, you held her sister hostage only a month ago, and now you’ve taken her from everything and everyone she knows.”
“That’s why I made her room like the one at the estate, so she would feel at home here.” I brush my thumb across my bottom lip. I’ve never been the best with people, I don’t understand them and I’ve never wanted to before. But I want to understand Snow. It’s what I’ve been trying to do from afar all these years. But there’s only so much you can learn about someone from the shadows. Now it’s time I step out into the light.
Mrs. Chambers’s eyes soften. “I know, dear, but you have to remember this isn’t a choice she’s made, and you have to be patient with her.”
“I’ll make sure she eats something.”
“Good. There’s food on a tray in the dining room for her. It’s everything you told me she likes.”
When you’ve watched someone as long as I’ve watched Snow, you get to know all their favorite foods, scents and little things not even the people closest to them know, and so I made Mrs. Chambers a guide to all things that make up Snow Saint James. I meant it when I said I want her to be happy here. Because this is her home now, and while she’s here, regardless of her feelings about it, her feelings matter to me, even if no one’s ever had before.
Mrs. Chambers leaves the office without another word, and I drop my head into my hands. I don’t have time for this. As much as I want to spend time with my Snowflake and help her settle in, the business is taking up a lot more of my time than I anticipated, and as much as she wants to think the reason she hasn’t seen me is because of our altercation the other morning, the reality is much less exciting. I need to promote someone enough they can take some of this shit off my plate.
I push myself up from my desk and move into the dining room to pick up the tray. True to her word, a decadent selection of French toast and fruit smothered in maple syrup is ready for me to take to her. While she mainly eats fruit and smoothies in the morning, this is her favorite. It’s the treat her mother used to make her when she was sad and what she makes herself when the world gets to be too much.
When I push the door open to her room, I can’t help but stop and stare for a moment. The room smells like her. The perfume she wears, the shampoo she uses, it’s mingled in the very structure of the room after only a few days of her being here, and I’m addicted to the scent. She’s curled up in a ball in the center of the bed, her blonde curls surrounding her. She looks so fucking beautiful as she lets out a little snore, and I find myself gravitating toward her.
I place the tray down quietly on the table beside the bed, making sure not to wake her. Before I consciously make the decision, I kick my shoes off and carefully lay beside her. Close enough that her breath whispers across my cheeks, but far enough that she doesn’t realize I’m here. I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve climbed into bed beside her without her knowing, but that’s far from the case. Every time I broke into her apartment at night, unable to keep myself away from her for another moment, I would do just this. I’d never sleep, not when she could wake up and find me there, but just being close to her calmed a part of me that was always wild. The caged animal could finally breathe.
I should wake her so she can eat something, but she won’t let me this close while her eyes are open. Not yet. Mrs. Chambers was right about one thing, if I don’t make her want to be here, she’s going to run, and while I’ll always bring her back, always bring her home, she’s not going to appreciate being hunted.
All the times I’ve done this in the past, I haven’t wanted her to catch me. Being there wasn’t ever part of the plan, but now she’s here, in my house, at my mercy. It doesn’t matter if she knows I have a proclivity for watching her sleep. She can finally know how truly obsessed I’ve been with her all these years.
I reach out and brush my fingers across her cheek, her skin so soft I barely contain the groan clawing its way up my throat. It makes the baser part of me scream to throw the sheets back and ravage her body, taking what has always been mine, even if she didn’t know it. But I promised her I wouldn’t take her against her will, and I meant it. Unlike most of the men in my family, I don’t enjoy when a woman struggles beneath me or the way she screams at the invasion of her body, and I certainly won’t be doing it to Snow. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to touch her. She’ll never know what she wants if I don’t show her, and I’m going to show her just how good we can be together.
