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She doesn’t know because I have not told her and that makes me a complete hypocrite.

I told her honesty.

I told her thirty days.

I told her that I was going to try to be worth something to her, and I have not done a single thing that lives up to what I said.

Tell her.

The thought is right there, all day. Every time I try to work I hear it. Tell her. Tell her. Tell her.

But the less she knows, the safer she is. If Russo’s people ever get to her, they will try to get the information out of her.

What they did to Dino will look like a cakewalk as to what they would do to Katerina. They would send her back to me in pieces. If they sent her back at all.

The thought of Katerina disappearing makes icy cold sweat drip down my spine and I have to sit down because my knees have gone weak.

I can’t tell her everything, but I can tell her something.

And I will. Tonight. She won’t be able to avoid me anymore.

Except finding her is much more fucking difficult than I imagined.

I check the gardens. She’s not there. The gym and the library are empty. So are her rooms. My hands curl into fists as I stare at her quiet bedroom, my nails biting into my flesh.

Where the fuck is she? I pivot and head back downstairs, the sounds of my shoes slapping against the floor reverberating throughout the hall. I know how to move so quietly that not even a mouse could hear me. But I’m too irritated to do so right now. I need to find Katerina and I need to find her now.

I pass by the library again and happen to glance in there. She wasn’t in there when I checked half an hour ago so why would she be in here now⁠—

Except, there she is.

She has her back against one of the tall shelves and her legs stretched out in front of her, ankles crossed. She’s in gray leggings and an oversized sweatshirt with the sleeves pulled down over her hands. Her brown hair is up in a messy pile on top of her head, one strand loose against her neck and my eyes fixate on that strand of hair. My lips had been on that neck not too long ago. I had tasted her as she moaned and cried out my name…

Stop it, Nico.

I shake my head to get rid of the erotic thought and focus back on Katerina.

She’s reading a medical journal that’s open on her knees. I didn’t even know we had medical journals here.

She looks like herself.

That thought stops me dead in my tracks. She has been many things in front of me since she’s been here, and this is the first time I have seen her look like herself.

Like the off-duty surgeon she is reading something dense in comfortable clothes, hair up, feet crossed, guard down. She is relaxed. She is not watching for me.

She’s just—reading.

In my library. In my house.

I should leave. She has spent the last few days making it very clear that she does not want me in a room with her, and if I am the kind of man I keep telling myself I want to be for her, I turn around and I let her have peace.

But I’m not that type of man. So I stand there and drink her in, filling myself with the sight of her.

“You know, it’s kind of creepy when you stand there and stare at me without saying anything,” Katerina’s voice floats over to me as she flips a page, her eyes still not moving off her book.

To my horror, my ears start to burn. Am I…am I actually embarrassed she caught me? Jesus Christ, I’m losing my touch.

“How long have you been standing there?” Katerina asks casually, still not looking up at me.