Page 86 of The Wrong Man

He made these. With the ingredients I bought him, in the kitchen I’ve started to think of as ours rather than mine. He put care and effort and love into creating something beautiful, and then he chose to share them with me.

When was the last time anyone shared something they created with me? Before Dylan, I couldn’t have answered that question. Now I have scones and macarons and the memory of flour-dusted cheeks and nervous rambling and a touch on my arm that I felt for hours afterward.

Dylan grabs a macaron and takes a bite, his eyes closing in relief as he tastes it.

“Oh thank God,” he breathes. “They’re actually good. I was so worried. Macarons are temperamental, and the humidity in this flat isn’t ideal, and I wasn’t sure about the oven temperature, and...”

“Dylan.”

He stops mid-ramble, looking at me with wide eyes.

“They’re perfect,” I repeat. “You’re perfect.”

The words slip out before I can stop them. Too honest. Too revealing. I watch Dylan’s face cycle through surprise, confusion, and something else. Something that looks almost like hope.

“I’m not,” he says quietly. “I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

The silence that follows is heavy with everything we’re not saying. I want to reach out and touch him. Want to brush that strand of hair off his forehead, cup his face in my hands, show him exactly how perfect I think he is.

But I can’t. He’s my prisoner. Whatever is growing between us, I have no right to act on it. No right to want what I want.

Dylan breaks the moment by reaching for another macaron, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

We eat in companionable silence, working our way through the plate. The coffee grows cold. The morning light shifts across the floor. And I find myself wishing this moment could last forever.

I’ve been thinking about the future.

It’s a dangerous habit, one I’ve never indulged in before. My life has always been about the present. The current job, the current target, the current necessity. Planning ahead meant weakness, meant giving fate something to take away from me.

But now I can’t seem to stop.

I think about what Carlo said. About the family finding out, about loose ends being tied, about the danger we’re both in. I think about Dylan’s aunt, waiting for him to come home. I think about the bakery he built with his own hands, and I wonder how long it will last without him.

I think about what it would take to give him back his life. I can’t give him his bakery, the family would never permit that loose end. But I might be able to give him his freedom.

Faking his death would be the cleanest option. A body, burned beyond recognition. Dental records that match. A tragic accident, a closed case, a grieving aunt who never knows her nephew is actually alive.

Alive and where? With me? On the run, always looking over our shoulders, never able to settle anywhere for long?

Or I could let him go. Really let him go. Stage his death, give him money and new documents, send him somewhere far away where the family would never find him.

Somewhere far away from me.

The thought makes something twist painfully in my chest.

I don’t want to let him go. The possessive, obsessive part of me that has claimed Dylan as mine, rebels against the very idea. He’s mine. I found him, I kept him, I’ve started to lo...

I stop the thought before it can fully form.

He’s mine, but I can’t keep him prisoner forever. Can’t build a future on captivity and fear. If I want Dylan to stay, truly stay, it has to be his choice.

And I have no idea if he would choose me.

This morning, when he asked about Ginni, when he asked if I was attracted to men... there was something in his eyes. Something that made my heart race with hope. But hope is dangerous. Hope can make you see things that aren’t there.

Maybe he was just curious. Maybe he was just making conversation. Maybe the jealousy I thought I saw was nothing more than general discomfort with the situation.