Blurred Lines

Chapter 22

The realisation of what Ruslan had so mercilessly laid bare to her, weighed on Abigail's mind like a burden that was too heavy to carry.

Accepting that she'd condemned her own life to one that now required round the clock protection was one thing, doing it to another, was altogether something else.

In the days that followed their conversation, she floated glumly from one room to the next, sitting aimlessly for hours on end in the study or the terrace, until either Anna or Ruslan would wake her from her stupor with some excuse or another to distract her.

One Friday morning when he should have been at work, she woke to find him cooking in the kitchen; something she'd never seen him do before.

"Go and have a shower and get dressed. I'm making you some breakfast and then we're going shopping. This apartment's bare," he said, without bothering to turn around.

When she stood there, watching him without moving, he turned toward her.

"I asked you to buy furniture weeks ago and you haven't bought a thing, so today we're going to do it together."

She opened her mouth to object, but he seemed to sense her unwillingness before she even gave voice to it.

"Enough with the self pity," he said, in a tone that told her that he wouldn't be taking no for an answer.

She'd never been a big breakfast eater, because she'd never had the time, but of late she hadn't been eating out of protest. It was her silent revolt against his intrusion into her life. She was sure Anna had been reporting to him daily about her dietary habits, because he'd gone all out when she'd come back a little while later dressed in jeans and a sweater, with her hair piled on the top of her head.

He'd laid out a place for one on the island, and she wondered if he'd already eaten, as she stood awkwardly not knowing what to do with herself.

"Grab yourself a glass from that cupboard," he said, as he flipped over the eggs he was cooking.

Despite being there for weeks, Abigail still had no idea where anything was. She ate what she was given and didn't enter the kitchen for anything other than a glass of water.

"Grab the orange juice from the fridge and pour yourself a glass," he said, placing a second glass containing milk in front of her.

"It's kosher," he said, eyeing the Turkish sausage she was looking at on a plate that contained way more than she'd eaten in weeks.

"All the meat is Kosher. Anna buys from a Jewish butcher."

Abigail nodded her acknowledgment.

"Anna tells me you don't eat much. I take it you think you're punishing me by refusing to eat," he said, eyeing her with that unsettling ability he had.

"You're harming the baby. It's irresponsible and it's going to stop now."

"I'm not punishing anyone. I just haven't had much of an appetite of late," she lied, pushing her fork around her plate.

She looked at the eggs on toast, the sliced avocado, the smoked salmon and grilled tomato.

She wondered what went through his mind. How the man that prepared this plate was the same man that had forcibly abducted her weeks before and had almost shot her.

"You need to eat all of that. We have a busy day ahead of us."

"Why aren't you eating anything?" she asked, taking a bite of the eggs.