It takes me less than a second to remember she had it with her last night too, like she’d been about to use it before I came home. But I’d been too distracted by her then, too focused on the way she’d looked at me with those wide, worried eyes, to give it much thought. Then I was kissing her, tasting her, losing myself in her, and whatever I’d noticed had slipped right out of my mind.
But now my attention is locked on her hand as I step fully into the kitchen. “What’s that?” I ask, nodding at the pill container.
She looks at me over the rim of her glass, taking her time finishing her drink before she answers. “Sleeping pills. I have trouble falling asleep at night.”
She says it like it’s the simplest fact in the world, nothing worth discussing or dwelling on. But I don’t miss the way her grip tightens on the glass for just a fraction of a second before she sets it down on the counter.
I don’t need to ask why she has trouble sleeping. The report made that painfully clear.
And the truth is, I’ve known for a while she doesn’t sleep much—I’ve seen it on the cameras more times than I care to admit. Her wandering the halls during the late evening hours, pacing restlessly, staring out windows at nothing, sitting at the kitchen table with a blank, haunted look on her face that makes me want to?—
Want to what? Comfort her? Fix it?
But she always retreats to her room minutes before I leave my office, like she’s deliberately avoiding any chance of running into me. And I can’t deny that I’ve stood outside her door more than a few times, my hand raised to knock, wrestling with myself before ultimately walking away.
Now I’m wondering if she has nightmares. The thought hits me hard and sudden, and I think about the report again—about her watching everything she loved get violently rippedaway without being able to do a damn thing to stop it. About her crawling through air vents with her baby sister, keeping them both silent while killers searched for them. About years spent fighting a system that separated her from the only family she had left.
I wonder if she relives all that every time she closes her eyes. If her parents’ blood-splattered bodies haunt her dreams. If she wakes up gasping and reaching for a sister who isn’t there.
I wouldn’t blame her for wanting the pills if that was the case. Hell, I’d probably need them too.
“Do you have nightmares?” I ask, my voice carefully even, like I’m just making conversation instead of prying into something deeply personal.
She gives me a look—calm, blank, almost bored on the surface, but there’s something lurking behind it I can’t quite read. “What a strange question,” she murmurs. But it’s not a real answer. Nothing that confirms or denies it.
A moment later, she turns and walks out of the kitchen without another word, and I just stand there watching her go, feeling like I should’ve said something else, something better that wouldn’t have made her retreat. Or maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut entirely.
Damn it. Ordering that background check on her might have been a mistake. Maybe ignorance really is bliss because I don’t want to feel this way about her. And I know she would hate it if she discovered I’d invaded her privacy, dug into her past without permission.
She doesn’t even know that I know who she really is. She still thinks I believe she’s Mia Jorge, that her cover is intact. What a complicated, tangled web of lies we’ve woven between us.
I let out a slow breath, trying to shake off this heavy feeling, and that’s when I notice the pot on the stove. I pull off the lid,and the rich, savory smell of stew drifts up to greet me—fresh and still warm. Next to it on the counter is a sticky note with just four words written in her neat, slanted handwriting:
Eat while it’s hot.
I stare at it, fingers brushing the edge of the note.
She made dinner for me. Again. Even after last night’s interrupted encounter.
My heart squeezes as I stare down into the contents of the pot, at the care she obviously put into this meal that she had no obligation to make.
I guess she already ate her portion, which means we won’t be sharing a meal together tonight. Probably for the best. Whenever we’re around each other, I seem to lose every bit of my common sense, end up too close to her, too focused on the way she looks at me, the way she feels against me. The way she tastes.
It’s dangerous. I know that with absolute certainty.
And it’s only going to get worse now that I know who she really is as a person, how she grew up and what she’s survived. Now that I can’t see her as just an enemy or a threat or a beautiful distraction.
But that knowledge doesn’t stop the tight, uncomfortable ache settling in my chest as I grab a bowl, ladle out the stew, and sit down at the small table to eat.
Alone.
Maybe I’ll stay back in the main house tomorrow and have dinner withAtë. Get some space away from Katie and this…feeling.
18
KATIE
Roan saw me take the sleeping pills. Fuck.
