Page 218 of Texting Dr. Stalker

I’d screamed in my sleep, and X turned up…in bare feet.

He knew all the right things to say to me.

Knew my routines. My habits. My likes and dislikes and…

H-He bought me a dildo.

I froze as more memories crashed into one another.

He knew where my spare key was.

He knew where my bedroom was to sneak beneath my covers and hold me.

He knew how much Milton broke me because he was there. In the ER. As a doctor. He’d seen with his own eyes the mess I’d been and…

Oh my God.

He gave me an orgasm after I begged him.

He tried to refuse me because of his lies.

He led me on and fibbed to my face, and…every night he said he watched me, he hadn’t done it by camera but through a damn window.

How was I so blind?

My eyes shot to the side of his house beneath the gutters. His home security blinked a red dot in the dark. Just like the camera at the front of his house pointed at my place, the back one did too—the angle perfectly in line with my garden.

Okay, not just via a window.

He used his home network to record me. He didn’t stand on the street or peer through my bushes; he literally had me on a video feed no matter where he was.

Anger bubbled, hotter and hotter.

How dare he.

How damn welldarehe stalk into my life and spin a web of lies.

The house of flimsy cards he’d built around me came tumbling down in a puff of wind.

The plate in my letterbox.

The forced scratchy voice to hide his true baritone.

The way he knew the layout of my house.

The uncanny timing whenever I wasn’t coping.

I…I felt violated, all while protected. Betrayed and confused and—

“Now that you’ve got that off your chest, let’s get rational instead of emotional, alright?” Colin sniffed with faint annoyance.

Zander didn’t respond, keeping his face buried.

Standing, Colin held up his hand. “Let’s look at the facts, shall we? I’m sure you’ll see it’s not nearly as bad as you think it is. First…” Holding up a single finger, he smiled. “You’ve loved her since you were a geeky little teenager, and seeing her hurt after what that cunt—and yes, he’s a cunt, not an asshole—did to her, you knew she wouldn’t know how or be willing to accept your help, so…you did what you thought was best.”

Holding up a second finger, he added, “Secondly, you put your reputation, mental health, and heart on the line the moment you gave her a phone and offered to be the therapist she didn’t know she needed. You were being the best kind of doctor and human by giving her an outlet to talk because you were right…she was sinking into agoraphobia and claustrophobia and it would’ve only gotten worse unless she addressed it.”

Up went finger number three. “Thirdly, it was me who suggested you be prepared for seeing her in person, and I’ll take the blame that I gave you the disguise you needed. I hate to say I told you so, but even if all her instincts said it was you behind the black hair and contacts, those two things, plus the mask, were enough to keep you hidden in plain sight. Don’t feel bad about that, Zan, it’s just biology. We humans are stupid creatures.”

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