Page 63 of His Obsession
“You look beautiful,” he says.
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling when I turn back to the mirror. He comes up behind me and rests his hands lightly on my hips, careful enough that I know he’s giving me room to pull away if I want to. I don’t. I lean back against him and watch our reflections.
It’s a strange picture. Me barefoot in his bathroom, pregnant and still a little scared. Him behind me, dangerous and steady and too handsome for anyone’s good. Neither of us looks like we belong in a normal domestic fantasy.
I want a partner. That’s the part I keep coming back to when I’m brave enough to think about the baby longer than ten seconds ata time. I don’t want to do this alone if I don’t have to. And lately, when I picture someone beside me, it’s Sebastian.
That’s dangerous enough, but what’s worse is that I don’t just picture him as the father of my child. I picture him as my partner. When I’m not carefully guarding my thoughts, I imagine walking down a long aisle with him waiting at the end. These are my deepest, darkest secrets. I don’t even tell Gia.
I can’t admit that I’m falling for him. The second I do, it’ll all come apart. So I guard that feeling as fiercely as I can and pray he never finds out.
24
SEBASTIAN
I’m in the security office at Bellissimo when Matteo sends the footage of a suspicious black sedan to the large monitor on the wall. The angle is bad but not useless. I don’t need to look closely to know it’s Adrian.
The plates belong to a Toyota registered in Glendale, not a luxury car idling behind one of my clubs at 1:17 in the morning. The sedan sits near the service entrance for less than four minutes before pulling away.
Four minutes is long enough to be seen. He wants me to know he’s here. He’s taunting me.
Matteo stands beside me, arms crossed, jacket off, with his sleeves rolled to his elbows. He’s been in the same shirt since yesterday, which tells me he’s been working all night.
“That’s Dolce Monday, Prime Vida Wednesday, and Bellissimo last night,” he says. “Same car, same pattern.”
“He knows the weak spots.”
“Yes.”
“Then we have a leak.”
Matteo exhales through his nose and looks back at the screen. “Most likely.”
I don’t like that answer.
“He knew the service schedule. He knew when the alley camera would be blocked by deliveries. He knew which door had the light out for two days because maintenance dragged their feet.”
“I’m pulling access logs,” Matteo tells me.
“Why aren’t they already on my desk?”
Matteo glances at me. “Someone’s moody today.”
“Someone’s going to be dead today if you don’t find my leak.”
“I’m on it.”
That’s the only answer I want.
He taps through a few more screens. Still images from other properties come up one by one. A man in a black cap near Dolce. A delivery van idling outside Prime Vida. The same sedan caught at an angle near one of our hotels downtown. Nothing clean enough to grab him on. Everything close enough to irritate me.
Adrian is smarter than I gave him credit for. Careful. Patient when he needs to be. He knows how to frighten Val without getting close. He knows how to make his presence felt while keeping enough distance to stay alive.
Matteo changes screens again.
“I’ve got three new hires with access to shift rotations. Two contractors with temporary badges. One valet at Dolce who owes money to a bookie with Vescari ties.”
“Start with the valet.”
