CHAPTER 3 Maeve #2
He tilts his head, his dark eyes scanning my face. "Your pupils are dilated. Your heart rate is elevated. You are running on the last fumes of an adrenaline spike, and within the next twenty minutes, your body is going to crash. Give me the drive, Maeve."
He holds out his hand. Palm up. Long, elegant fingers. A faint scar cuts across the knuckle of his index finger.
I stare at his hand. The logical part of my brain—the auditor, the girl who calculates risk—screams at me to give it to him. He saved my life. He brought me here. If he wanted to hurt me, he didn't need a flash drive to do it.
But the chaotic, broken part of me—the part that learned early on that relying on other people only leads to abandonment—rebels.
"What if I say no?" I whisper.
Declan doesn't move. He doesn't threaten me. He just lowers his hand, stepping one fraction of an inch closer. The space between us is practically nonexistent now. I can feel the heat radiating off his chest.
"If you say no," he says, his voice dropping to a register that vibrates directly against my skin, "I will pin your wrists to this refrigerator, reach into your pocket, and take it myself. And I think we both know that neither of us wants to cross that physical boundary tonight."
My breath hitches. The threat isn't violent. It’s deeply, inappropriately intimate.
The image flashes through my mind—his body pressing against mine, his hands holding me in place, the absolute loss of my own physical autonomy.
A hot, confusing flush creeps up the back of my neck, fighting the freezing cold of the room.
He watches the flush spread across my collarbones. His eyes darken, the obsidian turning to pitch black. He swallows, a slow, deliberate movement of his throat.
He feels it too. The tension. The dangerous, crackling energy of two people trapped in a space that is suddenly entirely too small.
I break eye contact. I reach into my pocket, my fingers closing around the cold, hard plastic of the flash drive. I pull it out and place it in the center of his palm.
His fingers close over mine for a split second before taking the drive. His skin is warm. The contrast to my freezing hands makes me shiver again.
"Thank you," he says quietly, slipping the drive into his trouser pocket. He takes a step back, the suffocating pressure of his proximity lifting instantly. "Now. You need to sleep."
"I don't know where to go," I admit, the fight draining out of me. He was right. The adrenaline is fading, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that makes my knees feel like water.
"Follow me."
He leads me past the kitchen, down a different hallway lined with modern art and soft, recessed lighting. He stops in front of a heavy wooden door and pushes it open.
"Guest quarters," he says, stepping aside.
I walk into the room. It’s beautiful. A massive king-sized bed with dark gray linens, a thick rug, and a window that looks out into the blinding snowstorm. There is a connected bathroom with a glass shower and dark stone tiles.
It looks like a high-end hotel room. Sterile. Perfect. Completely devoid of personality.
I stand in the middle of the room, my arms wrapped around myself. I look at the bed, then at the window, and finally, the reality of my situation crashes down on me with the weight of a collapsing building.
My apartment is a crime scene. My laptop is gone. My job is gone. My best friend thinks I’m probably dead, or will soon. I have absolutely nothing in this world except the clothes on my back and a terrifying man who refuses to let me out of his sight.
A single, humiliating tear escapes my right eye, tracking hot and fast down my cold cheek.
I wipe it away violently with the back of my hand, but another one follows. Then another.
"Stop," I whisper to myself, my voice cracking. "Don't do this. Not right now."
I hear a soft intake of breath from the doorway.
I turn my back to him, facing the window. "You can leave, Declan. You have your flash drive. You have me locked in the bunker. You win. Just... close the door."
He doesn't close the door.
I hear his footsteps on the rug. Slow. Measured. He stops a few feet behind me. He doesn't touch me, but I can feel his presence, a solid, immovable anchor in the middle of my breakdown.
"The closet," he says, his voice stripped of its usual commanding edge. It sounds almost... careful.
I sniffle, wiping my nose on the sleeve of his expensive jacket. "What about it?"
"Open it."
I turn around, glaring at him through blurry eyes. He gestures toward the sliding wooden doors on the far wall.
I walk over, my damp socks making no sound, and slide the door open.
I expect to see empty hangers. Maybe a generic white bathrobe or some extra blankets.
Instead, the closet is full.
My breath catches in my throat. I reach out, my trembling fingers brushing against the fabric of a dark green sweater hanging on the rack.
It’s my size. I touch a pair of jeans folded on the shelf.
My exact waist measurement. There are three pairs of sweatpants, all soft cotton, all in the muted colors I wear when I work from home.
I look down. On the shoe rack, there is a pair of fuzzy gray socks and a pair of winter boots. Size seven. My size.
My heart starts a slow, heavy pounding against my ribs.
I step back from the closet, my eyes darting toward the open bathroom door.
Sitting on the stone vanity is a toothbrush, a hairbrush, and a tube of toothpaste.
Not generic travel toothpaste. It’s the organic, cinnamon-flavored brand I buy from the weird little health food store three blocks from my apartment in Chicago.
The air leaves my lungs.
He didn't buy this on the way from the airport. He didn't order this while we were on the plane.
To get my exact sizes, my exact preferences, my exact brand of toothpaste... he would have had to know I was coming here long before tonight.
I turn slowly to face him.
Declan is standing in the center of the room, his hands tucked into his pockets, his dark eyes watching my realization unfold. He doesn't look guilty. He doesn't look apologetic. He looks like a man who has been waiting for me to catch up.
"You didn't get hired tonight," I whisper, the horror and the fascination warring in my chest. "You've been watching me."
Declan holds my gaze, the silence in the room stretching until it feels like a physical weight pressing down on my shoulders.
"Sleep, Maeve," he says softly.
He turns, walks out of the room, and pulls the heavy wooden door shut behind him.
The lock engages with a soft, electronic click .
I am alone in a room full of things chosen by a man who knows my life better than I do. And I have never felt more terrified, or more awake.