Page 20 of The Pakhan's Forced Bride

I want to know more about her, but she continues to push me away, despite getting on great with everyone else working in the house.

It’s fine.

Tonight she’ll have dinner with me. I know she won’t be able to turn me down this time.

After the swim, I don’t dry off right away. I sit on the bench watching the ocean while the sun dries my skin, leaving a layer of salt behind.

I spend most of my time alone. I’ve always thought it was a necessary tradeoff for having the position of power I have.

I am close to my sisters, but that’s the limit to people I unconditionally trust in this world.

Friends are scarce, even though I do have them.

Lovers are even rarer. Non-existent, actually. I haveflings, hundreds of women interested in me, but it’s been a lifetime since I last believed in love. Women are vultures seeking power, money, or status—or all three. They use me and I use them, discarding them as soon as I get what I want. It’s a fair trade. They get the fancy dinners and the sparkling gifts and their moment in the spotlight that they so clearly crave, fake attention—and when it’s over, we both walk away unscathed. But it gets boring. It feels empty. So, even that became more of a chore than an enjoyment, and I haven’t been on a date in ages.

***

It’s late evening when the chef informs me that dinner will be served in a few moments. He’s an older gentleman, a brilliant chef who couldn’t keep up with the demands of the industry. Long hours and stressful situations. As soon as I found out he wanted to leave the restaurant he worked at, I offered him a job. He earns more now than he did there, and he works at his own pace, mostly cooking whatever he wants because I enjoy everything he makes.

“I’ve set the table for two,” he says.

“Thank you, Rio. You can go ahead and start plating. We’ll be there in a moment,” I say, heading up to Belle’s room to get her.

I pause at the door, then push it open. She’s lying on her stomach on the bed with her feet swinging behind her as she writes in a notebook.

“Don’t you knock?” she scolds me. “I could have been changing.”

“How disappointing that you weren’t,” I grin.

She scrunches her nose. “What do you want, Ardalion?”

“Come and join me for dinner. It’s ready,” I say.

“I already told you, I’m busy.” She turns back to her book.

I walk further into her room and look down at what she’s writing.

It’s a sketch, a portrait.

She slams the book closed before I have a proper chance to look, but from the brief glance I get, she’s good.

“Here’s the deal, Belle. You will join me for dinner, or I will kidnap your mother as well, and you two can share this room.” I gesture around her room as I watch her face.

The look of sheer horror that flashes across her eyes is unmistakable.

“You wouldn’t,” she whispers.

“I would.”

With a loud groan of annoyance, Belle flops her face onto the bed and grumbles something I can’t make out because her words are muffled by the blankets.

“Excuse me?” I say, leaning closer, amused.

She lifts her head and shoots me an angry glare. “I’ll be down in a minute,” she sighs.

“Great.”

***