Crowne Rules

by Reiss, CD

  I stirred, managed the meat, chopped the salad, and threw the peas into the boiling water three minutes before the pasta was done. I didn’t overcook the macaroni or burn the meat. When I combined them in the cast iron skillet, only one elbow spilled out.

  I’d even remembered to preheat the oven.

  The skillet weighed a ton, so after topping the casserole with an extra layer of shredded cheddar I’d found, I used both hands to put it in the oven.

  “Meow, meow, baby.” I shook my ass like it was on sale.

  This was going to be great. Mac and cheese. Salad. When he’d made dinner, what did he have on the table?

  “Wine!”

  I found the wine fridge by some miracle, since it looked like any other drawer, and chose a random bottle of red, and stopped myself before putting it on the table.

  “Decanter,” I called. “Where are you?

  I checked all the cabinets under the counters, then over. Scanned the shelf space just under the ceiling. Rechecked the cabinets more carefully.

  The decanter wasn’t in the kitchen.

  “No wonder you didn’t answer,” I joked and trotted out to the living room.

  There were decorative vases and urns. A teak bowl and an abstract glass sculpture.

  It was a small house, yet no place to easily access a decanter.

  It wasn’t behind the wet bar or in the glass-doored cabinet. Not in the sideboard or by the window ledge with the other glass containers.

  Dante Crowne didn’t keep the decanter anywhere you’d expect. He kept it in a cupboard in the little room with the books, way in the back of the house.

  When the back door opened, I screamed and raised the glass container like a weapon. “Jesus, Dante.”

  “What are you cooking?”

  “You scared the hell out of me.”

  “You’re jumpy. And not great at selecting weapons.”

  “I’m resourceful.” I jabbed the decanter in his direction.

  His lip curled into the edge of a smirk. “I guess this is better than a shampoo bottle.”

  “Are you hungry? I made dinner.”

  “Very.”

  He slipped off his muddy shoes, and together we walked back into the kitchen.

  “What’s that music?” he asked as if no one would choose to listen to it.

  “Jitter Jones.”

  He got potato chips and ice cream out of his bag.

  “You got my favorite!” I clapped, then saw the labels. “Chocolate chip. Huh.” I decided not to complain about the Ruffles, which were too thin for ice cream unless you wanted soggy goop in your spoon. “Thank you!” I said with a smile.

  He ignored my backpedaled delight and crunched his eyebrows together as if solving a math problem. “What the hell is she singing about?”

  “You don’t think about it.” I slapped the freezer closed and bumped my hip against his. “You dance to it.”

  “No, you dance to it.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  And I did, spinning out to the center of the floor, shaking my hips, and singing. I did it because I wanted to and I loved the song. I danced as if he wasn’t watching, and he watched until the awkwardness of it all made us both laugh.

  He took me by the waist with one hand and lifted my arm with the other, waltzing in the tight space to Jitter Jones’s three-four rhythm.

  “You dance better than you sing,” he said.

  He dipped me, and when I came up, the inertia pushed our faces close together. I had to move an inch to kiss him, and I had forever to do it. He was right there, not pushing me away. Not pulling me close. Just waiting.

  Then the song ended into silence.

  “Well,” he said, still close.

  “I guess that’s the end of the playlist.”

  In the silence of the isolated house, his stomach growled. He laughed and pulled back.

  I laughed with him. “You’re hungry.”

  “I can wait.” He rummaged around the drawer for the corkscrew.

  “Where have you been all day?” I asked.

  “I had some things to get in Harmony.” Dante twisted the screw deep into the top of the wine bottle.

  Right. The ice cream and potato chips hadn’t come from a tree. Had he seen that horrible DMZ Weekly cover of Renaldo and me photoshopped together? Would he even tell me if he had? Just yesterday, I would have guessed he’d take any opportunity to humiliate me, but today, I wasn’t so sure.

  Though maybe it was more embarrassing that he had to protect my feelings in the first place.

  “You all right?” The cork came free with a pop.

  “Fine, fine.”

  “I needed sealant for the roof.” He poured the liquid into the decanter with the splash of a hundred ruby crowns. “Then I switched you to Ruffles.”

  “Thank you,” I squeaked, grabbing the empty bottle and pushing it in the trash so he couldn’t read the effort it took me to not ask if he saw me being Renaldo’s little whore, or what he thought of it, because it mattered to me whether I denied it or not, and he knew it.

  In an effort to keep him from looking at my face and seeing whatever was written all over it, I leaned down and opened the oven. There was a whoosh and fierce bubbling, but the casserole was dotted with perfect leopard spots of crusty brown.

  “Is it burned?” he asked with a clink of wine glasses as he pulled them from the cabinet.

  I reached for the skillet handle. “Another five minutes and it—” I cut my sentence in two with a yelp of pain.

  “What?”

  “Stupid!” I cried, standing straight with my palm out.

  It had two big red splotches, but before I could get a good look at them, Dante pulled my arm down to see, then he took my hand as if he owned it and ran tap water over it.

  “Keep it there,” he said with intensity, cradling my hand.

  “Isn’t this wasting tank water?”

  “This restores blood flow and prevents necrosis.”

  “Are you making that up?”

  “Yes, Amanda, I’m maintaining imaginary circulation to your imaginary burn. Is the pain imaginary?”

  “No,” I pouted. “Command it to go away.”

  He leaned down and spoke firmly to my hand. “You will feel as beautiful as you look, and you’ll stay out of trouble from now on.” He stood straight and adjusted the temperature an imperceptible difference.

  “That may be the last burn I ever get,” I said.

  “You’ll be more careful next time.”

  “It didn’t look hot,” I joked, but he didn’t laugh.

  “This is going to blister.” With the same intensity, he gently spread my fingers open, careful not to touch the spots where I’d singed myself.

  “I’m sure I can still type,” I replied, assuming his main concern was the job he’d given me.

  “Keep it under the water.” The look on his face was layered with solemnity, as if keeping my hand under the faucet was the most important action he could trust me to take.

  “Okay.”

  He got square pot handlers, used them to get dinner from the oven, shut the door with his foot, put the hot tray on the table, dropped the squares—all in that order and with such efficient grace that not a single breath was wasted between.

  “Give it.” He took my hand back and inspected the damage. He was trying to be gentle, but it still stung, and I sucked a breath through my teeth. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  A frown creased his brow, and my stomach twisted at the thought that he was worrying about me. I didn’t know what to make of his apology or his concern, and for once—when he soaked a towel, folded it, and placed it over my hand—I let myself wonder about his feelings.

  “I almost took the skin off my palm once a couple of years ago,” he said.

  “You? Made a mistake? Alert the media.”

  “It was a barbecue grill, and—as you said—it didn’t look hot.”

  He slid his han
d from under mine so I could see the faint hints of a scar still etched into the skin. His palms looked tougher than I’d expected, flecked with imperfections and thick with calluses. All I could think about was how they’d felt on my bare skin.

  “Can we eat?” I asked, holding the towel myself. “It smells good, and I’m hungry.”

  “You sure you’re not smelling your cooked flesh?”

  “Gross.” I wrinkled my nose, and we did an even grosser thing.

  We stared into each other’s eyes and smiled together. His terrible, borderline-disgusting joke was a risk he’d taken in this kitchen with me. It didn’t seem like a gamble or a test. It was a kind of trust that I wouldn’t think less of him.

  He stepped back, and I looked away, as if we both understood the intimacy of what had just happened.

  He rushed to the table. “I’ll put dinner on the table.” He pulled out my chair. “If you don’t mind.”

  Who was this guy?

  He got the salad, plates, flatware, and wine on the table, then sat across from me.

  “I did a good page today,” I said, letting the wet towel go to scoop up macaroni and cheese with my right hand. “I’m sure you’ll find mistakes, but I was careful.”

  I held the spoon out for his plate, but he glared at the ball of wet towel. “You have to keep that on your hand.”

  “It’s fine. My left hand’s useless. Come on. Don’t leave me hanging.”

  Instead of holding out his plate, he got up and stood at the side of the table. “Do you know what I admire about you?” Gently, he took the spoon from me.

  “What?” I crossed my arms against the insult that would come disguised as a compliment.

  “Keep it cool,” he said, tapping the burned hand. “Please.”

  I sighed and laid my palm back on the compress.

  “I admire your transparency.” He laid the lump of macaroni and cheese on my plate with the same care he delivered the high-class trash talk I was about to hear. “I can usually tell what people are thinking because I’m good at it. But with you, my talent doesn’t matter. I know what’s going on in your head because you don’t hide.” He filled his own plate. “You’re fearless. You don’t care what I think.”

  I snorted and tried to grab the wine bottle, but he beat me to it and poured.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “Right now,” he said while putting salad in little bowls, “you think I’m trying to hurt you by calling you transparent, and you’re building a defense against it. So…” He glared at my right hand as I picked up my wine. “The compress, Amanda.”

  “I told you, my left hand is useless.” I switched the glass to my left anyway. “It’s habit.”

  When he put down the salad tongs, he paused, then sat kitty-corner from me and took my fork. “So”—he slid the fork under the casserole and came up with a heap—“I’m going to be transparent too. I’m not insulting you. A compliment is just a compliment. Open.”

  “Are you going to fly the plane into the hangar?”

  “If you can’t take care of your only good hand, you leave me no choice.”

  I didn’t feel as if I had much of a choice either. My left hand was holding my wine, and I wasn’t letting it go. If he wanted to delay his own dinner to feed me, that was his choice.

  Also, Dante Crowne had a way of telling a girl to open her mouth. So, I opened, and he fed me. The food wasn’t bad. Wasn’t great either, but I was hungry.

  “Just so you know,” I said when I was done chewing. “You said I don’t care what you think. You’re wrong. I care too much what people think.”

  “That’s obvious,” he said, rearranging the macaroni and cheese on my plate before loading the fork again. “But you don’t try to fool yourself and you don’t try to fool me. I can see how hard you work at not caring. It’s a noble effort, and you’re honest about it, even when you think you’re being guarded.”

  I believed him when he said he meant it as a compliment, but I wasn’t convinced readability was an admirable quality in an adult.

  “Well, fun talk,” I said before he stuck food in my mouth. I poised my wine at my lips as he prepped another forkful. “Let’s do it again sometime.” I gulped the wine, wanting to get down as much as possible before I said something stupid.

  “You still irritate me.” He speared noodles this time. “I never thought honesty would be a frustrating quality.”

  “You admire the things about me that annoy you?” I said around the food I’d taken. “That’s like emotional masochism right there.”

  He laughed, and I drank my wine, watching him. He wasn’t laughing at the humor, but at some kind of recognized truth.

  “I have it.” With my left hand, I took the fork from him. “Eat already. You’re making me nervous.”

  He leaned his hands on his knees as if he needed the help of his arms to rise.

  “I knew you were competent on both sides,” he said when he was in his own chair.

  “Hm.” I ate without help. My right hand was wet, and my left wanted to know why it was working so hard, but the food arrived at its destination without incident.

  “This is terrible,” he said, chewing.

  “Yeah, well, you still have to do the dishes.” I sipped my wine.

  He smiled as he chewed, then looked away like a man hiding something.

  “You said I annoy you.”

  He looked at me as if to ask why I was picking a fight, but that wasn’t where I was going with this.

  “I just wonder…” I tried to shrug away the weight of the question. “I can’t imagine the women you do like.”

  This wasn’t precisely true—I could imagine plenty, and it was maddening to picture such a self-possessed genius, whose hair and commas were never out of place, who fell apart like silken pudding at his feet. She didn’t burn her hand and need to be fed. She didn’t end up here in the first place, because she wasn’t idiot enough to love a man who would never, ever love her back. I could be Couture Mandy all I wanted; there was no version of Mandy who would be right for Dante, and in that moment, in that kitchen, I was realizing that, against my will, I cared to know why.

  “How many compliments do I have to give you?” he asked with a voice low and serious.

  “I’m not asking for a compliment. I’m asking who you are.”

  Dante just looked at me. In the silence that fell between us, I felt every inch of my skin, electric with goose bumps. His stare leveled me like a blunt force to my sternum. A weight pinning me in place and unraveling me, strip by strip, head to toe. I couldn’t stand being that naked in front of him, yet I craved it.

  We both finished eating, so I got up to clear the table. He was in charge of doing the dishes, but I could help. Mostly, I couldn’t sit still with him looking at me like that.

  Dante leaned back in his chair, expression shifting from open intensity to something more familiar—relaxed and impervious, like a king idling on his throne. His shirt was open at the collar, and I had to keep my eyes on what I was doing so that I wouldn’t fixate on the hollow of his throat or the open vee of his legs.

  Still, I felt the weight of his gaze as I crossed to him and reached for his plate like a silent, willing servant. Before I could lift his plate, he took my right arm by the wrist, turned it, and ran his fingers over my knuckles to indicate I should open my fist and show my palm.

  I did.

  He spread the fingers wide, inspecting the red spots, which had settled into a sweet, painless pink. He looked up at me with his ice-blue eyes burning.

  “So, Amanda,” he rumbled, closing my fist in his hands. “Have you decided?”

  “Decided what?”

  “About my offer.” He let my hand drop to my side, and there it stayed. “We’re not playing a game here. It’s yes, or it’s no. If you say no, you have to leave tomorrow.”

  He got up and stood over me, leaving scant inches between us, and I was conscious of the length of
every single one. His posture should have been intimidating, but all I felt was anticipation. My body hummed like an orchestra he was conducting.

  “If you say yes,” he continued, “you still have to leave tomorrow. But you’ll leave having gotten what you wanted. And isn’t that the point of all of this? Forget about me. Isn’t the point to finally get exactly what you want?”

  All the blood in my body relocated to between my legs. I was light-headed and spiraling. What did I want?

  I wanted a controlled loss of power. A safe risk. A freefall into a net I couldn’t see but knew was there.

  Dante could take me where I needed to go. Whoever I would be tomorrow would be the real Couture Mandy, and she could deal with the fallout—because there would be none.

  “Yes or no, Amanda?”

  “Don’t call me Amanda.” For the first time, this demand seemed petty without an explanation. “My sister was the only one who could call me that after I changed it to Mandy.”

  He knew all about Samantha. She’d committed suicide while engaged to his brother, Byron. The moment’s flicker of recognition in his face confirmed I didn’t have to go into what had happened, and the way he regained control told me he wouldn’t allow himself to get sidetracked.

  “Yes or no, amea?”

  A new name, just for me and just for now. I returned that penetrating pale-blue gaze, deciding whether I trusted the man behind it to let me walk away before I let him hurt me. I didn’t want to be chased.

  But I did.

  I wouldn’t be able to resist my worst instincts if he didn’t consent to help.

  “Just once,” I said. “I mean it.”

  “Tonight,” he said, his thumb drawing a line of electricity across the back of my hand. “Once. Yes or no.”

  Did I have a reason not to? Outside self-preservation, why wouldn’t I?

  “My answer,” I said, knowing that no matter what I said, it was the last time I’d be the one making a decision, “is yes.”

  I expected his hands to be on me in a heartbeat, but instead, he stood slowly, his appraisal turning blade sharp.

  “Don’t move,” he breathed.

  Don’t move. Don’t move. My pulse was pounding between my legs; my nipples were stiff, and my mouth was hungry. He circled me like a shark, his movement sinuous, predatory. By the time he stopped right behind me, I was breathless with anticipation.