Page 35 of Ben

When Ben joined photography class, he found a way to always see her when he wanted her, to look at and touch her. He kept that part from his mom; she had enough else to worry about, and he knew that his family would not like that he took photos of Diamond when she was and wasn’t aware. When he became an adult, his obsession spread to him hacking into her home and phone and snapping pictures of her. He should have just kept his obsession to just his wall, but he needed to see her all the time and began to save pictures of her in a secured folder on his laptop. The pictures that Ambra found and showed her and everyone in the room. Now they knew his secret and were appalled by it. There was a line he would not cross, and that was seeing her naked, but that wouldn’t matter to them. He’d taken liberties that were against the law and took pictures of her without her consent.

He reached out a shaking hand and caressed the picture of her sticking out her tongue as she looked in the mirror the day of their wedding and then her posing in different angles as she looked at herself in the mirror in the different dresses the bridal shop assistant had brought with her for Diamond to try on the day of their wedding. He then moved over to a picture of a younger-looking Diamond doing a kick during cheerleading, her face alight with excitement as she revved up the audience to cheer on the football team.

Diamond leaning over the table, the curve of her young breasts pushed forward as she served the punch at the dance.

He studied the picture of the bored look she sported as she opened her gifts that she’d received from his family the time she came with Ambra to spend time with them at the family chalet in Switzerland.

He, Michael, and Ambra had run out pretending to go on an errand to hurry and get her Christmas gifts because theydidn’t know at the time she was coming. Their mother had been mortified and had pulled them into the kitchen, telling them to hurry before the stores closed.

Ben had bought her a handmade jewelry box and thought she must have gotten rid of it, but she asked him if she could go and retrieve it from work, where she'd kept it all this time.

His eyes poured over all the pictures of Diamond on his wall, and anguish ran through him. Having them made his day brighter in the darkness that he constantly found his emotions in. He knew it was wrong, but like a drug, he couldn’t help himself. He’d stopped when she got engaged because he didn’t want to see her happy with another man but still kept what he originally had before.

When an opportunity presented itself to blackmail her and bring her into his life for good, he didn’t regret what he’d done.

And he could never have imagined what he’d gained.

Diamond understood him when it came to his friendship with pain and even enjoyed it. She matched him in every way and was beginning to understand his moods and who he was as a person and accepted him. Her gentle touch and nothing else would make happiness pour through him.

The moments they sat in companionable silence, and he didn’t feel pressured or needed to make up conversation. He even realized her bored look was just a façade and that Diamond was a very astute and observant woman. People gave up information to her because they thought she wasn’t paying attention.

Now because of what had been discovered about him, he’d lost his light, and his eyes blurred. He would give anything,do anything to get her back; he just needed to calm down and think.

He reached out to touch her face, stepping closer as he pressed his head against the one where she was focused on opening up the Christmas gift from him, the only picture he had where she wasn’t posing in one fashion or another, then turning slightly to look at another, and he froze. He moved back, blinking the moisture out of his eyes, and took the picture of her sticking out her tongue; his gaze widened, and then he took down the Christmas one and then another and another. He was stunned, silent at what he was seeing, a dawning of what he was looking at registering when he heard.

“I pose well, don’t I?”

Diamond moved next to him and looked down at the pictures in his hands.

And then she took one off the wall. “My favorite is me by the pool and lounging on the chair in my orange bikini.” She handed it back to him.

“How long?” he turned, facing her.

“Since the day you discovered photography, and I noticed that you seemed to be everywhere I was, taking pictures.” She shrugged.

He stared at her, digesting this new information from her.

“But you also knew I was watching you and taking pictures of you and not just from my camera. If this pool pose tells me anything, you did that for me. How did you know I had cameras set up?”

“The teddy bear you gave both Ambra and I, one year for Valentine's Day, I discovered the camera in it and put two and two together.”

“Why didn’t you tell your family about me if you knew that I was taking pictures of you without your consent?”

She moved, crossing her arms in a defensive move. “Because it was all innocent at first, just a young boy having a crush on me, even when I spotted the hidden cameras in the gifts given to me, I checked my room and the bathroom and saw there were no cameras anywhere else. This would sound crazy to anyone else, but I could tell when your eyes were on me. There was always, to me, a shift in the air.”

“Why didn’t you tell your parents?” He questioned again.

“Because I liked the attention you were giving me. I enjoyed being someone’s obsession. It made me feel special. Not only popular in school and having the most wanted jock in the school, no, this was different for me. I needed it. Even being with Bryce, I felt alone, popular but alone, having the love of my parents and sisters, alone, even out with family, I felt alone, but with you I felt that you were with me even when I was by myself, and it gave me comfort. I began to rely on it. Crave it, and when it suddenly stopped when I got engaged to Bryce, I missed it. I missed having your eyes and attention on me. It was like a drug for me, and I needed to do something to get it again.”

He realized that he was just here alone with her. Then he glanced behind her, thinking that their families would have followed her to help her pack, but he didn’t hear anyone in the hallway.

As if reading his mind. Diamond shrugged her dainty shoulders. “It’s just me and Mouse here waiting in the hallway.”

“Mouse?”

“Yes, the one who created the virus for me and the one who helped me to do what I am about to explain to you.”

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