Chapter 8
Tate
The rest of that first day passed in a blur of logistics and forced distance.
Getting Stella settled into her parents’ house had been a production in itself.
I’d lost count of how many trips we’d made from my SUV to her childhood bedroom and the spare room next door—dress forms, a professional sewing machine that weighed more than some of the equipment I’d hauled during my military days, bolts of fabric, garment racks, boxes of supplies, and enough sketches and portfolios to fill a small gallery.
She’d transformed the spare room into a makeshift studio with impressive efficiency, arranging everything with the practiced ease of someone who’d done this before.
I’d helped where I could, carrying the heavier items, holding things steady while she positioned them, but mostly I tried to stay out of her way.
I had to admit, there was something almost hypnotic about watching Stella in her element.
The frustration I’d witnessed when she’d dealt with her mother, the glimpses of vulnerability I’d seen in the short time we’d spent together, all of it disappeared when she was surrounded by her designs.
She moved with purpose, her hands sure and steady, her focus absolute.
By late-afternoon, she’d disappeared into her workroom and hadn’t emerged since. I’d set myself up in the study on the ground floor, where there was a desk, decent lighting, and most importantly, a clear line of sight to the front entrance through a door that faced the main hallway.
I spent my time making the space functional.
I connected my laptop to the house’s security feed and I synced my phone to receive alerts if anything triggered the outdoor sensors.
Then I did a systematic review of every camera angle, every potential blind spot, every entry point that might need additional coverage.
The work was familiar, almost meditative. It kept my hands busy and my mind focused on something other than the woman upstairs whose confession in her workroom kept replaying in my head on an endless loop.
One night of rebellion. One night where I could be someone else. Someone free.
I understood that more than she probably realized.
That evening, the house was quiet. Charles Hayward was working late—no surprise there, given he’d pretty much admitted he was a workaholic. Celeste had a committee meeting, and one of Noble and Associate’s other guys had gone with her as a precaution.
That left me and Stella alone in a house that felt too big and too empty, with too many rooms between us.
The cook—a middle-aged woman named Rita—had prepared dinner before leaving for the night.
Some kind of braised chicken with roasted vegetables and a sauce I couldn’t identify but tasted like it cost more than my monthly grocery budget.
Stella emerged from her workroom looking rumpled and distracted, her hair escaping from its ponytail and a smudge of something—chalk, maybe?
—on her cheek. She’d changed into leggings and an oversized sweater that kept slipping off one shoulder, and she looked so different from the polished woman I’d met at The Players Club that it made something twist in my chest.
We ate at the massive dining room table, sitting across from each other like strangers on a first date. Which, I supposed, wasn’t entirely inaccurate.
The conversation was careful. Polite. We talked about nothing important.
The food, the weather, a movie she’d seen recently that she thought I might like.
I asked about her current designs, and she lit up for a moment before catching herself, like she wasn’t sure if I was really interested or just making small talk.
I was genuinely interested. That was the problem.
There was a status quo between us now, a comfortable truce that felt fragile and temporary. We both knew the boundaries. We both knew the lines we couldn’t cross. And we both knew that every moment we spent in each other’s presence made those lines harder to see and respect.
After dinner, she retreated back to her workroom. I heard the sewing machine start up again before I settled into my own bedroom across the hall with my laptop, running through security protocols and trying not to think about how domestic this all felt.
* * *
The next few days fell into a rhythm. Mornings started with breakfast, usually just the two of us, since Charles left early and Celeste rarely emerged before ten.
Stella would come downstairs in her casual work clothes, hair pulled back, and we’d eat in companionable silence while I mentally cataloged everything about her that I had no business noticing.
The way she wrinkled her nose when she was thinking. How she hummed under her breath when she was distracted. The way she always reached for the sugar before remembering she was trying to cut back, then reached for it anyway with a rebellious little fuck it expression.
On the second morning, I asked her for the list she’d promised—clients, friends, anyone who had regular access to her life. She handed over a neatly typed document without comment, then added Oliver’s full name and phone number at the bottom.
“Oliver Roberts,” I read aloud. “Litigation attorney?”
“Yes. He works at Morrison you’d think he’d have better security protocols. Within an hour, I had access to his texts, his emails, his calendar.
What I found wasn’t what I expected.
The texts were... intimate. Explicit, even. But not with Stella.
Can’t stop thinking about last night and your mouth wrapped around my cock, read one message to someone named Carl. When can I see you again?
Soon, came the reply. My place this time. I’ll cook.
I scrolled through more of the conversation, professional detachment warring with something that felt uncomfortably like relief. The messages painted a clear picture—Oliver Roberts was in a relationship. A real one. Just not with Stella or even another woman.
I pulled up his photo on the firm’s website.
Handsome, well-dressed, with the kind of polished look that probably made juries trust him.
Definitely gay, now that I was looking for it.
There was something in the careful styling, the too-perfect presentation, the slightly feminine mannerisms that I recognized.
So what the hell was going on with him and Stella?
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
The obvious answer was that their relationship was fake, a convenient arrangement that served both their purposes.
Oliver got a beard to keep his traditional family off his back.
Stella got... what? A way to deflect her parents’ matchmaking attempts? An excuse to avoid the dating scene?
A cover for nights at The Players Club?
The thought landed harder than it should have.
If Stella didn’t have a real boyfriend—if Oliver was just a decoy—then that night between us hadn’t been what I’d assumed.
She hadn’t been cheating. She hadn’t been using me as a walk on the wild side before returning to her perfect life with her perfect man.
She’d been exactly what she’d claimed: a woman looking for one night of freedom.
Not your business, I reminded myself firmly.
Whatever arrangement Stella had with Oliver was her concern, not mine.
If she wanted to let her mother believe she had a boyfriend, that was her prerogative.
And if she didn’t realize Oliver was gay—though I suspected she knew exactly what she was doing—I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to out him.
My job was to keep Stella safe. That was it. Everything else was irrelevant.
I closed the files on Oliver and turned my attention back to the security feeds, watching the empty driveway and the manicured gardens and trying very hard not to think about what any of this meant.
* * *
By late afternoon of the third day, I needed to move.
I’d been staring at screens for hours, running the same background checks over and over, searching for something I might have missed.
The study felt smaller with every passing minute, the walls closing in, the quiet hum of the house making me restless.
I told myself I was going to check on the perimeter. Make sure the security measures were holding. Do another physical sweep of the grounds.