19. Ryan #3
His expression shifts, not into satisfaction exactly, but something softer and far more dangerous to me right now.
“It’s clear that you don’t wish to be around me right now, so I will leave.”
I glance toward the windows again, then the broken wall, then back at him. “You’re—you’re just going to leave?” I stammer.
The question sounds ridiculous the second it escapes.
I was the one who effectively told him I cannot think with him in the room.
I have spent the last however-many minutes wishing he would disappear so I could sort through the wreckage of my own feelings without having his face complicating every thought, and now the moment he agrees to do exactly that, some primitive part of me wants to grab him by the shirt and demand to know why the fuck he thinks abandoning me in this cottage is a good idea.
“Not exactly,” Camille says.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I will leave the cottage. I will not leave the property.”
I stare at him in confusion until he gestures toward the front of the house. “I will drive my car around and park it close to the house.”
“You’re going to sit in your car?”
“Oui.”
“For how long?”
“As long as necessary.”
I blink at him, the slightest bit of annoyance beginning to mix with disbelief. “That’s insane. You have a giant house like a minute away, with a security system.”
“I am aware.”
“And instead you’re going to sit in a fucking car in my driveway because I told you I don’t want to look at you?”
“If that is what allows you to have the distance you asked for without being alone here, yes.”
I gape at him.
The worst thing about Camille is that he can make something completely unreasonable sound so matter-of-fact that I briefly begin questioning whether I am the strange one for objecting.
I narrow my eyes. “I’d still know you were out there. That kind of defeats the point.”
“Not entirely. You would not have to speak to me, look at me, or allow me inside. I would simply be near enough to respond if something happened.”
The familiar protective impulse in his voice scrapes against every exposed nerve I have.
A few days ago, I would have found it comforting.
Yesterday, I probably would have rolled my eyes and secretly liked it.
Now it is impossible to hear concern without wondering how much of it belongs to me and how much belongs to the evidence I now possess.
Maybe Camille realizes where my mind goes because his face hardens suddenly, and he clarifies, “This is not about the journal.”
I don’t answer.
“Ryan.” He exhales slowly through his nose. “If you threw that journal into the fireplace while I stood here, I would be devastated beyond words. I would also still refuse to leave you alone in this cottage tonight.”
Something in my chest jerks painfully. I hate that. I hate when he says things that sound real.
“I’m not burning anything.”
“I know.”
“You’re not getting it either.”
“I know that too.”
The silence stretches between us again, but it feels different now, less like the aftermath of an explosion and more like the uneasy stillness after discovering there might be another one somewhere nearby.
I look toward the windows once more and hate how quickly the cottage has changed around me.
Just hours ago, it was mine in a way it hadn’t felt like since the break-in, because I had come here alone and reclaimed some small portion of control by doing exactly what Camille told me not to do.
Now every shadow outside looks occupied, every little sound potentially someone coming to hurt me.
Case in point—a branch scratches faintly against the roof, and I flinch, almost dropping the book.
“I can call the gendarmerie and ask them to send someone,” he offers, obviously pitying me.
“No.” The response comes quickly. I do not want police here yet, not while Alberte’s evidence is sitting exposed and I have no idea who to trust, especially after what he wrote.
Maybe that suspicion is twenty-three years out of date.
Maybe it is completely irrational. Doesn’t matter.
Right now, I do not have enough information to decide, which means I am not handing the only copies of anything to anybody.
Camille seems to understand without forcing me to explain. “Then I will remain outside.”
I rub both hands over my face, and the grit still clinging to my palms scratches unpleasantly against my skin. “Ugh.”
“You do not have to decide anything about the evidence tonight,” he says as I finish groaning.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I grumble.
“No, it is not.” His voice is so quiet that I look at him again.
For the first time since crawling through the wall, I really notice how relentlessly his attention avoids the journal.
His gaze has flicked toward it occasionally, yes, but every time it does, he seems to drag himself away again.
This thing contains his mother. Two decades of searching, and she is right here in my hands.
I can’t imagine what it costs him not to demand it.
That doesn’t make me forgive him.
Unfortunately, it does make me believe that when he says his concern is about me, there is at least some truth to it.
I hate ambiguity. Really and truly, I have had enough of it for one lifetime.
“I don’t want you sitting outside all night,” I tell him, sighing.
“Maybe not, but I will not leave you here completely alone. I refuse to.”
“No…”
I don’t want comfort from him, but I also do not want to be in here alone anymore.
The realization makes me feel weak, which makes me angry all over again, although this time the anger is mostly at myself.
There is nothing inherently brave about spending the night in a compromised cottage because I am too stubborn to admit that somebody may be watching it.
There is certainly nothing brave about keeping the only known evidence against a potentially murderous man in a house that has already been broken into before.
Camille’s estate is safer—significantly safer. There are cameras, a gate, working locks, and alarms.
Also snakes.
Not that the snakes are an official security system, but I could throw them at an intruder—and probably get myself bitten in the process.
Maybe just having the snakes can be a deterrent by itself.
Like how people talk about big dog privileges?
Deadly snake privilege is probably a thing too. And if it’s not, it totally should be.
Off-topic.
So yes, Camille’s home is definitely a safer option than staying here tonight, but the problem is Camille lives there.
I stare at him; he waits.
Fuck.
This is exhausting.
“I’ll go back with you.”
Camille’s entire posture changes. It is subtle, but not subtle enough. His shoulders lower. The terrible tension around his mouth eases. He releases a breath that sounds suspiciously like he has been holding it since he entered the cottage.
Relief.
Real relief.
I point at him before he can misunderstand what I am offering. “That does not mean anything.”
“I know.”
“I’m not forgiving you.”
“I understand.”
“I’m not going back because I want to be around you.
I’m going because I now have a handwritten diary explaining that Henri Voclain had a very real habit of making inconvenient people disappear, someone already broke into this house, somebody was watching it before that, and I would prefer not to become the exciting fifth name at the end of Alberte’s guilt list.”