Page 122 of Where the Snakes Sleep

My head snaps toward him.

The reaction is embarrassingly immediate, a spike of alarm so overwhelming that I take a step forward before catching myself. “What?”

His expression shifts, not into satisfaction exactly, but something softer and far more dangerous to me right now.

“It’s clear that you don’t wish to be around me right now, so I will leave.”

I glance toward the windows again, then the broken wall, then back at him. “You’re—you’re just going to leave?” I stammer.

The question sounds ridiculous the second it escapes. I was the one who effectively told him I cannot think with him in the room. I have spent the last however-many minutes wishing he would disappear so I could sort through the wreckage of my own feelings without having his face complicating every thought, and now the moment he agrees to do exactly that, some primitive part of me wants to grab him by the shirt and demand to know why the fuck he thinks abandoning me in this cottage is a good idea.

“Not exactly,” Camille says.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I will leave the cottage. I will not leave the property.”

I stare at him in confusion until he gestures toward the front of the house. “I will drive my car around and park it close to the house.”

“You’re going to sit in your car?”

“Oui.”

“For how long?”

“As long as necessary.”

I blink at him, the slightest bit of annoyance beginning to mix with disbelief. “That’s insane. You have a giant house like a minute away, with a security system.”

“I am aware.”

“And instead you’re going to sit in a fucking car in my driveway because I told you I don’t want to look at you?”

“If that is what allows you to have the distance you asked for without being alone here, yes.”

I gape at him.

The worst thing about Camille is that he can make something completely unreasonable sound so matter-of-fact that I briefly begin questioning whether I am the strange one for objecting.

I narrow my eyes. “I’d still know you were out there. That kind of defeats the point.”

“Not entirely. You would not have to speak to me, look at me, or allow me inside. I would simply be near enough to respond if something happened.”

The familiar protective impulse in his voice scrapes against every exposed nerve I have. A few days ago, I would have found it comforting. Yesterday, I probably would have rolled my eyes and secretly liked it. Now it is impossible to hear concern without wondering how much of it belongs to me and how much belongs to the evidence I now possess.

Maybe Camille realizes where my mind goes because his face hardens suddenly, and he clarifies, “This is not about the journal.”

I don’t answer.

“Ryan.” He exhales slowly through his nose. “If you threw that journal into the fireplace while I stood here, I would be devastated beyond words. I would also still refuse to leave you alone in this cottage tonight.”

Something in my chest jerks painfully. I hate that. I hate when he says things that sound real.

“I’m not burning anything.”

“I know.”

“You’re not getting it either.”