4. Alex #3
I remain in the kitchen with the sauce beginning to burn behind me and broken ceramic scattered across the floor. Her bedroom door closes down the hall.
I should follow her.
I should apologize for the things I said, for kissing her as if anger gave me a right to her, and for calling something we both wanted a mistake because I lost my nerve first. Another part of me wants to follow her for an entirely different reason, to lock that door behind us and finish what I started.
I want both with equal force.
Instead, I turn off the stove and leave the broken cup where it fell.
The elevator carries me back downstairs.
The pool is empty when I return. I dive into the cold water and keep swimming until my muscles protest and my lungs burn, but Belle’s taste remains on my tongue.
I went upstairs looking for answers.
Instead, I gave her another reason to hate me and discovered that ten years have done nothing to make me stop wanting her.
It has been two days since the kiss, and we have become experts at avoiding each other.
The first day, we stayed behind our respective doors.
Belle came out only long enough to cook, leaving each meal covered in the refrigerator before disappearing again.
Somehow, without speaking, we learned each other’s movements.
If I entered the hallway, her door stayed closed.
If I heard her footsteps, I remained in my room until they faded.
The few times we miscalculated and found ourselves in the same room, her eyes dropped before they reached mine.
I should go to the office.
She would have the penthouse to herself, and I would not have to watch her move around me as though one wrong step might set something off. Instead, I keep finding reasons to work from home while pretending her discomfort has nothing to do with me.
She still looks miserable.
I cannot tell whether it is because I have trapped her here, because I will not let her go to Liam, or because the kiss disturbed her as much as it has disturbed me.
Perhaps she simply hates me.
She should.
I have given her more than enough reason.
And I hate her too.
At least, that is what I have told myself for ten years.
Today, she finally leaves her room for longer than it takes to prepare a meal. My eyes go to Belle through the glass. She curls into the corner of the sofa with a book open across her lap, one leg tucked beneath her. She has finally started reading again; the painting phase seems to be over.
She has not turned the page in several minutes.
Frank’s call lights up my phone. I pick up his call, a much-needed distraction.
“Boss, we may have a problem. I detected a pattern.”
“What do you mean?”
“A black sedan appeared outside the residence twice last week. Different plates. Then a dark SUV held position across from the grocery store during two of Ms. Clarke’s trips.”
My fingers tighten around the phone.
“How long?”
“First confirmed sighting was thirteen days ago. There may have been earlier passes.”
“You let a vehicle follow her for two weeks?”
“We did not have a stable vehicle, driver, or plates. Yesterday we had a gray crossover near the garage and a black Suburban circling the block. Different drivers. Different methods.”
“One team rotating assets.”
“Maybe. But Polanski does not think so.”
“What does he have?”
“Several people have been asking about Ms. Clarke. Her work history. Her address. Whether she has family in Texas.”
The vision narrows.
“Who?”
“He approached one this afternoon. Male, early forty, wearing a baseball cap. The man entered through the service alley, but got away before Polanski could get a hold of him. A second individual was seen near the campus, wearing a suit, but we do not have a clear image.”
Liam’s campus.
Belle has been jumpy all week. Could this be the reason? Did she know someone was following her? I look at her through the glass. She turns a page too quickly, then turns it back.
I think back to that night, to the way she stood at the window and kept telling me she was fine.
She had seen something. Maybe a car that stayed too long outside the grocery store. Maybe someone watching her in the glass.
Not enough to prove. Just enough to scare her. When she ran all those years ago, was I the only person she was running from? For ten years, I have never once considered there might have been someone else she was afraid of.
“What do they want with her?”
“We do not know.”
“Then find out.”
“If these are separate parties?—”
“I do not care if there are ten. I want names, photographs, plates, and financial records. I want to know where they sleep.”
A brief silence. “Do we brief Ms. Clarke?”
“No.”
Belle looks up as though she heard her name.
Our eyes meet.
Her book lowers.
I let my face go cold.
“She notices nothing,” I tell Frank. “Double the residence team. Put someone inside the grocery store when she goes. Two cars outside. Liam gets coverage too, but nobody approaches him unless there is an immediate threat.”
“That will be difficult to conceal.”
“Hire people who are better at it.”
I end the call.
Belle is still watching me.
I cross the office and stop at the glass. She sees the phone in my hand. Sees whatever escaped my control.
Fear moves across her face.
I hate it.
I hate the way her shoulders draw inward. I hate the shadows under her eyes. I hate that something outside this apartment has taught her to watch windows and lie about things she is afraid of.
I came here to frighten her. I wanted her uncertain, cornered, dependent on the man she had abandoned.
But this is different.
This fear does not belong to me.
I open the office door.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
Her laugh is brittle. “Of course not.”
“Make sure you stick to Frank or Steve when you go out. No more walking around by yourself.”
Her face empties. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
She closes the book and heads for the hallway. The scent of vanilla catches in my throat when she passes.
At her bedroom door, she stops and looks back at me.
For once, neither of us hides it. The fear in her face and whatever she sees in mine.
Then I put the ice back in my voice. “Close the door, Belle.”
She does, and the click of the latch carries through the apartment. I return to the glass and look down at Dallas burning forty floors below. Somewhere in that grid, men I do not know are circling what is mine.
I call Polanski.
“Twenty-four-hour surveillance. On her, on Liam, and on everyone watching either of them.”
“Understood.”
“No one gets close to either of them.” I hang up.
I stare at the reflection of Belle’s hallway in the glass. I brought her here to punish her. To make her live beneath my hand until she understood what ten years cost me.
That has not changed.
But she is mine to punish.
Mine to watch.
Mine to break, if breaking her is the only way to keep her where I can see her.
No one else is permitted to touch what is mine.
The fear they had put in her eyes would be the last thing they ever got to do. Anyone who tries to take her would discover exactly how far my reach extended.
She is under my roof, under my protection, and whether she hated me for it or not, anyone who even tries to touch her would answer to me.