Page 179 of Matteo

That would explain why I haven't seen him as much as usual.

“That’s why you’ve been away from your desk,” I say.

Much to my surprise, his eyes fill with amusement, glittering under the fluorescent lights. Eyes that pierced into mine, when he kissed me. A flutter ripples through me at the thought. I tuck a lock of stray hair behind my ear.

“You’ve been keeping an eye on me,” he says, softly, his gaze falling to my nose ring.

Heat creeps along my cheeks.

“It’s okay,” he says, when I’m unable to string together a reply, “because I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”

It lands, warm and soft, like a comforting cashmere blanket. I let out a small sigh before I can stop myself. I've been craving his words of reassurance and comfort. Words that tell me he’s still thinking of me. I didn't think I needed to hear them so much.

“I think about you all the time,” he confesses, his voice so low the reverberations rumble deep in my chest.

He thinks about me all the time.

My heart stutters.

For one giddying, blissful moment, happiness bursts through me so fiercely it makes the breath hitch in my throat.

All this time, I'd thought I was the only one.

I think about Central Park and the ridiculous pedicab ride. The way he looked at me that day. The way he brought me a care package when I was curled up on my couch with cramps. The hot water bottle he refilled. The snacks and magazines he'd carefully chosen. The quiet way he'd looked after me without asking for anything in return.

How is it that we've gone from that to this?

From stolen kisses and late-night conversations to accusations and suspicion.

From feeling like we'd finally found something real to standing on opposite sides of a room, barely able to trust one another.

Hope rises inside me, that despite everything, all the hurt and anger, the heartbreak and accusations, that maybe, just maybe, we can overcome this.

He waits for me to say something, but I don’t, because it suddenly flashes before me. The phone call at the hotel suite, when he disappeared for hours. What Alex told him. What he took at face value without refuting.

What he believed.

I have such deep feelings for this man, and I can't seem to push them away but in the quietness, I hear his accusation all over again, as if he's just said it to me now. I press my traitorous lips together, in case I say something I will hate myself for.

Our trust is fractured and it's going to take a huge leap of faith to fix that.

***

I don’t sleep much that night, again.

Instead I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying everything again until the pattern settles in my mind with a sharp and cutting clarity.

It changed.

That’s the thing I can’t stop coming back to. The shape of the tech issues, the timing, the objective. When Paul Knight first hired me, I was looking at a different problem. Someone nudging things out of alignment. Access irregularities. Financial oddities. I was looking into system behavior that was wrong, but it wasn’t personal.

It wasn’t targeted to me.

Then it changed.

This second phase seems cleaner, crueler, and more deliberate. It isn’t just someone messing with the infrastructure anymore. It’s someone using my credentials, mirroring my movements, making it look as though I’m trying to bury my own tracks. It’s elegant, super smart, and the sort of thing I’d do.

But I didn’t do this.