I ignored her and placed her things in the bedroom.
It was a woman’s room, and I’d left it as Gina had decorated it because it seemed pleasant enough.
The back wall was lilac, with a print of a blue leaf in a black frame. It hung above a sleigh bed made from rich oak, and housed a matching dresser and nightstands. There was a comforter rolled up on top, as well as fresh sheets stacked there for her.
It was probably rude of me not to have made up the bed, but feeling cotton that was about to touch her would have been an effort in torture.
Yes, I knew I was a freak.
It wasn’t like I needed the reminder.
Eyes shuttering at the thought, I turned to her once her bags were on the floor and murmured, “I’ll let you get settled in.”
She blinked as she looked at the room, then to my retreating back, managed to get out, “Thank you, professor.”
It was stupid, so stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself. Couldn’t have withheld the words if I tried as I turned to look at her over my shoulder. “Inside these walls, Phoebe, you may call me Nicholas.”
When she gnawed on her bottom lip and whispered, “Thank you for helping me, Nicholas,” I almost came in my pants.
Jesus, this was going to be more of an issue than I’d originally anticipated.
“You’re welcome. Treat it like your home.”
If it looked like I fled the bedroom, that was because I did.
I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could and headed to the kitchen where I downed a shot of tequila. Did I give a fuck that it was ten in the morning? Did I look goddamn eighteen?
I’d stopped giving a shit about the bounds of normal society when my wife had divorced me on the grounds of cruelty when, if anyone had been treated badly, it was me.
And I had the fucking scars to prove it.
My jaw tensed as thoughts of Gina flushed to the surface. It was odd timing for her to show up last night. She had a habit of hovering around the place, flirting with whichever doorman was on duty and sneaking up here. I’d long since stopped getting pissy at the doormen though. They were only men and Gina was sex incarnate.
All she had to do was flash a hint of her cleavage at some walking dick and he’d get a hard-on.
I’d thought Phoebe was like my ex.
I’d thought she was like that too.
But she wasn’t.
She was her antithesis.
She didn’t know her beauty, didn’t know how desirable she was, and God, I wanted to keep her.
Wanted to keep her for myself and no one else.
Lust for her had me tightening my fists, and the sound of a baby squawking had me stiffening in surprise. I mean, I knew Scottie was here, but the noise just took me aback.
These walls were hallowed.
A crypt, a sanctified place that was both memory and reminder wrapped into one unhealthy ball.
This place was where the accident had happened.
But after the divorce, I hadn’t sold it. Hadn’t moved on and moved out. I stayed living here, stayed within these walls because they never let me forget what a woman could do to a man.
This place was borne of misery, not of joy, so the sweet gurgling giggle took me aback.
Not in a bad way, but a good one, and that, more than anything, surprised the shit out of me.
❖
She stuck to her room for most of the day, and when I slinked past—way too many times than was healthy—I heard Scottie giggling or silence interspersed with the clacking of a keyboard.
Scottie’s existence had surprised me. I thought I’d known everything there was to know about her, but I’d never seen her with him. Not once. Of course, now I knew why. Mrs. Linden. A neighbor. One who Phoebe grieved, who had gifted her with the set of Rolexes that currently sat in my desk drawer.
I didn’t appreciate how much I was unaware of where she was concerned, but she led a relatively quiet if busy life. She worked more than I liked but I’d thought her reasoning was the same as every other college student in my class—student loans. I’d never imagined she had a baby brother she was caring for, and I’d never known her mother was an alcoholic.
In truth, my behavior wouldn’t have changed had I had access to this information, but I intended on using this enforced proximity to learn everything I could about her.
With her having quit her job at the coffee shop, I was relieved that she only went out at night. I believed the cafe was far more dangerous than the bar because she was tucked safely behind the counter and surrounded by security, whereas at the coffee shop, she was left alone with a cash-filled register and only patrons to protect her.
Of course, it didn’t always work out that way. Just recalling that night when I’d seen one of the clubbers grab her and haul her into him made rage seethe inside me. Before I’d been able to go to her, protect her, she’d protected herself.
I’d never been happier to watch a man nurse his balls because Phoebe had damn well handed them to him. Still, knowing she could protect herself, didn’t ease the inherent need within me to keep her safe.
It was a compulsion.
One, I feared, was linked to my ex. I didn’t want Gina back, but Phoebe was like a fresh start, a new leaf, one I wanted to make sure didn’t rot and perish away to dust.
That obsessive need had led to me creating the transcribing job for her. I paid her above average rather than a high rate, because I didn’t want her to suspect I was behind the new position. I knew enough about her to accept that she would reject any charity, so I’d dug out my old diaries, the books I’d handwritten, and had scanned each one then sent them to her.
I had thousands of them.
Back in the day, when my muse hadn’t dried up and had been more than a withered sack, I’d been quite prolific. I’d never needed to be published, had just found joy in getting the story down on paper.
At the end of a long day, when Gina had been reading or primping or going out with her friends, I’d found a simple joy in sitting on the balcony attached to the apartment, watching the world go by, and writing down my thoughts and the stories that inspired me.
I was uneasy with her accessing those intimate moments, but I was even more discomforted with how hard she was having to work. Now that her mother had revealed herself to be unreliable, I was doubly glad.
Making a mental note to scan more of the documents later on for her to transcribe, I lay back on the sofa and drummed my fingers against the cushioned leather.
Phoebe Whitehouse was in my loft.
Inside, I was probably as excited as I’d been at my first frat party.
Outside?
I was still. Calm. Quiet.
That was my life now.
The old Nicholas had died that night, and this one was born from those ashes.
I didn’t like the new me. In fact, in many ways, he disturbed me.
I never imagined I’d be a stalker, and my only consolation was that I didn’t stalk randomly, just the one woman.
Of course, when I phrased it like that, I sounded just as psychologically deranged as any run-of-the-mill whack job who followed Lady Gaga from concert to concert.
But I wasn’t.
Was I?
I didn’t think I was, even if I was obsessed with her. But my obsession took the form of ensuring she was safe, untouched. I’d never hurt her.
Ever.
Verbally was another matter entirely, but physically, she was safer with me than without.