If I want to go home, I need to please him. I just hope this is the worst of it.
Quickly, I kneel down on the floor in front of the plate. It’s all food that’s easy to eat with my hands—a crusty baguette, hard cheese, some peppered jerky. Nothing I’d make a mess with or that I’d have to eat directly off the plate, thank god.
I reach for a piece of the cheese, glancing up at him, and I see that he looks shocked, as if he didn’t expect me to obey him.Have others not obeyed him? Is that why they’re not here? What happened to them?
Fear trickles through me, but I force myself to keep nibbling at the cheese, and the corner of his mouth quirks up.
“Petite souris,”he murmurs, and I blink at him.
“What?”
He stiffens, as if he’d been lost in a fog, and I’d startled him out of it. “Nothing,” he says sharply. “Finish your food, pet. The apartment needs cleaning badly. That will be your next task when you’re finished.”
Cleaning.I almost feel relieved. It could have been so much worse. Cleaning I can manage, even do well, and I feel another flicker of hope. If pleasing him just means kneeling on the floor while I eat and cleaning his apartment, I can do that.
For the first time since I woke up in Kaito’s mansion, I feel real hope.
I might get out of here yet.
8
NOELLE
“Come,” Alexandre says, when I’ve cleaned my plate. Despite my nerves, I ate every bit of the food, instantly starving from the moment I saw it. It’s the first food I’ve had since the melon and berries at Kaito’s. “I’ll show you the apartment and where the supplies are kept to clean it.”
He opens the door as I stand shakily, reaching for my plate. He doesn’t offer to take it, and I quickly grasp this is the beginning of my duties.Am I just going to be his maid?I can manage that, if so. I still don’t want to stay here forever, cleaning his apartment and playing the part of an unpaid servant; it’s better than the alternative of being his sexual plaything.
I follow him out into the narrow hallway. The floor is unvarnished wood, the walls painted a deep forest green, with art hanging along them. There are no personal pictures, nothing of him or anyone else, and I notice as I scan the walls that there’s something slightly wrong with every one. Some are more damaged than others, but even the most pristine works of art have a chipped corner on a frame, paint flaking off in spots, or a tear or cut in the canvas. Others are much shabbier. There’s a doorway to my left, at the very end of the hall back the way I came, and when I glance back towards it, Alexandre touches me for the first time.
His fingers curl around my upper arm, not tightly enough to cause pain, but enough to make me take notice. “You are not to go in there,” he says curtly. “That room must never be touched, and you must never go inside. Iwillpunish you if you do. Do you understand, Noelle?”
I wish he would stop saying my name like that.No one has ever given it that musical lilt, almostpurredthe vowels so that my name sounds sensuous and seductive instead of what I’ve always thought it was—a perfectly ordinary name that I didn’t care much for one way or another.
When Alexandre says it, it sounds special. Beautiful. I like the way it sounds, and I don’t want to like anything about him.
“I understand,” I say quickly. “Is there anywhere else I’m not allowed?”
“The bedroom upstairs, directly across the hall from the library. That is my room, and you may not enter there, either. I will leave anything that needs to be tended to, like laundry, out in the hallway for you.”
“You have alibrary?Inyour home?” The words squeak out before I can stop myself. I love to read, but in the past years, the time that I’ve had to enjoy it has diminished more and more. I don’t think I’ve picked up a book since my father got sick. I haven’t had time.
“Yes,” Alexandre says curtly. “The bedroom across from it,” he repeats, his voice taking on a hint of impatience. “You are not to go in there.”
“I can’t go in your bedroom or the one at the end of the hall. I understand.” I can hear a hint of impatience in my voice, too, and I try to temper it. I doubt that impatient pets get rewards. “But I can go in the library?”
There’s a hint of twitching at the corners of his lips again, as if he’s trying not to smile. “Yes,petite souris,”he says calmly. “You can go into the library.”
“And read, when I’m done with whatever you have me doing for the day?”
“Of course.” Alexandre waves a hand down the hall impatiently. “Now, can we continue,s’il vous plait?”
“Sure,” I mumble, feeling my cheeks heat suddenly at his attitude. It makes mefeellike a pet, like an animal that has amused him in some way, until he tired of it. “After you.”
We walk out into a large living room with dark paneled wooden walls and a deep green accent wall with a huge stone fireplace. The floor is hardwood still, with thick rugs covering it, although I see that they, too, are damaged in some way—tattered in places or with the tufts coming free.
“Through that door is the kitchen,” Alexandre gestures. “You will find everything you need to clean in there, beneath the sink and in the pantry. The laundry facilities are downstairs in the basement. I will leave what is in my bedroom outside in the hall for you. Implements for sweeping and mopping are stored in the hall closet.” He gestures again, towards a far wall. “I apologize for the lack of fresh food today. I have not been shopping in some time, but I will go out and get something now. I won’t starve you, pet.”
I cringe inwardly at the word, but I try not to let it show. Instead, I nod meekly. “I’ll spend the rest of the day cleaning, then.”