Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
olivia
I stand a step away from him in the elevator, my hands clasped in front of me, my gaze fixed on the seam where the floor meets the wall. He doesn’t speak.
From the corner of my eye, I catch the slight twitch of his hand, as if his body is fighting itself, desperate to close the gap between us.
I can feel the tension humming off him like a low current, but I don’t move.
I don’t reach for him.
I don’t give in.
And god, it pains me—to stay still, to not offer him the comfort he needs, to not take it for myself.
Because I’m not here to soothe him, no. I came back for the truth.
When the doors open, he lets me step out first. Then he follows behind me, silent as a shadow.
The penthouse is still and untouched, like time itself has stalled here since I left.
I move past the threshold and hear the soft click of the door closing.
A heavier sound follows—the deadbolt sliding into place.
When I turn, he’s standing with his back to the door, his presence filling the space between me and the only way out.
“Before we start,” he begins, voice low. “I need you to promise me something.”
I don’t answer right away. He looks at me like the ground might open beneath his feet if I say no.
“Promise me that you won’t run. Not again,” he continues, forcing the words out of his mouth.
“Even if this is more than you want. Even if it feels like too much. Promise that you’ll talk to me first. Let me explain, or defend myself, even fall at your feet if I have to. Just…don’t leave again without a word.”
My mind conjures the image of him from this morning, waiting for me outside my dorm with barely concealed desperation.
He’d been trying to hold himself together, but I could see straight through it.
Despite the evenness of his voice, his body had betrayed him.
And the moment I told him that I wouldn’t step foot inside his penthouse again until he showed me everything, his composed facade shattered entirely.
His hands, still unsteady from earlier, curled into loose fists at his sides as if he could keep the tremor from spreading.
I watched as his warring instincts played out across his handsome face—one part convinced that letting me see would be handing me the very proof I’d need to walk away forever, and the other that understood what refusing me would mean.
I knew the exact calculation he was making: if he said no, he lost me for certain.
But if he acquiesced, there was still the possibility, however slim, that I might choose to stay.
The muscle in his cheek ticked once, and then the decision settled over him like a drop into deep water. A gamble. Show me and risk everything, or deny me and lose for sure.
His gaze held mine, unblinking, like he was willing me to give him another option. When none came, he slipped his hand into his pocket—perhaps to stop himself from reaching for me—and without another word, stepped back and gestured toward the street.
And now we’re here, in Nathaniel’s living room, the pressure of that unspoken bargain between us pressing in from every side.
I feel it so acutely—the sense of standing at the edge of something vast and irreversible, where one step forward will change us forever and one step back will end us outright.
Nathaniel stands across from me, still holding himself at a safe distance, but his gaze stays fixed on mine. This is the precipice, and we both feel the edge of it.
I draw in a slow breath and give a single nod. His shoulders loosen almost imperceptibly, the relief in his face so plain it pulls at me.
“I promise I won’t run,” I tell him. “But only if you promise that you’ll show me all of it.”
Something in his expression shifts—subtle, but enough to tell me my answer has cost him.
His relief is tempered by dread, like a man walking willingly toward his own sentencing.
For a heartbeat, he just stands there, as if weighing whether to prolong the inevitable.
Then, without a word, he turns and heads for his office.
I follow, my pulse thrumming in my ears. His gait is measured, deliberate, but there’s tension in the set of his shoulders, in the way his hands stay buried in his pockets as though keeping them still is an act of will. He moves like someone bracing for impact.
When we reach the office, he gestures toward the desk. A large monitor dominates the room, its darkened screen reflecting both of us. He hesitates, standing there with one hand on the back of his chair. The flicker of panic in his eyes is gone as quickly as it appears, but I catch it.
“Show me,” I coax. “Please.”
His jaw flexes once before he sits. A few keystrokes, the flick of a mouse, and the screen flares to life. Windows crowd the desktop, each one a thread in the web he’s spun around me. They’re still open from earlier—proof that he’d been watching, checking, moments before he came to find me.
He swallows thickly, then begins to explain. “I’ve been tracking you…”
He gestures to the first window. It’s a map.
A blinking dot marks a route—not today’s, but from two days ago.
The date in the corner makes that clear, though the sight of it still hooks something deep in my chest. I watch the line trace my movements with clinical precision: leaving campus, cutting across the city to the Mayfair Book Shop, the slow walk through the park as I took the long way back to Nathaniel’s penthouse to clear my head. Every stop, every pause, charted.
It takes me a moment to realize what I’m looking at, and then the truth slides into place.
The necklace. Even though it’s sitting on the bedside table in the bedroom I’m now supposed to be sharing with him, this proves it—he’s been tracking me through it.
The thought had once felt too paranoid to voice, but staring at the confirmation on the screen, it’s now undeniable.
This is how he knew I’d gone to Mayfair that afternoon, even though I’d never been there before. And how he knew the exact address of my family home in Ashby, the one I never gave him.
I stare, feeling a chill settle over me, yet not the revulsion I should probably feel. Instead, there’s a strange comfort, knowing that he kept me in his sights at all times.
He hesitates, glancing at me nervously, and then moves on. “I’ve also cloned your phone…”
In the next window, I see my home screen, my messages, my emails—alive and shifting in real time.
My heart is hammering in my chest. This is how he’s always known the things I never told him.
How he’s been able to answer questions I never asked aloud, cut through conversations with information I didn’t remember sharing.
And then my mind drifts back to weeks ago—the day of our worst argument.
The same afternoon I’d slipped out for my second interview with Castor I can feel the vibration of his unease, see it in the way he positions himself between me and the door.
If I tried to leave now, I’d have to go through him first.
His face is stricken, braced for the blow that’s sure to come. He has been completely stripped of his armor, his vulnerability laid bare as he waits for me to sentence him.
And as I search for my answer, I find that perhaps I’m more lost than I ever realized.
“Olivia,” he says at last, voice frayed. “What happens now?”
I can’t answer. Not yet.
Not when the only thing worse than choosing wrong is giving an answer before I’ve made peace with it. I have to turn this over in my mind—feel every side of it, even the ones that cut—before I can live with what I say next.
Without meaning to, I step back, needing space to think.
Nathaniel’s reaction is immediate. His head snaps up like a cord’s been yanked.
“No—” His voice breaks. Then, before he can think better of it, he moves.
He crosses the space in two long strides, only to drop to his knees at a measured distance—close enough for his heat to reach me, but far enough to make it clear this isn’t a trap. It’s an offering.
“It’s okay if you want to punish me,” he says, each syllable scraped raw.
His gaze climbs my body as if afraid I’ll vanish if he blinks.
“If you hate me. If you need to make me crawl until we’re even, I will.
I’ll let you break me down and build me back however you want.
But please…please don’t take yourself away from me. ”
His hands flex against his thighs, curling like he’s holding himself back from touching me. The restraint is palpable—I can feel it, a tremor in the air, in the answering tremor inside me.
This should frighten me… But why can’t I bear the thought of turning away from him?
“If you need to know where I am, or who I’m with…” My voice falters. “Then you ask me. You trust me. You don’t take my choice away from me.”
His eyes flare—hurt, longing, and something molten beneath it. His chest rises with a slow, deliberate breath, as though holding himself back from surging forward and closing the space.
Can I live with this? With the way he watches, with the tether he knots so tight around me?
But the hardest question claws its way to the surface—can I live without him? The mere thought rips through me, raw and merciless. Imagining a life without him hurts.
At the same time, I know that if I want Nathaniel at all, I have to take him as he is.
This hunger to hold, to know, to claim—it isn’t something he can just put down and walk away from.
It’s woven into him as surely as my pulse beats for him.
And the truth is…I don’t want him stripped of it.
I don’t want him hollowed out and harmless.
I want him as he is. Because I love him.
And it’s that love—the sharp, undeniable ache of it—that leaves me with only one choice.
I cannot live without him. Which means I can live with this. As long as it is mine to choose.
I take a step. Then another. The hem of my skirt brushes against his forearms. He doesn’t move—doesn’t dare—until his fingers hover at the edges of my hips, trembling with restraint.
“This can’t come at the expense of my autonomy,” I tell him, my voice low. “If you’re going to watch over me, then I won’t be kept in the dark about it. That’s the line. You don’t cross it. Not if you want me to stay.”
His jaw tightens. His fingers twitch. And then—finally—he gives in, palms settling at my waist. His head bows, breath spilling warm over the plane of my stomach, the sound of it catching against my skin.
I thread my hand into his hair. The strands slip soft and warm between my fingers. He exhales, shuddering, a sound that’s half relief, half surrender. His forehead presses against me, closer, as though he could anchor himself in the shape of my body.
“So…what happens now?” He repeats his question from before, voice muffled against my stomach.
The answer crystallizes in my mind, sharp and clear. “We move forward.”
“Together, or apart?” He doesn’t dare to lift his head.
The silence stretches, thick with the thrum of his breath against me, with the heat pooling lower in my body. I tighten my grip in his hair—not enough to hurt, just enough to draw him closer, to feel the subtle give of him yielding to me.
“Together,” I whisper.
The word lands between us like a verdict passed.
His hold on my waist firms and in response, I curl my hand deeper into his hair and pull, drawing his head in until his face is pressed fully against me.
He groans, low and guttural, the sound vibrating through my core, as his breath sears through the thin barrier of fabric. The air between us shifts—still laden with the weight of what’s just been said—but threaded through with a heat that promises what comes next.