‘Yes, it was rather,’ he agreed. Moving on down the hall, he opened the next door along. ‘My study and library.’
I caught a quick glimpse of a room covered from floor to ceiling with book-lined shelves and, in an alcove to the right, a mahogany desk.
‘It’s not a room you’ll have to come into very often.’ Crossing over to the other side of the hall, he threw open the huge double doors that I had noticed earlier. ‘The sitting room and dining room.’
He held the doors open, inviting me to go in, and I stepped into one of the most beautiful rooms I had ever seen. But I barely noticed the four sets of French windows that gave onto the rose garden at the side of the house, or the high ceilings, or the elegant archway that led through to the dining room, because my eyes were immediately drawn to the fireplace where Fireflies, the painting I had done for Jack, was hanging.
‘It looks quite perfect there, don’t you think?’ he said. Remembering the love and effort I had put into it, and the fact that it was composed of hundreds of kisses, I felt sick to my stomach. Turning abruptly on my heels, I went back out into the hall. ‘I hope that doesn’t mean you don’t like the room,’ he frowned, following me out.
‘Why should you care whether or not I like it?’ I snarled.
‘I have nothing against you personally, Grace,’ he said patiently, as he continued down the hall. ‘As I explained in Thailand, you are the means to the end I have always dreamed of having, so it’s normal that I feel some sort of gratitude towards you. Therefore, I would like your experience here to be as pleasant as possible, at least until Millie arrives. Once she does, I’m afraid it will be extremely unpleasant for you. And for her, of course. Now, you didn’t get a chance to see the kitchen properly yesterday, did you?’ He opened the kitchen door and I saw the breakfast bar that we had decided we’d have, complete with four high, shiny stools.
‘Oh, Millie will love those!’ I cried, imagining her turning herself around on them.
In the silence that followed, everything that had happened caught up with me and the room began to spin so fast that I felt myself falling. Aware of Jack’s arms reaching out to catch me, I made a feeble attempt to fight him off before passing out.
When I next opened my eyes, I felt so wonderfully rested my first thought was that I was on holiday somewhere. Looking around, still drowsy with sleep, I saw all the equipment necessary to make tea and coffee on a table near the bed and decided I was in a hotel, but where I didn’t know. As I took in the pale-green walls that were both familiar and unfamiliar, I suddenly remembered where I was. Leaping from the bed, I ran to the door and tried to open it. When I found that I was locked in, I began hammering on it, screaming at Jack to let me out.
The key turned in the lock and the door opened.
‘For goodness’ sake, Grace,’ he said, clearly annoyed. ‘You only had to call me.’
‘How dare you lock me in!’ I cried, my voice trembling with rage.
‘I locked you in for your own good. If I hadn’t, you might have been foolish enough to try and escape again, and I would have had to deprive you of yet another visit to Millie.’ He turned and reached for a tray, which lay on a small table outside my door. ‘Now, if you move back a little, I’ll give you something to eat.’
The thought of food was tempting; I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten but it must have been well before leaving Thailand. But the open door was even more tempting. Moving aside, but not back as he had asked, I waited until he had come right into the room, then lunged towards him, knocking the tray from his hands. Amid the sound of breaking crockery and his roar of rage, I ran towards the stairs and went down them two at a time, registering too late that the hall below was in complete darkness. Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, I searched for a light switch and, finding none, felt along the wall until I arrived at the kitchen door. Throwing it open, I found that it too was in darkness. Remembering the four sets of French windows I had seen in the sitting room the day before, I crossed the hall and groped along the wall until I found the double doors. The total darkness inside the room, without even a glimmer of light coming in from the windows, as well as the silence—because the house was eerily quiet—became suddenly terrifying. The knowledge that Jack could be anywhere, that he could have crept down the stairs behind me and be standing within feet of me made my heart race with fear.