Chapter 34
Sadie
Lucan hugs me tightly around my waist, his face still against my back, oblivious to what I’m seeing on the computer monitors.
The room lurches as my gaze flicks around, taking it all in. He’s been spying on me, far worse than I knew.
There are police reports from when they were called to my mom’s house because of Russell. Loan paperwork bearing my name. Old photos of me he can’t possibly have, yet does.
And camera feeds. So many camera feeds, including at least one in my room that overlooks my bed. Alarm pierces the sexual pleasure still reverberating through my body.
Pushing myself onto my elbows, I frown at a number on a screen that seems to change in real time. The number sits alongside a diagram of what looks like the pendant currently around my neck. The heirloom that Lucan insisted I keep on at all times.
As my heart rate increases, so does the big red number on the screen.
My voice is hoarse with grim realization. “Are you tracking my heartbeats?”
Past readings for the whole day are listed, accompanied by graphs and charts. Is there anything he doesn’t know about me?
Lucan’s body pulls away from my back. He stays inside me, his hands resting on my hips as he regains his breath.
“Uh,” he says slowly, like he’s drunk on sex and can’t think straight. “Yes.”
Swinging my elbow at him, I hit his chest. “Get off me right now.”
He withdraws from me, spilling our combined cum down my inner thighs.
Snatching up my sweater from the floor, I put it on. I clean the mess between my legs with his discarded shirt, before balling the garment and throwing it at him.
Other than pulling on his pants and running his hand through his hair, he does nothing except stand back and watch me.
I guess that’s what he does. Observe every little thing about me.
Veins in his arms pulse. The fathomless look in his eyes scares me, like he just dragged me to a new level of the underworld and awaits my reaction.
“I knew you were a lot,” I say. “But what the hell, Lucan? What is all this?”
“It’s to keep you safe.”
“From what? Psychopaths? Because I feel like I’m looking at one.”
He doesn’t try to stop me when I return to his desk, where my steamy palm prints slowly fade on the marble surface. With shaking fingers, I click through the monitors to examine his activities more closely.
According to the diagram, the necklace isn’t really jewelry. It’s a high-tech bio-monitoring device.
Tugging the chain from my neck with a sharp sting, I dangle it from my fingers. The pendant swings back and forth like a hypnotist’s pendulum. With no pulse for the device to read, the red number on the screen zeroes out.
“No wonder your father didn’t mention me wearing a so-called family heirloom,” I say. “He’d never seen it before in his life.”
“I had to make sure you kept it on,” says Lucan. “I’m sorry I lied, but you had just run off alone at the gala and nearly got yourself killed. I had to do something.”
My hand drops. “But do I get a say? Do I get a choice? Because this—” I gesture at the monitors. “—isn’t a relationship, it’s your pathological need for control.”
His intense gaze falters, like maybe my words actually got through to him.
He exhales. “After we caught the guy, I was going to stop with the extra measures. I swear.”
“Why not just tell me what you were doing?”
“Because you’re stubborn. You didn’t even accept car rides to work from me.
Fuck, Sadie. Do you have any idea how much I worry about you when I’m not with you?
Every time my phone lights up, I think the worst. Every time I hear a siren in the distance, I worry the killer got you.
I swear, I take your safety more seriously than you do. It stresses me out so fucking badly.”
Words falter in my throat as I process what he’s saying. I never thought of the situation from his point of view. That he might genuinely fear losing me.
“I didn’t realize—” I take a deep breath. “I didn’t know I was worrying you that much. I guess I have been careless at times. But that doesn’t give you the right to do this.”
He kneads his hands together. “After failing my cousins, you don’t understand what losing you would do to me. I have to protect you. Everything else comes second. I’m sorry you’re hurt, I am. But I’m not sorry to know your heart’s still beating.”
My feelings speed around inside my body, confusion and anger zinging to the surface.
But my heart aches too. Really aches, like it cares for Lucan and is struggling to process this unwelcome discovery.
One computer screen shows my social media account. That wouldn’t be so bad, except it’s being viewed via an advertiser’s account.
“What the hell?” I ask, clicking around to figure out what he’s been doing.
“The scholarship ad,” he says.
His voice is calm. Husky too, like it always is after sex.
“What about it?” Examining the screen, I realize. “That was you? Did you direct the Darkbloom scholarship ad to me?”
“Yes.”
My shoulders locking up, I turn to him. “How is that possible?”
He shrugs. “It’s easy to target ads at only a particular account, with a couple of adjustments.”
“But why would you do that?”
His eyes narrow, like the answer is glaringly obvious. “You needed to go to college. I provided.”
“You’re paying the scholarship funds? My tuition?”
“Sure. It’s no big—”
“It’s a big deal to me,” I say, pressing my palm to my chest.
Lucan gives me a quizzical look. “Do you wish I hadn’t?”
“Uh—”
My gaze drops from his face as I consider my answer.
Can I honestly say yes? Attending Darkbloom was a new beginning I sorely needed. That scholarship gave me hope.
I sigh. “I wish I had achieved it on my own. I thought I did. But I was wrong.”
“You deserve to study at Darkbloom,” he says.
“So do a lot of people,” I say. “Why should I get the opportunity?”
“Because I want you.”
“In your world, I guess that’s reason enough.”
He gives a wry half-smile. “It can be your world too, if you want it.”
“At the moment, I don’t know what I want.” I point at the screens. “But I think you intended for me to see this. You’re the least careless person I know.”
Lucan walks toward me slowly, stopping in front of me. “Maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to make sure you won’t run screaming from me.”
As I glare up at him, he leans down so his mouth hovers inches from mine. His eyes rake intensely over my face, the same as the night he made me sit on a glass table.
Or rather… the night I chose to. That’s more accurate. I agreed because I wanted to experience new things in a new world.
At Darkbloom.
With him.
I was scared, yes, but also excited by him and how he made me push myself.
His deceptions are difficult to swallow though. How can I trust him after this?
“What you did wasn’t just about protecting me.” I tap the monitor displaying my bed. “That camera’s on my suitcase, right? You put it there on my first day. Before Parker was killed. Before I needed protection. That was just you being a creep.”
Maddeningly, a smirk twitches the side of his mouth. Even more maddeningly, it makes a very, very unwise part of me want to kiss him.
“Okay, true,” says Lucan. “But is that a crime?”
“Yes, actually.”
He gestures at the doorway. “You’re free to go to the police.”
I stay where I am. Aside from anything else, reporting him would be pointless. The police are in his pocket.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he says. “What’s the problem then?”
My eyes fall to the papers for Ink & Ivy Books. “The surveillance, the secret interference with my education, your instinct to control. I don’t know if I can handle it. Handle you. You’re just—”
Lucan walks to the window and looks out. “Too much to bear?”
Guilt trickles through my ribs, because I remember that’s what his mother said about him right before she left.
But god, maybe it’s true. He might need to hear it.
“You can push people away by holding them too tightly,” I say quietly.
“But that’s just it, Sadie.” His voice is subdued. “I thought you wanted to be held tightly. I thought you liked it.”
I did. I do.
Where’s the line though? There has to be one. Otherwise I’m his possession, not his partner.
My head throbs with the effort of deciding what I’m okay with and what I’m not. All I want is to be alone in my bedroom. Actually alone, without a tracking pendant or cameras monitoring my every move.
I need to get out of here.
Silently, I gather my remaining clothes and get dressed.
“Let’s take a minute, okay?” I join Lucan at the window. “I need space and time to think. Plus we have exams. I need to study. In the meantime, you’re going to stop spying on me.”
He faces me. The skyline darkens behind him like a moody painting.
“What if the killer comes for you?” he asks.
“I have a stun gun and friends. Plenty of people are on high alert. I’ll be fine, I promise.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “You can’t guarantee that.”
“Nor can you.” I touch his wrist. “That’s the part I think you have trouble with.”
As I leave, Lucan gazes at me like he fears he might never see me again.
He will though. I’ve survived many things, and I’m more prepared than ever.
Entering the elevator, I press a button and the door closes. In the dark capsule, I glide down, alone and confused.
Does Lucan realize he’s keeping a piece of my heart when I go? I feel his absence already, as a deep void in my chest that he had started to fill.