"What I feel is confusion," I say, trying to maintain some semblance of emotional distance. "And right now, fear. How did you find me? I paid cash. I used a fake name. I turned off my phone."
A cold smile curves his lips. "Child's play, Delilah. Did you think I wouldn't have contingency plans for your potential flight?" He sits on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch but maintaining a deliberate gap between us. "Your shoes have GPS trackers embedded in the heels. Every piece of jewelry, every handbag, every item of clothing I've given you has some form of tracking capability."
Horror washes over me. "That's insane. That's?—"
"Practical," he interrupts. "Given your current behavior, I'd say it was prescient."
"You bugged me?" The violation of it makes my voice shake with anger. "You put trackers on me like I'm a pet that might run away?"
"Like you're precious to me," he corrects, his tone softening slightly. "Like you're something I can't bear to lose."
I glance down at the designer ballet flats I'd thought were safe to wear—less conspicuous than the stilettos and statement shoes that fill the closet in Roman's penthouse. Even in my flight, I was still carrying his surveillance with me.
"How many?" I ask, unable to keep the tremor from my voice. "How many trackers are on me right now?"
Roman's eyes flick over me, cataloging. "Five that are active. Your shoes, the watch, your earrings, the bracelet, and the lining of your jacket."
I start removing them—the delicate gold watch first, then the simple studs I'd thought were safe, the thin bracelet I never take off, finally kicking the shoes across the room. My hands shake as I shed each item, each invisible tether to the man watching me with those intense gray eyes.
"It won't make a difference," Roman says quietly. "I've already found you."
"You had no right," I say, anger burning through my shock. "No right to track me like an animal, to violate my privacy, to?—"
"I had every right," he cuts in, his own anger flaring. "You agreed to be mine, Delilah. Completely. Without reservation. You signed a contract giving me authority over every aspect of your life for thirty days."
"That doesn't include tracking devices!"
"It includes whatever I deem necessary to maintain our arrangement," he counters. "And I deemed it necessary to ensure I could find you if needed."
"If needed," I repeat bitterly. "You mean if I tried to escape you."
Something flickers in his eyes—hurt, perhaps, or frustration. "If you were in danger. If you needed me and couldn't reach me. If you..." He hesitates, an unusual break in his typically seamless confidence. "If you ran after I made myself vulnerable to you."
The reminder of his declaration—the reason for my flight—hangs in the air between us. I look away, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze.
"I just needed time to think," I say again, though the excuse sounds feeble even to my own ears.
"You needed to run," Roman corrects, his voice gentler than I expect. "Because what I said frightened you more than anything else about our arrangement."
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the room's adequate heating. "You can't love me, Roman. You barely know me."
"I know you better than anyone ever has," he says with absolute certainty. "I know your habits, your preferences, your fears, your ambitions. I know how your breath catches when I touch you in just the right way. I know how your mind works—brilliant, adaptive, constantly analyzing. I know how your heart wars with your intellect, how you struggle to reconcile your feminist principles with your desire for protection and care."
Each accurate observation is like a dart finding its target. "That's not love," I insist. "That's... surveillance. Study. Control."
"It started as that," he acknowledges, surprising me with his candor. "But it became something else, Delilah. Something I wasn't prepared for." He moves closer, closing the gap between us on the bed. "I've never said those words to anyone before. Never felt them. Never thought I could. Do you have any idea what it did to me, seeing you run after I finally admitted how I feel?"
The raw pain in his voice makes my chest ache. "I wasn't rejecting you," I say softly. "I was... processing. Overwhelmed."
"In a hotel room, under a false name, with your phone turned off," he points out, a edge of bitterness in his tone. "That's not processing, Delilah. That's fleeing."
He's right, and we both know it. I was running—not just from his declaration but from my own response to it, from the terrifying possibility that I might feel the same way.
"I was going to come back," I offer, the words sounding hollow even to my own ears.
"Were you?" Roman's eyes search mine, looking for truth. "Or were you going to keep running, keep trying to convince yourself that what's between us is just a transaction, just Stockholm Syndrome, just anything but what it actually is?"
"And what is it, Roman?" I challenge, finding a spark of defiance. "What do you think is between us, besides a contract and your obsession?"
