Page 61 of Kept in the Dark

I check the time. Eleanor is going to be awake in the next few hours, so I hope Dimitri and that woman sort out whatever it is that’s going on. My girl is sensitive—she feels deeply for other people, even if she doesn’t know them—so I’m not totally sure how she’ll react to Dimitri having a captive houseguest.

I sigh. Thingsare about to get a whole lot more interesting around here.

19

Nicole

Truce.

I’m shaking so hard I can barely keep my arms up. But I need one across my chest to hide the fact that my nipples are so hard from the cold they could cut glass—they’ve literally never been so hard, it’s almost lewd—and the other to hold up the sweatpants that are soaked and retaining so much water they probably weigh 50 pounds. The poor drawstring is about to give out, so it’s up to good-old noodle arms to keep me from traipsing around in a stranger’s yard with my ass out in a nude shapewear thong.

When he lays a hand on my shoulder, I hiss and drop away from it. Not just because I’m so cold that his regular body temperature feels like it scalded me, but also because it’shishand. I refuse to look at his face as he ushers me towards the building on the opposite side of the slate patio that must be a pool house.

“Nicole, I just told you. You aresafe. I will not hurt you—”

I shake my head, keeping it tilted down, trying to focus on each step so I don’t accidentally step through another portal to icy hell. Why was the pool cover the exact fucking same shade as the stone? Who thefuckdesigned that?

“You threw me into the trunk of a car, Dimitri. Thetrunkof acar! You kidnapped me!”

“I did not kidnapyou—”

“So, I can go?” I ask, voice dripping with more sarcasm than my body and clothes drip with frigid water.

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Of course not.”

“Then this is a kidnapping!”

“You are in danger!”

“From who, you?” I hiss, a deep shiver slicing through the accusation. “What are you going to do to the only witness who knows you killed Kyle?”

“Fuck,” he whispers, scratching at his scalp.

“Yeah. Fuck. Are you going t-to gaslight me now? Tell me I didn’t hear w-what I know I heard?” I demand, my harsh tone undercut by how hard my teeth are chattering.

“And what is it you know you heard?” he retorts, stopping us and spinning me to face him. With a hand around each upper arm that sears my freezing flesh, he shakes me a little. “Tell me.”

I’m not so nearsighted that I can’t see the pain on his face. The lines around his eyes and brows are deeply carved with worry and anguish. And it’s not from that wound I know I accidentally clipped with my elbow or his obviously broken nose. His frown is deeper than anger or confusion. He looks… betrayed.

That must be why I open my stupid mouth and say, “That you don’t leave witnesses and you’dt-take careof me.”

His eyes flick back and forth between mine for a second, then he spears me with one of those extra-intense looks meant to intimidate me. I’m not even sure he realizes when he’s doing it.

“I did not mean… fuck!”

He releases me, spins away, and walks a few steps. When he turns back around, I’m wracked with a shiver so hard I bite down on my already damaged tongue and whimper.

Seeing that snaps him out of whatever blind rage he seems to be in. “Come inside, Nicole. You are frozen. I will explain to you what I wouldhave told you in the car if you had not called the police and fought me so hard.”

Do I dare? The last time I trusted him because I felt like I had no other options, I ended up on a boat with no escape, then shoved into the trunk of a car.

But I’m shivering so hard I might chip a tooth, and I’ve gone numb to the sensation of cold. It’s never a good thing when you’re numb to the cold—hypothermia is no joke. If my core temperature drops too low, I’ll stop shivering and lose consciousness. I definitely won’t be able to escape if I’m unconscious.

“F-fine,” I relent.

He pushes open the door to the building and gestures for me to enter first. I do, looking up as he flicks on the lights, and am startled by what I see. Well, the blurry, out-of-focus, vague impressions of what I see, anyway. I may not be able to get most of the finer details, but I know they are fine. This isn’t a pool house—it’s a whole-ass apartment.

Everything has the sleek, clean lines of expensive shit. It evensmellsexpensive—like a room freshener named after ridiculous things that don’t even have a smell, like “cashmere and a soft breeze.” There’s a king-sized bed with crisp white sheets dominating the entire right side of the room, a sitting area with big brown blobs that I assume are a plush, overstuffed leather couch and chair, and the shape of the stuff in the area towards the back makes me think it’s a kitchenette. Two doors along the back wall are open, one leading into what’s obviously a luxurious bathroom, full of marble tile and a glass-paned walk-in shower, and the other leading to a separate room that seems big enough that it could be an office or a guest room.