Dinner was steamed wild rice, grilled mahi-mahi with a light dill sauce, and burnished Brussels sprouts served on fine china with linen napkins. Candles graced the table. The whole thing looked like a freaking banquet, making this the strangest confinement in history. Dani took a cautious bite, trying to understand the look on Luke’s face. He simply stared at the plate in front of him. She felt a pang of jealousy, and hoped that someday he would look at her that way.
Luke ate as if every bite was an orgasm and closed his eyes more often than not, visibly wanting to savor the taste on his tongue. It was good, it was very good, but Father had always hired good cooks; it was his one concession, to pay for the best help. At least in regard to the kitchen. That trait, sadly, had not extended to the household guards. Or thugs, whatever they called themselves now. She hadn’t seen a single one of her father’s men since he’d left, with the exception of one or two who might have come with the house back when he’d bought it. Which meant they had few allies.
She sighed and speared a piece of fish, wondering why she was the only one seeming to care that they were all under house arrest. She’d even gone so far as to arrange a fucking escape, and there Luke sat, eating as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
Correction, Luke ate like a man who hadn’t eaten in days. Halfway through the fish, it suddenly occurred to her that maybe he hadn’t.
“Good fish?” she asked when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
The room was so quiet she was starting to be able to hear people chew, and it was getting on her nerves. David’s head shot up like he’d heard a gunshot, and Benny glanced up from the newspaper he habitually read while eating. The fact that he found newspapers to read had fascinated her for days. You’d think a guy with Benny’s connections would have at the very least had an iPad like the rest of the known universe.
“Are you asking?” David shot back, his eyes darting from Katie to Benny, and back to her as if he couldn’t quite figure out a place to rest them. “...or telling?”
“I was asking Luke,” Dani emphasized the name, “if his fish was good.”
“It’s incredible,” Luke said slowly, reaching for another forkful only to find the plate empty. The silver clattered against the china with a soft forlorn sound. The look of disappointed shock was so heavy on his face, Dani nearly laughed.
“Please,” she said, lifting her plate in his direction, “finish mine. I can’t eat this all much, and I like the sprouts better.” She slid the rest of her fish onto his plate and asked for someone to pass the bowl with the vegetables though, truth be told, she despised Brussels sprouts. Which was only one more sacrifice she was making today for Luke, and would also likely turn out to be just as unappreciated as the first one.
I am so going to have his hide for coming back. What the hell was he thinking?
“I see the pizza didn’t ruin your appetite, Mr. Milligan,” Benny said with a smirk as he turned the page of his newspaper and shook it out to better read some story on the bottom of the page.
“Pizza?” David glanced warily from Luke to Benny, as though trying to puzzle out some joke where the punchline was in a foreign language. “You had pizza?”
“Seems our Mr. Milligan went out for pizza today,” Benny said from behind his paper, and clucked in dismay. “Did you see this? They arrested Moretti, and put it on page eight. Page EIGHT, I tell you...”
Luke waved his fork in protest. “No. Pizza and beer! If you’re going to do something, do it right.”
Benny chuckled and turned another page. Behind the paper there came the sound of a fork against a plate, indicating the crime boss was still eating. “The alcohol certainly seems to have improved your spirits, Mr. Milligan.”
Dani eyed Luke suspiciously. He’d been drinking? Well, that certainly would explain things...
“I’m sorry, Luke,” Katie said, looking more at the table than at anyone there. “I don’t understand, you went ‘out for pizza’?”
“It seems that some of the meals taken to Mr. Milligan’s room were being misdelivered,” Benny explained, refolding the newspaper and setting it next to his plate, folded over to show a grainy picture of a man being led away in handcuffs. “I looked into that matter, and it appears to be true, though we may never know the reason.” He shook his head and tapped the paper. “Page eight. I tell ya... there was time was a guy like that would have been front page.”
“Oh, come on...” Dani muttered, and felt Luke kick her under the table. More than a little peeved by now, she kicked back. Hard. She heard him bite back a grunt and returned to the meal with a rather satisfied smirk as she dipped a sprout in melted butter and popped it into her mouth.
The butter didn’t really help.
“But to avoid any further accidents of this nature, Mr. Milligan will be joining us for breakfast and dinner.” Benny ducked his head a little, in a mocking obsequiousness that made half the people at the table flinch. Ever the smiling and beneficent despot.
Luke didn’t seem to notice. In fact, if anything, he and Benny were seeming more and more like besties. Dani narrowed her eyes, the Brussels sprout in her mouth becoming impossible to swallow.
“Thanks.” Luke smiled around a generous portion of fish. He took a long swig of the wine and nearly moaned in delight.
Dani was going to wind up spitting her vegetables into her napkin in a moment. She grabbed at her water glass and washed the thing down, promising herself to swear off the sprouts forever. She cleared her throat awkwardly. “Uncle Benny...” she said, her eyes still on Luke, who seemed oblivious to not only the tension at the table, but to the subtext of the conversation. “Is it okay for Luke to join us later?”
Benny added a lump of sugar to his after-dinner coffee. “Join you? Where?”
“The library, of course.”
Benny looked at her for a long moment. Luke took another flake of the fish and David leaned in to ask in a loud whisper if there was any pizza left in the room. Or beer. Especially beer.
The request seemed to strike Benny’s funny bone. “Jimmy!” he called to the man standing at the door. “Let them play in the library tonight. I’ll be... busy tonight, so keep it respectable, nothing loud.”
“Thank you,” Dani murmured and looked to Luke, who was finishing off his wine. The last time she’d seen him look that sated, she’d been in his bed.
“Nothing recorded?” Luke asked, a smile on his face at odds with the sudden hard glint in his eye.
Dani blinked.
Wait a second...
“Mr. Milligan.” Benny set down his coffee cup and leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers steepled, in such a classic villain pose that Dani would have laughed had there not been minions everywhere with itchy trigger fingers. “Have a good evening. Jimmy, spread the word, Mr. Milligan has free run of the house, the same as the rest of our guests. Boys and girls, come and go, just don’t leave the house until after the wedding.” He trotted toward the door, tucking the newspaper under his arm, uncharacteristically pleased.
“Why?” Dani heard someone say in her voice.
“Why what?”
Dani swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Why are we suddenly allowed to roam about the house? What changed?”