Page 86 of The First Taste

“Would you send Ella back in?”

A thundercloud rolls over her expression, leaving it dark and flat. “Of course, Lord Grayrose.”

She shuts the door much harder than is necessary, making me wonder about the interaction. Was Ella right about Natasha?

Could she have developed feelings for me?

Unsettled by that idea, I pace toward the window, looking out as I begin peeling off my jacket.

Thirty

It’s ten in the morning and the entire castle is entirely still and silent. Mrs. Wolf took her son to visit family in Manchester. Henri is also absent, although it has always seemed to me that he waits for Keir to need him and magically appears. I swear, the man moves so silently that I’m going to have to put a bell around his neck, like people often do to outdoor cats to keep them from killing birds.

Keir is in his office, in a tizzy over some kind of unexpected budget shortfall. At least, that’s what I heard when he was storming upstairs and yelling to no one in particular.

The slamming of his office door made me jump. It also told me everything I need to know about Keir’s black mood.

I’m sitting out back on the broad slate patio, spread out on the ground. Isla is at her first day of science camp. Since I have the whole day to myself, I figured I would break out my tights and leotard and try to do some basic stretching and ballet combinations.

At the moment, I have worked my way into the splits and I’m hugging my left leg, even though it is mildly painful. My quads are screaming at me, begging me to stop stretching.

It’s been far too long since I forced myself to feel this specific kind of pain. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, trying to picture myself on a tropical beach.

The smell of the salt air.

The feel of the hot sand between my toes.

The heat of the relentless sun beating down on me as I sunbathe in my itty bitty black bikini?—

“Ella!”

Keir’s yell pierces right through me like the wind on an icy cold day.

My eyes snap open. I straighten my back and look behind me to the house.

“I’m out back!”

My heart pounds. Keir sounds angry. But I didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, I’ve been avoiding him since we got back from Glasgow a few days ago.

He stalks out the door, his face contorted in a grimace, his fists clenched. He spots me sitting on the ground, my legs all akimbo, and that gives him pause.

“What are you doing?” he demands to know.

“Stretching.” I sit up with a slight huff. “What are you so upset about?”

Keir points a finger toward the door. “Those idiots at Isla’s summer camp have asked me to come get her.”

“What? Already?” I blink, trying to absorb that information. I flush slightly, realizing that this is right in line with what I expected from Isla; she was a little bratty about leaving for camp this morning.

Keir folds his arms across his chest. “Come on. We have to go retrieve my daughter from yet another program taught by an absolute bunch of clowns.”

I stand up, brushing myself off. Keir turns and heads through the castle, leaving the door wide open. This seems eerily familiar to the last time Isla was asked to leave a place of learning.

If Keir just wants me to come along to be an audience while he screams at some hapless teacher or administrator, I don’t want to feed into his energy. But by the time I catch up to him, he is already sitting in the driver’s seat of his SUV, gripping the wheel tightly.

“Hurry up!” he shouts.

His order makes me freeze. I look at him, opening the door to the passenger side of the vehicle but not getting in.