Page 79 of Kept in the Dark

“Oat juice? Yum,” she laughs and takes a sip. “Thank you for noticing and making it how I like.”

It seems a small thing to do, but her enjoyment of it warms me. I nod.

Her smile is private, but her eyes feel hot as she sweeps her golden gaze across my body. “So how many times a day do you work out?” she asks, eyeing a particularly veiny section of my forearm.

Unable to help myself, I flex a little, relishing in her grin widening. “As many times as I want,” I shrug, heading to the small refrigerator tucked under the kitchenette counter. I pull out a protein drink and begin shaking it vigorously. “I find it difficult to be idle.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she observes quietly. “I’m the same.”

“And what will you do today?”

Her eyes cut to the bags and boxes piled haphazardly on the couch. “Well, I haven’t finished trying on all the new stuff I ordered because I was overwhelmed. I got a bit… carried away.” She cringes. “You’re sure it’s okay that I—”

“Of course,” I cut in. “I told you. Buy whatever pleases you—that card has no limit.”

My offer is genuine, though I initially harbored some irritation. When I told Eleanor that I wanted Nicole to have some shoes, I thought she would continue to wearmypants and shirts. I got over it very quickly when I saw her wearing something skin-tight and made of spandex that gave me a view of so much of her strong legs. Then I insisted she order more.

The laughter that spills from her mouth is startled. “Seriously? Of course you’re serious; you’re always serious. I mean, no limit at all? What if it pleases me to buy myself expensive jewelry?”

“I do not suspect that you wear much jewelry,” I observe calmly, recalling her bare neck the night of the wedding. Her ears are not pierced.

I wonder if she would wear a ring…

I have to clear my throat to continue, “But if you want it, buy it.”

When I turn to face her, shaking my drink, her expression is not alight with excitement as another woman’s might be at the idea of freedom with a credit card that is not their own. Nicole studies me with a pensive look. “Right. Mansion, garage full of cars, a closet stacked with bespoke suits...”

“Da,”I say carefully, trying to assess if her tone holds any reproach. James once confessed to me that the fact that our money is so dirty was a cause for concern to Eleanor. But judging from her shrug, it does not seem to bother Nicole very much.

“Right, okay. Well, thank you, but I think I’ve got enough stuff for now. So, after I finish trying on all of this, I figure I might as well embracethe vacation mindset. Eleanor and I are going to do a streaming workout class and use the sauna—so cool—then we’re going to have brunch, and she wanted help taste-testing new recipes.”

“A hardship,” I tease.

She grins. “I know. I’m really taking one for the team on that,” she chuckles. I love the sound of her laughter. “And then I thought I’d explore that giant library a bit. How many of the books are real, do you think?”

“All of them,” I reply confidently.

That takes her aback. “Really? Even the ones at the very top? I figured at least some of them were faux to fill the space. Do you do much reading here?”

“Yes, I like to read.”

“Back when we were… um, back on the boat,” she corrects, dropping her eyes to her hands. For a second, thick golden spirals of coarse hair fall into her face, obscuring it. Then she looks back up, shaking them away, and her eyes blaze with memory and resolve. Whenever her time on the boat comes up, it is always like this.

It is a breathtaking thing to witness her grapple with her lingering unpleasant emotions and intentionally push them away so she can move past the experience. Sowecan.

She honors me with that—it is a gift I plan to spend our lives repaying.

“There was only that one book in English,” she finishes.

I nod. “Anna Karenina.It is the book that helped me learn English years ago.”

Surprisingly, she smiles—not in jest, or in an attempt to mock, but in true astonishment. “Really? That’s so impressive. And it explains the occasionally archaic vocabulary.”

“Did you finish it?”

“I got abouthalfway.”

“You did not like it,” I guess, based on her tone and the slight curl of her lip. “Many people do not; it is bleak, like a Russian winter. Still, it is one of my favorites.”