And then that thought made her mad. She wasn’t here of her own volition. She’d been kidnapped and was being held against her will. If the owner of these things lived here voluntarily, then, well, it was just too bad that she’d have to share her clothes.
She ran her hand over the blouses hanging in their neat section. There were slacks, dresses, suits, casual wear, formal wear. It was an entire wardrobe. All of them had new tags. All were in her size.
She opened the lingerie drawers and found panties and bras, sexy and tempting corsets and babydolls. Beautiful silk stockings. Other drawers had folded sweaters and upscale casual attire. There were three shelving units of shoes, most of them high heels. Brand new. Every color and design she’d ever admired.
The jewelry dresser was also full of a stunning assortment of rings, bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. Even jeweled hair clips. Some of these were new; some looked like antiques.
She heard a noise at the door to her closet. Kelan was standing there, dressed in a black tee, black cargos, black boots. Had his clothes been a perfect fit and selection for him as well?
“Where did all of this come from?” she asked, giving him a quizzical look. “It’s weird, but it’s all my size. The shoes too. Even the jewelry, the rings.” She frowned. “How would they know that about me?”
Kelan shook his head. “I’ve memorized the feel of you in my arms, yet even I don’t know what size you wear. If I had to guess, you would be the size of a minute, but I don’t think that’s a real thing.”
“Are your clothes a perfect fit for you?”
“No. There was a range of sizes for me to pick from, though.” He sat down in one of the two wingback chairs in the middle of her closet. “This wasn’t a lucky guess. Someone knows you.” He studied Fiona. “One of your friends, maybe.”
Fiona remained standing as her expression took on a faraway look. She looked at him, stunned, the blood slowly draining from her face.
“Tell me,” he ordered quietly.
She shook her head slowly then folded her arms across her chest. “There’s a girl I became friends with this semester. I knew her from last semester. We had some of the same classes. I don’t know how or why, but we really hit it off this year. We started doing things together. We went shopping one day after classes in the boutiques in Old Town. She had the salesgirl measure us so we’d know which sizes to look for in the retro dresses.” Fiona looked at him. “She wanted to be a designer, so I let her help me build an ensemble from a mix of styles and eras. We were just being silly. It was a fun way to forget the stress of school.” She looked at the column of jewelry drawers. “We even tried on rings. She got a complete sense of my tastes and sizes. You don’t think she worked for King, do you?”
“Give me her name.”
“Stacey Atkins. She lives in an apartment near the campus. She was so normal. She never once did anything that made me suspicious of her.”
Kelan got up and came over to her. His big hands settled on her arms.
“She stayed at the library doing homework with me the day they took me. She called them, didn’t she?” Tears pooled in her eyes as she realized how tainted her world had become. “Is there no one I can trust anymore?”
“No. You need to assume King owns everyone you encounter. Except me and the team. And the girls at the house.”
Fiona leaned her forehead against his chest. “I don’t like this world very much.”
His arms went around her, tight, then tighter. “We’ll work through it. It won’t always be like this.” He kissed the top of her head. “Get dressed. I’ll set our supper out.”
Fiona scrambled into underclothes, then a pair of jeans and a sweater. She managed to find a pair of flats, which felt like slippers on her feet. When she joined Kelan in the main room, she noticed he’d propped chairs up under the door to the hallway and the one to the conservatory. And he’d pulled the drapes closed over the windows on that side of the room, too.
On the table, two plates were set side by side. He held her chair out then sat next to her.
“I’ve done a manual check of the room for bugs. Didn’t find any, but it doesn’t mean we’re safe to talk here.” He nodded toward her plate. “Eat what you can.”
Fiona was exhausted and had little appetite. She pushed her food around her plate.
“Fiona, a few bites, please. You must have missed several meals before I found you. And I don’t know what they have in store for us, but whatever it is, we’ll need strength to meet it.”
She took a bite of the chicken. There was some sort of wine-and mustard-flavored sauce with mushrooms. She pushed the mushrooms off to one side of her plate and made short work of the chicken and broccoli. Kelan finished before she did. She watched him look around their room.
He leaned close and whispered, “I’m going to see if I can find a way out of here.”
Chapter Ten
A few minutes later, Kelan had checked out the garden room and their suite, looking for a way of getting out. He shook his head when he came back to where Fiona was sitting at the table. “Let’s try to get some sleep. Morning will be here soon.”
They got under the covers fully dressed. This was the first time in a long time that Fiona felt as if she could relax, but worry about the morning kept her adrenaline flowing. She snuggled against Kelan’s side.
“Tell me about the claiming ceremony,” she said.
He adjusted his hold around her shoulders. “Not now. You need to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. At least not yet. Your voice calms me.”
“It’s a topic that must be discussed when we aren’t exhausted and have time to properly consider its implications.”
Fiona didn’t argue. He thought he’d gotten a reprieve, until he realized she was softly weeping against his tee.
Having her in his arms was like holding the rising sun; her weeping was as devastating as if the sun wept. It made his chest hurt. If telling her about the claiming ceremony would help, he would spend the rest of their time together explaining it.