Frustrated tears sting behind my eyelids, and the same old question claws its way up my throat. Why can’t I get anything right?
“You know,” Afrim says thoughtfully, “if there’s really nothing for you to clean, you could try cooking. That’s the one thing Roan doesn’t do himself. He just comes here to eat my food.” He winks before walking away, clearly considering the matter settled.
Cooking… right. Because that’s totally what I should be focused on.
I drag myself back to my prison where I lock myself in my assigned room for the rest of the day, defeated and utterly convinced that Roan has somehow found out I’m not who I claim to be. That this is his way of punishing me, of trying to squeeze information out of me.
If so, he couldn’t have designed a more effective torture—constant surveillance, forced proximity, and that damn attraction that makes me forget every rule I’ve ever learned about undercover work.
You’re so screwed, Katie. In every possible way.
Time crawls, my room gradually darkening as the sun sets beyond that beautiful window. At some point, I must doze offbecause the sound of the front door opening startles me awake.
I blink through the darkness, disoriented, before everything crashes back into focus. I can’t believe I was even able to fall asleep in the first place. It must be the exhaustion of the past two nights mixed with the weight of my helpless frustration finally catching up with me.
I swallow hard, my ears pricking at footsteps climbing the stairs and turning into the hallway. Footsteps that shouldn’t be familiar to me but somehow are, imprinted on my consciousness in just one day.
Roan.
My breath catches when his footsteps pause outside my door, and my heart trips, hammering as I wonder what he wants.
Is he going to knock?
Maybe he’ll ask what work I did today. Or worse—maybe he wants to talk about the kiss. About what almost happened on that counter.
I lick my lips nervously as I wait, every nerve on edge.
The footsteps continue down the hallway. A door opens and closes, and then—silence. Complete, oppressive silence.
Relief and disappointment twist together in my chest as I stare up at the dark ceiling.
He didn’t knock.
He didn’t try to see me.
He just…went to his room.
I should be grateful. This is exactly what I need—distance between us.
But the disappointment sits heavier in my chest than the relief, and that scares me more than anything else that’s happened today.
I’m getting too close. To this place. To the fantasy of being someone other than who I really am.
I need to stop.
I roll onto my side, pulling the pillow over my head like I can physically block out my own thoughts.
Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to navigate this minefield. How to gather intel without getting caught on camera. How to resist the pull I feel towards the man.
Tomorrow I’ll be smarter.Stronger.
14
KATIE
The next few days blur together in a haze of false domesticity and calculated movements.
I spend my daylight hours playing the perfect maid while secretly mapping every inch of this house. Searching for camera blind spots while I dust shelves and scrub floors. Rifling through nightstands and closets for anything useful while I organize and fold.
