‘I’m perfectly safe, Tate. Like I said, Alissa’s here. And Terry.’
‘I don’t like you out with other men either,’ he snapped.
‘It’s not other men,’ she said, lowering her voice and turning away from her colleagues. ‘How do you even know I’m not at home?’
‘I’ve got the cameras at home linked to my phone. How else do you think I keep an eye on the place while I’m away?’
She knew about the security camera but he’d never told her there was more than the one, or that they could be streamed to his phone. The knowledge irritated her. She tried to remind herself they were just there for safety, that it was only a coincidence he’d noticed she wasn’t home … only, it didn’t feel like he was simply checking in. It felt like he was checking up on her.
‘Okay, well, we were going to wrap it up soon anyway. I’ll be heading home shortly. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Goodnight.’
‘Was that your boyfriend?’ Alissa asked when she rejoined them.
‘Yeah, he was making sure everything was okay. He’s away with work.’
‘He certainly checks up on you a lot,’ Alissa continued.
Bel was torn between feeling ill at ease about Tate’s dominating attitude just now and Alissa’s slightly judgy tone. ‘He’s a little protective,’ she said. ‘I moved here from somewhere a lot smaller. He worries about me.’
Alissa sent her a small smile and thankfully dropped the subject, but her concerned expression rattled Bel more than she cared to admit. That hadn’t been a normal phone call, and coming straight after the strange encounter with Lucile, Bel was feeling odd. She tried to dismiss her unease, but she suddenly realised she was doing that a lot these days. That first morning when she’d gone out for coffee he’d hada strange reaction too, and she’d put it down to his being tired and out of sorts. But as she thought back to some of the other things she’d brushed off as bad moods or being overprotective, Bel felt something inside of her drop.Oh God. How did I miss so many red flags?
Later, as Bel let herself into the apartment, she resisted the urge to look around for the cameras. After she’d showered and climbed into bed, her phone buzzed. A message from Tate: ‘Now get some sleep.’
Bel lay in bed, staring into the darkness as a cold, uncomfortable sensation coursed through her body. He was watching her right now, she realised. Lucile’s words ran through her head.He isn’t who you think he is.
‘You look terrible,’ Terry said to Bel two days later. Tate was still away and she hadn’t been able to sleep ever since finding out about the cameras and receiving Tate’s rather creepy text. Maybe she was being oversensitive and the lack of sleep was probably making her a little paranoid, but she couldn’t help feeling that every move she made was being watched. She hated being in that beautiful, sterile apartment now. Even reading couldn’t take her mind off it.
‘Gee, thanks,’ Bel said to her boss without bothering to lift her gaze from the computer as she organised an order for a customer who’d called earlier.
‘Bel … I was wondering. Are you still looking for a place to rent? I remember you asking when you first started here.’
‘Oh. Well, kind of. Only I can’t find anything I can afford.’
‘I was thinking, there’s a space upstairs. We used to use it for storage before we fixed up the basement. It hasn’t been cleaned out in a while but there’s a kitchenette and a bathroom and you’d fit a bed and lounge with no problem. It’s yours if you want it.’
Bel stared at her boss blankly as she tried to digest what she’d just heard. ‘Uh … how much rent would you want?’ she asked.
‘We can sort out something,’ Terry said reassuringly. ‘Maybe you can do my weekend shift every second week or something? It’s going to need a good clean, and most people would think it was too small and dated, which is why I haven’t ever bothered trying to rent it out.’
Tears welled up and began to overflow from Bel’s eyes. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe it was because she was so relieved she had a way to extract herself from the situation. Lucile’s visit had been replaying over and over in her mind. Even if it turned out Lucile had been lying, the truth was, Bel wasn’t comfortable being so dependent on someone else’s provision—someone she really didn’t know at all. She stared at her boss, realising suddenly that she knew Terry and his community far better than she knew Tate and his.
She quickly swiped at her eyes and lowered her gaze, feeling ridiculous. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying. Thank you,’ she managed, clearing her throat.
Terry thankfully didn’t make a big deal of it. ‘Go up and have a look and see what you think,’ he said, gesturing towards the front door and holding up a key. ‘The stairs are around the side.’
Bel accepted the key with a watery smile. She hadn’t even been aware therewasan upstairs until five minutes ago. She’d noticed the staircase when she took out the rubbish, but always thought it belonged to another shop.
At the top of the staircase, she turned the key in the unassuming timber door and went inside. It opened into an open-plan area with a small kitchen on one side and a doorway that she assumed led to a bathroom on the other. Shafts of sunlight streamed into the room from three dusty windows looking onto the main street, filling the space with a warm, cheerful glow. The place could certainly use a bit of a scrub, but already she could imagine a comfy second-hand lounge and a tall lamp making the perfect reading spot in the corner, with a small kitchen table and bed on the other side.
She needed her own space, now more than ever, after the camera incident. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she was making more out of it than it really was. However, if she was going to really step into her new life, she needed to do it on her own, without the comfort of a luxury apartment and a boyfriend to pay all the bills.
It had started to feel like she was being kept … owned, like a weird kind of doll or something—as if Tate was dressing her up and playing with her as it suited him. Was she overthinking it? She’d wondered more than once. When she tried to view her situation from an outside perspective, it sounded like every woman’s dream—a gorgeous man who seemed happy to have her with him and share his ridiculously expensive life. But if everything was fine, why did that little niggle of concern keep getting louder with each passing day?
She found Terry in his office and held out the key. ‘I’d like to take it.’
‘Then you better hang on to that,’ he said, nodding his head at the key. ‘Do you need a hand getting your belongings from your current place?’ His tone remained calm and easy, but there was a firmness in his expression that spoke volumes.
‘I don’t have much. I’ll be okay,’ she assured him. She only had one suitcase. ‘Thank you, Terry,’ she said, feeling a little embarrassed that her boss had figured out she was in some kind of trouble, yet so grateful that, despite not knowing the details, he had stepped in and offered her this lifeline without asking any questions. She felt her throat tighten once more.
