Page 66 of Cruel Kiss

"I had a dream about a whale," she reports. "It was very polite. It said excuse me before it ate the boat."

"That's a very well-mannered whale."

"Mr. Ronan says whales are the biggest animals ever, even bigger than the dinosaurs."

Ronan sets a plate in front of Isabella. Enormous, with Minnie Mouse ears. He sets one in front of Hayden, small ones, three of them, the way Hayden likes. He sets one in front of me, just a normal pancake, but there's exactly the right amount of butter melting into exactly the right pattern. I look at it and think,Heknows how I take my pancakes,and I want to put my face in it and scream.

"Rules stand," I say. Quiet. Just for him.

He straightens. Behind the glasses, his eyes are very calm. "I know."

"I mean it. Everything's back to normal. Last night was?—"

"Night stuff," he says. "In the dark. Gone by morning." He recites it back to me perfectly. "I remember, Ms. Meadows."

"Good."

And that's when the melon-baller feeling in my chest curdles into something meaner, because I came down here braced for a fight. I had my whole list ready, all my grievances lined up, and he just took it. Nodded. Poured me the right coffee and made me the right pancake and agreed to keep on keeping on.

I hate it.

I hate that I can't hate him properly, because he won't give me anything to grab onto.

The morning goes on like that. Which is to say it goes on being pleasant and civilized and completely intolerable.

Ronan does the dishes. I take the kids up to get dressed. When I come back down, he's on one of his phones by the window, conversing in Russian with his back to the room. He glances over his shoulder when I come in and gives me a nod, the exact nod you'd give a colleague you respect but don't know especially well. I have to resist the urge to throw the mantis mug at his head.

Instead, I clean the counter he already cleaned. Then I wipe down the table Isabella already smeared with syrup, and then,because there's nothing left to wipe, I stand at the sink with my hands in dishwater that's gone cold, staring out at his patrolling men in their dark coats, and wondering how I'm making such a mess of my life over and over.

He finishes his call. I hear him set the phone on the counter behind me.

"You reorganized the mugs," he observes.

"So what?"

"So the mantis one used to be in the back. Now, it's in the front."

"I moved it. It's my kitchen."

"It is." He pauses. "You put it where you'd have to reach past it to get any other one. On purpose, I think. So you'd see it every time." He's choosing his words very carefully. "It's a strange thing to keep front and center. A mug your husband's mistress drank out of."

I turn around so fast the dishwater sloshes.

"I didn't ask for your opinion."

"No opinions here," he says, raising his hands. "Merely an observation."

"I didn't ask for that, either."

He tucks those hands behind his back. "Then I'll keep them to myself. No opinions, no observations, no tricks or treats.”

"Bullshit," I say flatly. "You're always doing a trick." My voice is climbing, but I can't bring myself to stop it. "You noticed I couldn't sleep, so you let me stand out there in the hall like an idiot. You noticed I take my coffee like a lunatic, so there it is,every morning, perfect, so I can't even be mad at the coffee. You put the right pancake in front of me. You picked the right mug, or the wrong mug, or whatever mug I secretly wanted so I'd have to reach past my own grief every single morning, and you did it without asking, and you're standing there beingniceabout it, and I just want it to stop."

"Would you rather I be cruel about it?"

A fierce "Yes!" bursts out of me. "God, yes! Fight back! Just—fightback,goddammit!" I throw the dishrag down. It lands in the sink with a wet slap. "Stop being so goddamnreasonable.Stop agreeing with everything I say. Stop looking at me like—like?—"

"Like what?"