Page 37 of While You Sleep

Nerves rioted in my belly. Yes, I let him touch me every night, but it wasn’t like we were having deep and meaningful conversations in the dark. We spent no time together during the day. I slept in his bed beside him, but I didn’t know him. Did anyone know the real Cillian O’Rourke? Or did everyone in his life get the version he wanted them to see? The idea sent shards of ice through my veins.

Wrestling down my nerves, I hit his number and braced for some weird reason. Probably because I didn’t know who I was going to get. He’d shown me two different people. Was there any of Cillian in Dean? Did some of the real Cillian come out when he made that transformation? Or was he just that much of a sociopath?

He stalked you, broke into your place, and watched you sleep. He murdered his own brother and forced you to marry him.

“Sophia?” His voice was low but utterly unreadable.

“Uh, hey. Can you talk or are you busy?”

There was a beat of silence. “Is something wrong?”

“No…well, nothing life-threatening.”

More silence, and this time it dragged on. “Why are you calling, Sophia?”

I jumped, his roughened voice startling me. “You said to call if I needed something.”

“I know.”

Shit, I sounded like the biggest idiot.

“Sophia,” he said, and there was a bit of growl to his voice.

“Right, yes, sorry. I have clients waiting for me to finish their projects and I need my computer and tablet from the apartment.”

“Fine.”

I was expecting him to tell me no again. “So I can go get them?”

“No, I will. Anything else?”

Yes, but this felt weird. I was about to ask the O’Rourke monster to go pick me up a few things, like he was just your average domesticated guy, not the head of a family of mobsters. “The rest of my clothes in the big dresser, my jewelry on top of it, and there’s makeup in the bathroom cabinet that I want… I mean, if that’s okay?”

“I’ll get it.” There was another pause. “I’ll see you later.”

Why the hell did my heart just skip a beat? I opened my mouth, not sure what I was going to say, but he’d already disconnected.

After that awkward interaction, I took a nap. I hadn’t been sleeping as much as I needed, for obvious reasons, and when that happened, my body forced me to rest. So I surrounded myself with pillows and gave in to it.

I woke a couple hours later and, not sure what to do with myself, went wandering. The house was broken into two wings. There was a single-story section that jutted out the side, that I’d seen when we drove in yesterday. You had to go through the kitchen to get to it. The first door I opened was a massive gym, with all the equipment you could ask for. Another bathroom, a kitchenette. A fully self-contained addition by the looks. Down from that was a small living room and a bedroom. It looked like someone was staying here. There was a bag by the bed and a half-empty glass of water. Is this where his men slept when they were guarding the house?

I ducked back out. There was one more door beside it. Gripping the handle, I pushed it open—and froze.

Seamus O’Rourke lay in a bed across the room. He was alive, yes, but he looked frail and was hooked up to a bunch of tubes. Cillian had spared him for some reason, but I doubted it was from the goodness of his heart. He’d have to have one for that. A nurse sat beside him, and she was reading aloud. She looked up, catching me before I could get the hell out of there.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to disturb…I…”

“Come here, girl,” Seamus said, his green eyes, so like Cillian’s, locked on me.

I hesitated.

“It’s not like I’m a threat,” he said, voice reedy and thin.

The last time I saw him was with Adam at our house. He’d given me the creeps then, and he did now too. It didn’t matter that he was bedridden and frail. Those eyes, they made it hard to disobey, and I found myself stepping into the room.

“Give us a minute, would you, Sally?” he said to the nurse.

“If you promise not to get worked up,” she said.

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