For several long, loaded beats, he just stares down at me, jaw tight, breaths shallow, eyes burning.
Then he mutters a curse under his breath, shrugs off his jacket, and drapes it over my shoulders.Voice clipped, he orders, “Get in the car.”He jerks his chin over my head.“Have Oscar take you back to the villa.”
I look back to the Lincoln idling a few feet away, engine low and waiting.
By the time I swing my attention back around, Stefano’s already walking away.
“Wha—Where are you going?”I call after him.
Without a backward glance, he calls back, “Anywhere you aren’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Raya
BACK IN THEPEACEand quiet of my room at the villa, I make a few private calls, then hit the shower before crawling into bed.
Nestled under the covers, I unlock my phone and open the surveillance feed from the hidden cameras I planted around the room.Micro cams that I’d smuggled in under the sole of my boots.
First, I check the footage from the last couple of hours.
No one’s been in or out since I left.Good.
Biting my lip, I navigate to the folder labeled for the last three nights.I tap the first video…and can’t help the slow, giddy smile that spreads across my face.
Three nights ago, at exactly 3:44 AM, the camera hidden in the light fixture captures Stefano Castello slipping in through the balcony doors.He moves quietly to the edge of the bed and just stands there, looking down at me asleep under the covers.
Five minutes and eighteen seconds tick by before he finally moves.He walks around to the other side of the bed, shrugs off his jacket, and gingerly lowers himself beside me, his back against the headboard.Motionless, he watches me for another fifteen minutes, before he pulls out his phone and scrolls in silence.
Only when the blue of dawn begins to filter through the curtains does he finally straighten from the bed, picks up his jacket, and leaves the way he came.
The second video shows him doing the same the following night.Except this time, he brings a book and reads beside me until dawn breaks.
Then there’s last night’s clip.
This time, he lies down.Right there beside me, all relaxed, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.Scribbling in a small notebook, completely at ease.
If he’d told me this himself, that he’s been hanging out next to me three nights in a row while I slept, I would’ve called bullshit.I’mnota light sleeper.Never have been.So either I’m gettingwaytoo comfortable at this villa, or my psyche just doesn’t register him as a threat.
I’ve been too distracted the past few days to check my cameras.Imagine my surprise when I finally did earlier this evening.And even then, I tried not to romanticize it.Tried not to let myself believe he was there for anything more than cold surveillance.A predator casing his prey.He’s a calculating cynic.Whywouldn’the be keeping tabs?
Until two hours ago….
When he asked tokissme.
Now my thoughts won’t stay in their lane.Free to run wild.To believe there might bemoreto his secret visits.To delude myself that I might be breaking through to the paranoid king.That maybe I’ve done the impossible.Gotten under his skin.Enough for him to want to kiss me.Enough for him to go to great lengths to dodge the villa’s cameras and scale up to my balcony just to sneak inside my room at night.
Pity he doesn’t know I have myownsurveillance.
All that effort, for what?Just to sit next to me?
My stomach flutters, and I bite my lip to keep from squealing like a prepubescent teenybopper.
Nothing could ever come of it.I know that.But a girl’s allowed to daydream, isn’t she?
My phone vibrates.
Speak of the devil...
