Page 60 of Taste of Forever
“Yeah, they—“ My words stopped abruptly as a sudden thought hit me. “How do you know about the lilies at my place?”
Laith lifted a brow at the abrupt change in my expression and tone. “I’ve been to your apartment, remember?”
“You stood guard outside my front door.” A little nervous laugh escaped me. “The lilies grow outside my bedroom window. In the back of the apartment.”
I fully expected him to brush it off with a, “Oh yeah, I did a perimeter sweep,” or some similar answer. I’d feel silly for my initial jolt of alarm and we’d carry on having a normal conversation. But that wasn’t what happened.
Laith’s mouth tightened, his eyes going dark. He didn’t say anything for several long seconds. The longer the silence stretched on, the more my alarm grew.
“Laith?”
“I’m sorry.”
Another long, uncomfortable silence stretched between us. “What exactly are you apologizing for?”
“I…was at your bedroom window.”
“That same night you came to my front door, or…?” I realized I was trying to give him an out, give him an opportunity to lie to me.
“No, a different night.”
I didn’t know what to feel, physically or emotionally. My body felt numb, disconnected from the words floating out of mymouth. “You came to my house a second time without telling me? And watched me through my window?”
Laith nodded, his expression solemn. I waited for that grin to split his face, for his eyes to light up with amusement as he said, “I’m just messing with you,” but it never came.
“I’ve followed you home several times,” he admitted. “And from your apartment to work.”
I was reeling. There was no ground beneath my feet. I was in free fall off the side of a cliff with blood rushing in my ears. “You followed me towork?”
“To make sure you were safe,” he said firmly, as if that justified it. “I only watched you through the window that one time, and make no mistake, that is theonlything I’m sorry for. That was a private moment and it was wrong for me to intrude without your knowledge.”
My whole body turned to ice. “What did you see?”
He was quiet for a moment, but his gaze was unwavering. “I think you know.”
On a dime, my body went from frozen still to heated with shame. If he had seen me doing something mundane like sleeping, playing on my phone, or getting dressed after a shower, he’d say so. But if it was as private as he implied, like the one night in weeks I’d decided to touch myself because Justin turned me down again…
The night I’d said Laith’s name as I made myself come.
“Don’t feel embarrassed because of me.” Laith made it sound like he could read my mind. “What I did was an invasion of your privacy and I regret doing it. I want you to be able to trust me, Heather.”
My shame boiled over into anger. He was sorry for being a peeping Tom but not for following me? Forstalkingme?
“Fuck. You.”
Laith had the gall to look surprised as I stood abruptly, shouldered my purse, and headed for the stairs.
“Heather, stop.”
“Don’t follow me. If you can fucking manage that, for once.”
He didn’t listen, because of course he didn’t. I heard his footfalls on the steps behind me, heard his mumbled apologies as he slid through the crowd of people on the ground floor. When I burst through the front door, finding myself on the quiet street and cool night air, he killed that moment of peace in an instant.
“Heather, please come back inside.”
The slight touch on my arm had me swinging out of his grasp. I wanted to follow through on the swing with my fist and hit him, I was so beyond fucking angry. So fucking betrayed. Just when I felt I could trust him. I was done. The dam had burst and everything I’d be shoving down for weeks was unleashed.
“I said,stop fucking following me!” My scream was so loud it echoed off the buildings and Laith actually stopped in his tracks.
