Chapter 4: Why did She Leave

Roman didn't move from behind his desk. He simply watched her for a long moment, and then he stood, walking to the window that overlooked the grounds. The city sprawled beyond the manor's borders, indifferent to what was happening inside these walls, the night life outside was bubbling.

"Your job is simple," he said, his back still to her. "There's a woman named Sarah. Sarah Vance. She works in venture capital, runs a small firm with significant connections to people I need to understand. You'll befriend her, gain her trust, and report everything she does. Her meetings, her calls, her associates, her vulnerabilities. I need to know how she thinks, what she wants, and most importantly, who she's connected to."

Nadia sat in the chair, her body present but her mind somewhere else.

The way he moved reminded her of something. The way his voice dropped when he said certain words, the particular cadence of his instructions, it all felt like an echo of something she'd dreamed so vividly that waking had felt like the lie.

"You'll have access to a credit card for expenses. You'll have a phone that connects directly to me. You'll start tomorrow." Roman turned to face her, and she forced herself to look at him.

His eyes held hers, and for a moment, she saw something flicker across his face, recognition, maybe. Or hunger. She couldn't tell which.

"You're intelligent enough not to ask why. You're pragmatic enough to do what I ask without moral complications. That's why you're here."

Nadia's mouth felt dry.

The instructions were clear, too clear. He'd thought about this, planned this.

She felt like was a piece in something she didn't yet understand.

Part of her wanted to ask who Sarah was to him, why this woman mattered enough to warrant this level of surveillance. But she didn't.

The other part of her, the part that recognized something in him, something that had lived in her body for months in the form of dreams she couldn't explain, remained silent.

"Okay," she said. The word felt small in the space between them.

"Good." Roman moved back to his desk and slid a folder across the polished surface.

"Everything you need to know about her is in here. Her routines, her favorite places, her friends. Study it tonight. Tomorrow, you'll already know her better than she knows herself."

Nadia reached for the folder, and her fingers brushed the edge of the desk.

She didn't look at him as she stood. She couldn't. The haze was thickening, pulling her under, and if she looked at him for another second, she might ask him something she had no right to ask.

She moved toward the door, the folder tucked against her chest like a shield.

Roman said nothing.

He simply watched her.

His eyes tracked every movement, the way she held the folder, the slight tremor in her hands that she was trying to hide, the deliberate slowness of her step as she left the room.

He watched until the door closed behind her, and then he remained motionless, staring at the space where she'd been standing.

Nadia went upstairs, locked her door, and spread the contents of the folder across the bed. Sarah Vance. Age thirty-two. Former Stanford graduate. No criminal record, clean, professional and boring, on the surface.

But Roman wanted her watched, which meant Sarah Vance was anything but boring.

Nadia photographed each document with the phone that had been in the folder, the communication device Roman had mentioned.

She packed everything back carefully, her movements mechanical. She'd done this before, played roles, infiltrated spaces where she didn't belong.

This wasn't different. This was work.

Except it was different, because every time she closed her eyes, she saw Roman's face overlapping with the face from her dreams, and she didn't know if she was losing her mind or if the universe had decided to give her something she'd spent months wanting without even knowing what it was.

She returned the folder to Roman's office, left it on his desk, and climbed back up to her room, where she lay on her bed and tried very hard not to think about her feelings so she could have a good night rest.

Roman stood at the window of his study, watching the grounds lose their color as the sun descended. The whiskey burned going down, but he didn't feel it. He closed his eyes the flashbacks coming in like a punishment.

******

The apartment had been small, deliberately small. He'd wanted nowhere to hide, nowhere for either of them to pretend that what was happening between them was anything other than what it was, raw, urgent and necessary.

She was already there when he arrived, waiting on the bed in the dark. He didn't turn on the lights.

He didn't want to see her face clearly because if he saw her face, he might have to acknowledge that this was more than just the physical hunger that had been consuming him the whole week.

She didn't speak.

She moved toward him, and he caught her wrist, pulling her close enough that he could smell her skin, something warm, something like vanilla and something darker underneath.

She made a small sound in her throat, that particular sound that undid him completely.

His hands found the edge of her dress and pulled it over her head in one smooth motion.

She was already bare beneath it, and the sight of her, all pale skin and dark hair and eyes that held secrets he wanted to spend years uncovering, made something twist inside his chest.

"Roman," she whispered, and he covered her mouth with his, tasting her desperation and need and something else, something that tasted like love.

He lifted her, and she wrapped herself around him, her nails digging into his shoulders as he moved against her, into her.

The apartment filled with the sounds of them, breathing, gasping, the small cries she made when he touched her in certain ways, when he whispered things against her neck that he'd never said to anyone else and would never say again.

After, they lay tangled in the dark, her head on his chest, her hand splayed across his heart like she was checking to make sure it was still beating. He stroked her hair, and she was quiet, that dangerous quiet that meant she was thinking about something that would eventually come between them.

"Don't," he said, understanding without her having to speak. "Don't think about anything right now."

"I have to," she whispered back. "I have to think about everything."

That was when he should have known. That moment should have been the warning he needed. But he was too drunk on the feeling of her, too certain that whatever was coming could be controlled or prevented or managed.

He'd been wrong about that.

Roman's eyes opened.

The apartment was gone. The woman was gone. What remained was the echo of her, the ghost of her weight against him.

He stood at the window of his office, whiskey in hand, and watched the darkness consume the garden.

If only she hadn't changed. If only she'd understood what he was trying to build with her, what he'd been willing to sacrifice to keep her close. If only she'd been the kind of woman who could accept the darkness in him instead of trying to ruin him.

If only she hadn't left.