Page 22 of The Beast's Hidden Rose
The book contains landscapes mostly, charcoal sketches of the estate grounds, studies of light through trees. His technique is extraordinary even in these quick studies—capturing mood and atmosphere with a few strategic lines and smudges. I flip through, admiring his skill, feeling less guilty as I go.
Until I reach a page that stops my breath.
It's me. Unmistakably me, though younger, with shorter hair. I'm sitting on a park bench, head bent over a book, completelyabsorbed. A half-eaten apple rests beside me, and my bare feet are tucked up under me in a posture I recognize as my own.
The date in the corner reads three years ago.
My hands tremble as I stare at the image. I remember that day, or one very like it. The summer after college graduation, when I was adrift, uncertain about my future. I used to spend hours in the city park, reading to escape my cramped apartment and restless thoughts.
I flip the page and find another sketch of me—standing at a bus stop, looking at my phone. The next page shows me laughing with a friend outside a coffee shop. Page after page of me, captured in moments I never knew were observed.
Three years. He's been watching me, drawing me, fixated on me.
A strange warmth blooms in my chest. These sketches aren't like the explicit paintings I found in his studio. There's something tender about them, almost reverential. The way he's captured my expressions, the careful attention to small details—the chip on my nail polish, the loose thread on my sweater sleeve, the way my hair falls across my face when I'm concentrating.
He saw me. Really saw me, years before we met. Not just my body or my face, but the quiet moments that made up my ordinary life.
I continue through the sketchbook, then reach for another, this one dated two years ago. More of the same—me in various settings, always unaware of being observed. In grocery stores, bookshops, walking down streets I recognize from my old neighborhood.
The realization hits me: he was there, in the periphery of my life, silently watching, capturing, preserving moments I would have otherwise forgotten.
How many times did we nearly meet? How many almost-collisions, near-introductions did fate deny before bringing us together here?
I should close the books, return them to the drawer, pretend I never saw them. But I can't stop turning pages, can't stop this archaeological dig into the history of his obsession—and by extension, into a past version of myself I barely remember.
There's something strangely comforting about seeing myself through his eyes. In a life where I often felt invisible, unremarkable, he saw something worth capturing, worth returning to again and again. What did he see in me then that others—that I myself—did not?
The most recent sketchbook contains studies for paintings I've seen in his studio—preliminary work for the more finished pieces. His technique evolved over the years, becoming more sophisticated, more emotionally resonant. But the focus remained constant: me.
I close the final book and sit back, mind reeling. Three years of observation. Three years of fascination. The depth of his obsession is greater than I realized, the roots going deeper into the soil of his psyche.
What does it mean for us, for whatever this relationship has become? I'm not the innocent housekeeper who arrived a month ago, shocked to discover her employer's obsession. I've become a willing participant in this strange, intense connection—even encouraged it, embraced the darkness in him that resonates with something in me.
The changes in me have been so gradual I hardly noticed them happening. The way I've come to crave his possessive touch, the thrill I feel when he calls me "his," the comfort I find in his unwavering focus. Normal relationships seem pale, tepid in comparison to the consuming heat between us.
Is this love? This twisted, intense, boundary-crossing connection?
Or something else entirely—something without a name, unique to us?
I'm so lost in thought I don't hear him return until his voice breaks the silence.
"Find anything interesting?"
I start, looking up to find Guy in the doorway, watching me with an unreadable expression. I don't bother hiding the sketchbooks—there's no point in pretense between us anymore.
"You’ve watched me for so long," I say simply.
He steps into the room, closing the door behind him.
"Yes," he confirms, coming to stand beside the desk.
The confession should terrify me. It's the behavior of a stalker, a predator. But the man standing before me isn't the boogeyman of cautionary tales—he's Guy, with all his darkness and damage and desperate need to connect in the only way he knew how.
"You really have been watching me for three years," I say, the full weight of it settling over me.
"The best years of my life," he says simply. "You gave my work purpose. Gave me something to look forward to, even from a distance."
I stand, needing to move, to process. "I had no idea. All that time, I felt so... ordinary. So unseen. And you were there, seeing me more clearly than anyone ever had."
