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My gaze finally dips to the lowest level of screens, and my spine stiffens, my gut twisting and threatening to unload the delicious lunch I ate alone in the dining room only a few hours ago.
No. No. No.
My bedroom.
The space has become familiar over the last several days—where I spend my time trying to relax and forget about my predicament by losing myself in another world on the page. Reading has always been my greatest love and escape, and if I can’t be at home in my own bed with a great book, at least I can do it here while simultaneously resting the still-healing injury to my foot.
But I won’t be able to relax there anymore or find comfort in the soft mattress and silky sheets and heavy scent of The Beast that lingers on everything.
Anger heats my veins as I stare at the screen that shows every inch of the bedroom except the bathroom and closet.
That’s how he knew when to bring things, when to leave them.
The Beast has been watching me.
Heat floods my cheeks at the knowledge of what he might have seen—how many times I stripped naked and changed. The nights I’ve let myself fall apart and break down, crying myself to sleep.
He’s seen it all.
That rat bastard!
A floorboard creaks behind me, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
I spin toward the door and find The Beast standing between the jambs, his broad shoulders nearly brushing each side. Sweat glistens on his bare chest, like he’s just come in from working hard, manual labor on the property, and his large hands bunch and flex at his sides.
His lips twist into a sneer. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
Annoyance crackles through me at the anger in his words. If anyone should be pissed off right now, it should be me, not him.
All those tiny, lingering reservations about wrongly judging the man standing before me have vanished, replaced with a rage I haven’t felt toward him before, despite likely having reason to.
I spread out my hand, motioning toward the cameras. “What the fuck is this?”
He scowls. “My security system.”
Raising a brow at him, I let my mouth fall open. “Your security system requires you to spy on me?”
The Beast recoils slightly, a muscle ticcing in his clenched jaw beneath his beard. “Every room in this house has a camera, Callista. I can’t be too careful with security.”
“Bullshit!” I throw up my hands. “No one dares to come up here, and you and I both know it. This”—I jab my finger into the screen with my bedroom on it—“is a complete violation.”
One of his silvery brows rises.
He takes a step toward me, his intimidating size more evident the closer he gets. That same scent that permeates the air in my bedroom now fills each breath I take, and his tension vibrates every muscle in his solid body. “You want to talk about a violation? How about you showing up here on my fucking property, inserting yourself into my life, fucking up everything?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I throw up my hands. “You demanded my father send me here.”
But even as the words leave my mouth, the truth sparks in the back of my brain.
Unless he didn’t…
Though he doesn’t say anything, the shift in his stance, the slight alteration in the set of his bare shoulders is all it takes to tell me I’m right.
Holy shit.
It would certainly explain why he doesn’t seem to want me up here and why he was so surprised at my arrival. He isn’t the one who sent that message, and for some reason, he’s not only protecting whomever it was, but he’s also going along with whatever that person wants to happen.
But why would The Beast bow to anyone?
