“Who are you?” Arthur asked the gorgeous liar before me.
“Sebastian Thorne.”
“Okay.” He eyed me. “Lily Sawyer, right? I remember you from a tutorial last year.”
“That’s me.”
“You and Thorne are a pair.” He turned away before I could naysay his plan.
Sebastian’s lips twitched, his eyes gleaming. “Well, this worked out way better than I could have planned.”
My urge to demand a new partner stuck in my throat because I didn’t want to give Sebastian the satisfaction. After much thought about our previous interactions, I realized I was allowing him to believe he had some kind of power over me by giving him a reaction. Now I wanted him to believe me indifferent.
Which was difficult when every part of me was tense with quiet anger at Sebastian’s side as Arthur paired people and his team started leading them out to their respective rooms.
Arthur sauntered over to me and Sebastian. “Last but not least. Each pairing will be placed in a different room underdifferent circumstances. You two are the no-technology room. I’m going to need you to hand over any devices you have with you, including your beloved smartphones.”
Wonderful.
My lips thinned as I nodded and proceeded to remove my phone from the back pocket of my jeans. Checking it was locked, I passed it over to Arthur who gave us a gloating, smug grin as he took both of our phones and placed them in a locked box. “Now follow me.”
I could feel Sebastian’s eyes on me as Arthur led us out of the flat and across the cool, dreary hallway to the flat next door. The sound of a TV blared from behind the door of bedroom one.
“They have a smart TV. But don’t worry, you won’t hear it because you’re all the way down here in bedroom five.” Arthur guided us to the opposite side of the flat and pushed open the heavy door. “Welcome to the no-technology room.”
My stomach dropped.
The room was set up as it would be for a student. Single bed by the window. Desk opposite. One wardrobe.
The window was completely taped up, and they’d lit extra lamps to make up for it.
“Cameras.” Arthur pointed to the upper corner above the door and the one near the window that had a straight shot of the bed. “We’ve also placed mics around the room so we can clearly hear your conversations. You’re in here for three hours. If at any time you need to leave, press this.” He pointed to a red button that had been attached to the wall near the door. “Someone will come to let you out.”
He offered us the clipboards he’d carried under his arm, along with a pen. “We need you to read this disclaimer and sign the waiver. It pretty much states that you’re happy for us to use our recordings for the experiment. It also states that none of the footage or sound recordings will be uploaded online for publicconsumption, but we may include excerpts of conversations or actions in our research paper, whichwillbe available online.”
Great.
Now I had to watch what I said unless I wanted everyone to know what Sebastian had done.
That compromised the integrity of the experiment because Arthur and his team were looking for authentic interactions.
As if he read my mind, Arthur continued, “Please try to be as honest and genuine with each other as possible. Guarding your words, your interactions, will compromise the experiment. Thank you.”
Once we’d signed, he nodded, thanked us, and left.
The door locked behind him.
Reluctantly, I turned to Sebastian.
“I read that book. The one with the dragons. It was quite good.”
Was he serious?
“Any more romance recommendations?” He gave me a coaxing smile I wanted to smack off his face.
He thought he could woo me with his “sexy man reading romance books” schtick? I cursed the day my copy of a romantasy book fell out of my bag during our session. Intrigued by the cover, Sebastian flipped through it and happened to land on a sex scene. His teasing led to me defending the romance genre and effusively explaining the benefits of reading it. I’d argued so passionately on behalf of my love of romance books—all subgenres!—that he’d promised to read it.
I hadn’t actually thought he would, and I still wasn’t sure he had. He was a known liar, after all.
