The same was true for the clothes on the hangers. Her shoes were no longer in a pile but polished and stored in order. Her small cedar jewelry chest was on one of the dressers. She opened it and grew teary at the sight of her mother’s antique necklace. She stroked the necklace, then shut the chest with care and leaned against the dresser.
This was both creepy and . . . thoughtful. Finding familiar things was comforting at the same time as it scared her half to death.
When had he given the order to collect her things? Had it been at the beach house when he called Rune? He had said he had told Rune to get a vegetarian cook. When had he decided to move her things into his room?
She grabbed a T-shirt, sports bra and panties and a pair of flannel boxer shorts. She went into the bathroom. She could spend a week having a vacation just in the bathroom alone. There was a bathtub the size of a small pool with steps and bench seats, and there were unopened bottles of Chanelscented bubble bath. Her toiletries and makeup were laid out on the marble counter by the sink. New bottles of the shampoo and conditioner brand she liked were in the shower stall.
Someone had apparently thought of everything, every last freaking thing, except for asking her opinion about any of it. What a gilded cage.
Even though Dragos had urged her to take a hot bath, she felt too vulnerable and unsettled to relax. Just as she had at the beach house, she locked the bathroom door before she stripped.
The shower was several feet in size with a bench seat and multiple heads. After she figured out how to turn it on, she stood under the multiple streams of water with her eyes closed until the warmth soaked away all the strength in her legs. She sat on the bench as she lathered and conditioned her hair and scrubbed at her body until it felt like she had taken a layer of skin off. After rinsing, she wrapped her hair in a towel and dried and dressed. Rational or not she felt better as soon as she had clean clothes on.
When she walked out of the bathroom, she found that a serving cart/portable dining table and a chair had been set near the windows. There was a heavy white linen tablecloth and simple but elegant tableware and dishes with silver covers. A small bottle of white wine chilled in an ice bucket. Consumed with hunger, she uncovered all the dishes.
She found a delicate lemon asparagus risotto sprinkled with slivered almonds, a salad with mixed greens, sliced pears and dried cranberries, fresh baked bread with individual packets of soy margarine and blueberry crumble for dessert. She fell on the food and devoured every last delicious bite.
After getting clean, comfortable and filling her stomach, she had no room for alarm or offense. She couldn’t even keep her eyes open. She managed to brush her teeth before she crawled between the sheets of the massive bed. As prisons went, this one would be mighty hard to beat. She yawned, gave up trying to think and fell asleep.
On the next floor down, Dragos strode into the conference room, followed by Rune. Located a short, convenient distance down the hall from his offices, it was a large executive boardroom, with black leather seats, an expansive polished oak table and state-of-the-art teleconferencing equipment.
All his sentinels were present with the exception of the two gryphons Bayne and Constantine, who stood guard at Pia’s door. Rune took a seat by the fourth gryphon, Graydon, and tilted his chair back. Tiago leaned against the far wall, a dark brooding presence. Aryal sprawled and tapped her fingers on the table. She never quite managed a motionless state unless she was hunting prey. The gargoyle Grym angled his chair so he could watch Aryal.
Tricks, the faerie known as Thistle Periwinkle, Cuelebre’s head of PR, sat with her arms and legs crossed at the other end of the table. Her lavender cloud of hair, sporting a four-hundred-dollar haircut, was disheveled. She jiggled one tiny foot and chain-smoked.
Dragos, like Tiago, didn’t take a seat. Instead he went to lean back against the oak counter at the head of the room. He kicked one foot over the other and folded his arms, tucked his chin in and brooded at the floor.
He didn’t like how he felt. He didn’t like it one fucking bit. He felt jittery and restless at leaving Pia alone. The feeling increased with every step he took away from her and with every minute that trickled by. She had looked very lost and alone standing in the middle of that big empty room.
He didn’t like how she had looked at him either, like he was an unpredictable puzzle she couldn’t decipher. Or a bomb that might go off in her face. She had looked at him with uncertainty, distrust. With something very close to fear again.
She had pulled away from him.
It was unacceptable. But before he could go and take care of whatever was brewing in her head, he had to do this first.
He lifted his gaze and looked around the occupants in the room. They were all watching him and waiting.
“Hey, Tricks,” he said to the chain-smoking faerie. “Your uncle Urien says hi.”