12 - Adrian #2
I go perfectly still, the irony of this moment threatening to choke me. She's about to confide her fear of me to me. About to ask her stalker to protect her from her stalker.
"Following you?" I manage, voice steady despite the storm in my chest.
"More than that." She counts on her fingers, and I want to capture those hands, kiss each fingertip. "My apartment was broken into. Nothing stolen, but things were fixed. Hinges oiled, lightbulbs changed. Little improvements that mean someone was inside, touching my stuff."
All me, of course. I school my face into a mask of concern.
"And I feel watched. Constantly. Like someone knows my routes, my schedule. Sometimes I swear I can feel eyes on me, but when I turn around, nothing."
She's taken that knife from her boot and slid it between my ribs. She's sitting here, trusting me with her terror, not knowing I'm the monster under her bed.
"That's…" I start, then stop, the irony too thick to swallow. "That must be terrifying."
"It is." Her vulnerability in this moment breaks something in me. "I don't scare easily, but this is different. It's like someone's studying me."
Studying. I almost chuckle. Yes, that’s exactly the right word.
"I'll handle it," I hear myself say, the words meaningless and profound. How do I handle myself? How do I protect her from the protection I provide?
"Adrian, you don't have to…"
"I said I'll handle it." The edge in my voice surprises us both. "No one should be making you feel unsafe."
The cosmic joke of it all. I'm vowing to protect her from the very thing I am.
Something shifts in her face at my tone, but before she can analyze it, I reach across the table and grip her hand. Not gentle, not casual. A claiming hold that makes her eyes widen.
Her pulse flutters under my thumb like a trapped bird. I want to follow that rhythm with my mouth, trace it down her throat, discover if it races faster when I touch her properly. The need to claim her, here, now, in this perfect restaurant, nearly overwhelms my control.
"Nothing will ever happen to you." The vow comes from somewhere deep, somewhere that existed before all the watching and planning. "I need you to know that. Nothing bad will touch you while I'm breathing."
It's the most honest thing I've said all day.
Her hand is warm in mine, her pulse visible at her wrist. For a moment, she's completely still, caught by the intensity of my grip, the weight of the promise.
Then she pulls back, not harsh but definite. "I can handle myself, Adrian."
The words don't sting. Because I know exactly how well she handles herself. I've watched her do it for years. Seen her navigate threats with her knife and her cold competence. She doesn't need my protection, never has.
"I know," I say, and the words carry layers she can't possibly understand. "I know exactly how capable you are," I continue, releasing her hand slowly. "Doesn't mean you have to face things alone."
The layered truth of it hangs between us. I know her capability intimately, have recorded every instance of her strength. And I'll override it anyway. She doesn't need my protection, but she'll have it regardless.
She's still watching me with those dark eyes that give away nothing, but something flickers there.
Recognition maybe, or just the wine and the afternoon catching up with her.
The silk dress catches the light as she shifts, and I want to tear it off her, want to show her exactly how much I'm willing to provide.
Instead, I signal for the check, playing the gracious friend who gave her a lovely afternoon. Nothing more.
But as I sign the credit card slip, her attention sharpens on me.
It's subtle. The way her eyes narrow slightly, how her head tilts like she's listening to something just below the surface.
This is the third time I've let too much show through.
First at the bar weeks ago, then with the patron I handled too thoroughly, and now this grip, this vow that carried too much weight.
"Adrian," she starts, then stops, her fingers drumming once against the table.
"What?" I keep my voice easy, warm, but I can feel her studying me.
"Nothing. Just…" She shakes her head, but I watch her file this moment away with the others. The flickers she's been catching, these small breaks in my careful character. She's too smart not to notice patterns, and I've been giving her one.
I can see it in her eyes. She almost recognizes something.
Almost puts together these moments where the mask slips, where something darker shows through the warmth.
Her instinct is screaming at her that something's wrong, that these edges she keeps catching mean something.
But she can't quite name it, can't quite place what hides beneath my charm.
"Thank you for lunch," she says instead of pursuing it. "For the dress, the company. All of it."
"Anytime." I mean it absolutely. I'd orchestrate a thousand perfect afternoons for her.
We stand to leave, and she's steadier than expected. Isa holds her wine better than most. I hover close without touching, ready if she needs steadying but knowing she won't accept it.
As we walk through Ariele's perfect dining room, I catch our reflection in a gilded mirror. She looks like she belongs here, in this dress I chose, in this space I arranged, in this day I authored from start to finish. The most romantic afternoon of her recent life.
At the door, she turns to face me. "I mean it, Adrian. Thank you. I needed this today."
The gratitude in her voice almost makes me tell her. Almost makes me confess that her stalker is standing right here.
Almost.
Instead, I smile the smile that opens every door in Miami. "What are friends for?"
She gives me one last searching look, that sharp intelligence still trying to place what's wrong with this picture.
“Keep the dress,” I say, to distract her. “It suits you.”
That’s the understatement of the year.
“I’ll return it tomorrow,” she says, dismissing the gift.
She walks away in the dress I bought her, full of food I arranged for her to eat, frustrated by obstacles I created, comforted by the friend who is the source of every problem she described.
I watch until she turns the corner, imagining following her home, confessing everything against her door, showing her that the stalker she fears is the only man who'll ever love her this completely.
Would she run? Fight? Or would she finally understand that some obsessions are just love wearing different clothes?
I pull out my phone. Three texts about Zayas movement at the port.
One from Logan: the Zayas are offering money now, real money, to anyone at the Aviary who remembers the night Lito went missing.
They braced Teo at the door twice this week.
Teo, who's worked Miami clubs for a decade, who knows when to look the other way — and who greeted me by name on my way in that night.
But all I can think about is that flicker in her eyes, that third catch of something wrong. How close she came to recognizing what I really am.
She's getting closer to seeing me. The real me. The one who loves her enough to cage her completely.
Soon she'll know everything, and then we'll see if her capable hands reach for her knife or for me.