Page 48 of While You Sleep

“Tell me, Sophia, exactly how much do you like Danny?”

I stared at him in shock, until it hit me what was going on here, and with how crazy everything had already been the last couple weeks, and what happened last night, a manic feeling filled me out of nowhere. I couldn’t hold it in. I laughed. No, I snorted loudly, then I laughed.

He glanced at me, an expression I couldn’t read on his face. “What the fuck’s so funny?”

“You are,” I said and shook my head. “Are you actually jealous right now? Really?”

The muscle in his jaw jumped. “No.”

“You are. You’re jealous.” I laughed again at how insane my life was.

His hands clenched tighter around the steering wheel. “Do you want to fuck him, Sophia? Is that it?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I’m not sure why I was so surprised by his reaction, but I was. “No, I don’t want to sleep with Danny. For fuck’s sake, Cillian, I know we don’t know each other that well yet, but up until last night, I was a virgin. And in case you’re not paying attention, which you obviously are not, the only man I seem to want to sleep with is my stalker, a man who can kill without remorse, then come to me covered in another man’s blood, and still I’ll let him fuck me into the middle of next week.”

His chest expanded with his sharp indrawn breath. “You were a virgin?”

That’s the part he focused on? “Yes, but I’m certainly not anymore.” I turned to him. “There are things you should worry about, husband, like if your wife is slowly losing her damned mind with all the ways her world has been thrown on its head, or if I’ll do to you what Alto’s wife did to him, or whether I’ll run away in the middle of the night—because sometimes I have to seriously talk myself out of both of those things—but me wanting to fuck some other guy isn’t one of them, okay?”

His gaze dipped to my mouth and back up, before it returned to the road. “Okay.”

* * *

I’d spent all morning setting up my office and had finally got to work after lunch. I’d added a few more little touches: a rug I found in one of the other bedrooms, a lamp I’d swiped from the living room, and a vase full of flowers sitting on my desk that I’d picked outside, a bandaged Danny in tow.

I was working on some ad images for a client when Cillian walked in.

“You’ve been up here all day,” he said.

I checked the time on my phone. I hadn’t realized how late it was. “I have a lot to catch up on.” I watched as he took in the room. “What do you think?”

He turned back to me. “Do you like it?”

“I do. I even like the color it’s painted. Good thing, too, since I’m assuming you just had the whole place done not long ago? The only additions I can think of is maybe a few pictures for the walls and a whiteboard over there, oh…and I wouldn’t mind a couch under the window. But other than that, I like it very much.”

“I had the whole place painted so it’d be fresh when I brought you home.”

I realized it was the same dove gray as my apartment. Yes, he was a stalker, my stalker, but he’d painted his entire house for me, to make me…feel at home? And happy? “You wouldn’t have had much time.”

“No.”

“But you did it anyway. Why?”

He pulled out his wallet. “I thought you’d like it better.” He slid out a card and held it toward me. “You want to buy something, I’ll get it. Or just order it online. Whatever you want.”

I stared at the black card he’d put in front of me. “You’re giving me your credit card?”

“I’ll get you your own, but use that one for now.”

Did he think he could buy my acquiescence? That having things would make up for tearing me from my life and forcing me into his? Maybe the towels and sheets and wall color would be romantic if he hadn’t broken into my apartment multiple times to watch me sleep. “I don’t need it. I have my own money.”

He shrugged. “Your money’s your own. I want you to use this.”

I didn’t want to take it, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to use it, but the look in his eyes said this wasn’t up for discussion, so I took it from him. I expected him to leave, he never usually sought me out during the day, but he hovered.

I waited for him to say whatever it was he wanted. Finally, he motioned to my computer. “What are you working on?”

That was the last thing I’d expected him to say. “Some marketing graphics for a local pottery artist. I love her stuff. It’s not hard making her images look enticing.” He came around my desk and took a look at what I was doing. Why was my heart racing all of a sudden, my palms sweaty? If I was at home with my father, this would be the part where he’d tell me I was wasting my time, that what I was doing was pointless.

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