Lib Novel Page 9
She rolled her eyes. “Almost two months.”
“Do you live here?”
“No.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Why would someone like you enjoy having a knife to her throat?”
She glanced at him, and he caught a gleam in her eyes, but she didn’t offer a reply.
Biting off another hunk of bread, he searched his mind for a way to get the answers he needed. Whoever “they” were had to know she was a lone seal in an empty ocean being circled by a great white. There was no way “they” didn’t know he would try to pry information out of her, whether through deception or more painful measures.
Maybe she was a test.
Quite possibly, it was all a test.
If all this was related to being part of a team-based project, maybe they wanted to see how long it would take him to go from cordial to burying her alive in the grass next to the terrace out of sheer cabin-fever-induced insanity.
Under different circumstances, he would have been more interested in burying himself inside her, but he was cursed by a past that included a very significant, very invasive traumatic event.
“How’d you end up here?” he asked.
She swallowed another bite. “I can’t say.”
“Are you stuck here?”
“I can’t say.”
“Well, what can you say?”
“That my job is to keep you happy.” She glanced at him again. “Tell me, Mr. Delgano…what can I do to keep you happy?”
It was a decent attempt at distraction; for a second, he wanted to ask her to come with him to the bedroom to see if she was the woman who would finally break “the curse.”
“What’s my purpose here?” he prodded. “Can you answer that? Day in and day out, I’m by myself. There are guns on me at all times, and the only highlight of my day is when you show up.”
“I can’t answer any of those, Mr. Delgano.” She slightly turned her head, looking at him from the corner of her eye. “Am I really the highlight of your day?”
“You’re not nothing, and you’re more than something.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“At least I’m giving you answers.”
She turned away again.
They continued their meal in silence, and her continued lack of eye contact didn’t stop his mind from roving. If he didn’t get information soon, he would go mad—if he wasn’t halfway there already.
“If I tell you I have no desire to hurt you, at the moment, will you look at me?”
“‘At the moment’?” Her head swung around. “Mr. Delgano, look…this isn’t my world. I’m not used to any of it, and if I’m being honest, this isn’t the life I envisioned for myself. This isn’t even where I want to be. Plus, from what I’ve read about you, you’ve killed a lot of people. I’ve never killed anyone.”