BELLA'S POV
He continued as though he hadn't said it.
"Meals at the family table. Breakfast from seven to nine, lunch at one, dinner at seven. If you have a scheduling conflict, classes, an engagement, you let the kitchen know by ten the previous evening."
"My mother mentioned that rule."
"Your mother thought the maids would carry it up to you," he said. "The maids will not carry food to your room. That stands regardless of circumstances."
"Even if I'm unwell?"
"If you're unwell, you tell me or the staff and a doctor is called." He said this without hesitation. "You don't manage it alone in your room."
There was something in the way he said it that stopped me from making the easy, deflecting remark I'd been preparing. It wasn't a rule, that one. It was something else, a different te
