Page 32 of His Vicious Desire

“Morning.What do you want for breakfast?”There’s a coolness to him, to the question that stops me in my tracks.

Oh, wow.How rude of me to let him cook for me every morning.“I’ve got it.I’m going to try the waffle maker with those heart plates.Don’t worry.I’ll clean up after myself and everything.Go sit down in the living room.You’re giving me a complex watching me.”

“Do you know where the waffle maker is?”Is asked drily.

“Okay, after you show me where the waffle maker and pancake mix is.”

That exhalation that might be a laugh.He opens a door, and I find a walk-in pantry.One wall of it is food.Another wall has an assortment of small appliances, including a gleaming, expensive waffle maker next to the waffle maker still in the box.

He grabs the pancake mix and hands it to me as he picks up the waffle maker box.

“Knock yourself out.”He mutters as he sets it down on the counter.“There’s milk in the fridge.”

Marissa was nicer than my mom in letting me help in the kitchen.She even showed me how to cook several of her special dishes.The only thing is it’s been a minute since I’ve been in a kitchen cooking.Sandro treated me like a baby and wouldn’t let me cook after Marissa stopped being my nanny.Despite the whole reason she quit was because I was thirteen and could cook for myself and wasn’t dumb enough to set the house on fire if I was alone.

I pull the waffle maker out of the box, and it’s even neater than I thought it would be.Giggling at the idea of Santa Claus waffles, I scrub everything with anticipation—another clean before you use it commandment from Marissa.

The instructions for the waffles are pretty easy to follow.At first, I pick out the heart and Santa Claus.Then I’m too excited by how cool they are and use all the plates, so now there are snowflakes and leaves on the plate.I’m sad when I run out of batter.

I decide to give Gaetano one of each considering how small they are.Putting them on a plate for him.I butter them and warm up the maple syrup that was in the fridge in a small ramekin so he can decide how much he wants to use.Then I take everything into him.

“Gaetano, I got you a few of each.”I present him with the plate and the syrup with pride.

His jaw is hard as he looks from the plate to me.My stomach drops as I brace for the words that will match the coldness in his eyes.Only for him to blink as he takes the plate.“Thanks.”

Relief sends me back into the kitchen with a happy skip to my steps.I grab my own plate and ramekin of syrup and carry them back into the living room.

I find one of the trays already set out for me when I sit down with my plate.“Aren’t they neat?”I ask as I watch him cut into the snowflake one.

That eyebrow.“Santa Claus?”

Giggling, I nod.“These suckers are smaller than I thought they would be.So the batter went further than I thought it would.There are enough of these to eat every day for a solid week.It’s a good thing they freeze well.”

We eat in silence as we watch the old sitcom we both like about a group of friends in New York.Except it’s not a warm silence the way it has been.I don’t dare tease him or ask him questions the way I did the day before.

Once he’s done, he takes his plate to the kitchen, and I want to kick my own ass for not cleaning up as I hear him begin to wash the dishes from the mess I made.

When I finish and carry my plate into the kitchen, he’s got everything clean.I hand him my plate, and he accepts it with a nod.“The place is open.Give me a minute, and we’ll go.”

“Okay.”

Minutes later, I follow him out into the garage and wait for him to open my door.

“Not the car.If we’re getting a rug, we’ll need the SUV.”Gaetano says from behind me.

God, he thinks of everything.I move to his wicked, black SUV.He opens the door for me, and I climb up into the seat.When he turns the car on, he immediately turns the stereo down, but there’s no invitation to plug into it.Instead, he presses a button, and Sinatra comes through the speakers—it’s the station Bobby likes to listen to.

The drive to the store is quick.Once we’re inside, I grab a shopping cart and point it toward the rugs.Gaetano hangs back, not offering a word of input as I flip through the hanging rugs.

Ew, no.No.Ugly.Really ugly.No one actually buys something that ugly.Ew.Double ew.Ugly.Ugly.Not awful.Maybe it works, but not amazing, so wait to see what else there is.Ugly.So totally ugly.Absolutely not.That has to be a joke.Oh wow, I love it.

“Four hundred dollars,” I exclaim in pain.

Chuckling, Gaetano is behind me.“Let me see.”He considers it, and I know what he’s going to say before he says it.“It’s not bad.”

“Yeah, but four hundred dollars.There was another one?—”

“This is the one.It matches the colors in the ottoman and the console.”I’m astonished he gives the reasons why I picked it.He has been paying attention.“Move back so I can find it among this ridiculous system for storing rugs.”

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