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never went out of her way, not
even to check on Caton’s progress. Though, it wasn’t too hard for Caton to
imagine the impenetrable woman walking down to the dungeons each night to go
through the day’s work, making sure her commands were being followed and that
Caton knew the alphabet.
    It was a blessing, Caton decided,
the easy work, being left alone, a comfortable routine, both mindless and
painless. The storage room was a haven from Amelia’s persistent suspicion and
the plague of her own thoughts, because apparently “good morning” and
“goodnight” were all it took.
    Amelia was beautiful, that was an
undeniable fact, but Caton had been around plenty of beautiful women. She’d
even dated her share. Physical attraction simply didn’t explain the way, every
time she happened upon Amelia unexpectedly, Caton felt her mouth go dry, her
heart race and the immediate desire to find something to say that would make
Amelia see her as less of a burden. She really thought she had grown out of
being intensely attracted to people who treated her like a nuisance. By her
thirtieth birthday, she thought she had grown out of senseless attractions
period, and it was rather irritating to discover she could still be dominated
by her hormones at the worst possible time.
    Given a say, Caton would have opted
for the path of least resistance, would have been content to persist with her
routine of hiding in the basement for the entirety of her contract. As was the
way of life, though, there was always something waiting to intervene. In this
case, it was Jack, standing next to the bar in the kitchen when Caton walked in
one morning a couple of weeks into her sentence expecting to find Sole alone.
There had been no warning, no sign of his presence in the house. Suddenly, he
was just there, bombarding Caton with the uneasiness she always felt in his
presence, compounded by the fact that he had a home field advantage.
    “Good morning.” Sole’s greeting was
slightly more subdued.
    “Good morning,” Caton returned with
equal caution.
    “Coffee?”
    “Yes, please,” Caton said, stepping
up to the bar, discomfort acute as she watched Jack from the corner of her eye.
It wasn’t just that Jack was staring at her - she was rather accustomed to his
unrelenting leering - but the way Jack was staring at her that made Caton
desperate to flee the kitchen. Beneath the blatant intention, there was an
underlying aggression she could feel like pin pricks against her skin.
    “Good morning, Caton,” Jack
uttered.
    “Morning.” Caton glanced his way,
giving him no more, and managed a distressed smile at Sole as she sat a mug
before her on the counter.
    “Sole, go see if Amelia needs you,”
Jack ordered.
    Eyes locking with Caton’s, Sole
looked on the verge of disobedience, as if she knew it was a bad idea to go,
and knew it was a bad idea not to go. Vacillating between the two conflicting
paths, she finally chose the path of least resistance herself and walked out of
the room.
    Left to the wolf, Caton turned to
face him, showing no concern about being alone in his presence, but readiness
for his boorish behavior, as if she’d been trained from birth in the art of
evading creeper Lotharios.
    “How’s it going here?” Jack asked,
taking a step closer that he probably thought Caton didn’t notice.
    “I really don’t think your wife
wants me here,” Caton stated.
    Where a person with a conscience
might have shown concern, Jack seemed oddly pleased. “I’ve told her many times
to be careful what she wishes for,” he responded. “There are very few things I
can’t provide. Still, I don’t think I deserve all the hostility.” Jack took
another step, and Caton’s hand tightened on the handle of her mug. “After all,
I was just trying to help.”
    So, that was it then. Jack and
Amelia had a fight, and Jack wanted to spread the ill will.
    “You look nice like this.” His hand
rose between them. “Young.”
    “Don’t touch me,”