“You seemed frightened.”
“And sitting in my room while I’m sleeping seemed like the next logical step to you?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes, to make sure you were okay.”
“Tobias…” I said carefully, despite my rapidly racing pulse, because something in me still wanted not to upset him even while every reasonable part of my brain was sounding an alarm, “you can’t just come into my room while I’m sleeping, and—andwatchme.”
His expression didn’t change. “I did not intend to frighten you.”
I think I believed him.
If he’d sounded smug, or amused, or even remotely aware of how horrifying it was to wake up and find him sitting there in the dark, I think something in me would’ve snapped into place faster. Anger, maybe. Fear, definitely. A clean, obvious reaction I could hold onto without having to think about it too much.
But he just looked like Tobias.
Unreadable in a way that felt less like concealment and more like the world had never taught him which parts of himself were supposed to show.
He didn’t look like someone who had meant to do something wrong.
He looked like someone who had decided my distress required observation and then followed that decision to its most invasive conclusion.
Even so, I needed him out.
“Tobias,” I said again, quieter this time, because my voice still felt unsteady and I hated that. “Please leave.”
He didn’t move right away, and instead frowned, like the words required processing.
“I was only making sure—”
“I know what you were doing,” I interrupted, then swallowed because interrupting him felt wrong even now, even here, even with my heart slamming against my ribs. “Or—I know what you thought you were doing. But you can’t be in here. Not while I’m sleeping.”
The silence after that felt too large for the room.
His gaze stayed on me, and for a second, I had the awful thought that he was going to argue.
Rather, he stood—purposefully and very slowly. I understood he was trying not to frighten me further, but it didn’t exactly help in the way I think he thought it would.
I stayed where I was until he turned toward the door, then I moved too.
The floor was frigid beneath my bare feet when I slipped out from under the covers, and the feel of the silk pajamas against my body made me hyper-aware of just how inappropriate the whole situation was. I wasn’t sure if it was the silk itself, or just the pajamas in general, but either way, it felt far too intimate to be wearing in front of my employer.
Tobias paused when he realized I was following him, abruptly enough that I almost ran into him. “You didn’t need to get up.”
The answer came out faster than I expected. “Yes, I really, really did.”
His eyes flicked over my face, and my stomach twisted at the regret and confusion in them.
As he continued to the bedroom door, I followed several steps behind him, my fingers curled tightly against my palms. The distance between the bed and the door was not long, but it felt like a mile.
When he finally reached the threshold, he stepped out into the darkened hallway, then turned to face me.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“I… It’s okay—I mean, it’s not okay at all to do that, but um, just please don’t do it again.” I cringed at myself for trying to comfort him in that moment, when he was the one who’d done something I would’ve thought he’d known was fucked up and creepy and a huge violation of my privacy.
And yet somehow I couldn’t help but feel bad for him when he was looking at me like he didn’t really understand why I was upset with him.
His gaze dropped briefly, not to my body, but to my hands where they were clenched so tightly the knuckles had gone pale.
