Chapter 4 Kiss& Tell at the Water Cooler

The city blurred past us as Bernard's car slid through traffic. Five years of questions still nagged at me, made sharper by whatever I'd just witnessed at the hotel. The way he'd tensed during checkout, that clerk's too-familiar manner...

"The recordings." I kept my eyes on the passing buildings. "Time to talk about them."

Bernard's fingers tightened on the steering wheel - a tell I'd learned to spot years ago. "Diana-"

"No changing the subject. No avoiding. Just truth." I turned to watch his profile. "Why were you documenting everything about me?"

His jaw clenched. Another tell. "It's complicated."

"Then uncomplicate it." I wasn't backing down. Not this time. "Someone hired you to watch me, didn't they? That's why you orchestrated our 'accidental' meeting."

The muscle in his cheek jumped. Got him.

"Yes." His voice was careful, controlled. "I was hired to keep an eye on you. To protect you."

"From what?"

"That part's over now." He changed lanes too smoothly, too deliberately. "Has been for years."

"Bullshit." I studied his reflection in the side mirror. "That clerk at the hotel - he was part of this too, wasn't he? That's why you were so tense."

"You noticed that?" A hint of pride crept into his voice.

"I notice everything about you now, Bernard. Just like you taught me." I let that sink in. "The way your left hand taps when you're agitated and you check your watch when you're losing control of a situation. Five years running my own company taught me to study patterns. And yours? They're screaming at me right now."

Bernard was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Move in with me."

"What?"

"My penthouse has better security. Better surveillance. Better-"

"Protection?" I caught the slip. "From what exactly?"

His fingers drummed once on the wheel before he caught himself. "From anyone who might try to use me to get to you. To us."

"Try again." I kept my voice steady. "The truth this time."

"That is the truth." He glanced at me. "Just not all of it."

"And the rest?"

"The rest isn't mine to tell." He pulled into my company's parking garage. "Not yet."

"But you will tell me?"

"When it's safe." He killed the engine but didn't move to get out. "When I figure out how to tell you without-" He cut himself off.

"Without what?"

"Without losing you again." The raw honesty in his voice caught me off guard. "Five years was long enough, Diana."

I studied him - the tension in his shoulders, the way he wouldn't quite meet my eyes. "The recordings were more than just studying me, weren't they? You were reporting to someone."

His silence was answer enough.

"Fine." I unbuckled my seatbelt. "Keep your secrets for now. But know this - I'm done being your project. Your experiment. Any part of your plan."

"Is that what you think you are to me?" Now he did look at me, and the intensity in his eyes made my breath catch. "After everything?"

"I don't know what I am to you." I met his gaze. "That's the problem, isn't it?"

"Move in with me," he said again. "Let me prove it."

"Prove what? That you can protect me? Or that you can continue control me?"

"That I choose you." His hand found mine. "Over everything else."

The implications of that hung between us. "Whoever hired him. Whatever he was trying to protect me from."

"One condition." I laced my fingers with his. "No more recordings, documenting, studying my reactions."

"Already stopped." His thumb traced my knuckles. "Five years ago."

"Why?"

"Because watching you through a lens wasn't enough anymore." His voice dropped lower. "Because I wanted to experience you, not analyze you."

"And now?"

"Now I want to come home to you." He brought our joined hands to his lips. "Not just your files. Not just reports about you. You."

The security camera in the corner blinked its red light - watching, recording. Just like Bernard used to. Just like someone still was, according to him.

"Okay," I said finally.

His head snapped up. "Okay?"

"I'll move in with you." I squeezed his hand. "But the moment I catch you documenting me again..."

"I won't."

"Or the moment I find out you're still reporting to whoever hired you..."

"Diana-"

"I mean it, Bernard." I held his gaze. "No more games. No more secrets. No more lies."

"No more games," he agreed. But something flickered in his eyes - that same tension I'd seen at the hotel. He was still hiding something. Something big.

Fine. He could keep his secrets for now. After all, I had my own investigation to run. Starting with finding out exactly who that clerk was, and why he made Bernard Jones - the most controlled man I'd ever met - lose his composure.

"Diana." Bernard's voice had that warning edge I knew too well. "Leave the hotel clerk alone. For your own safety."

"Worried I'll find something I shouldn't?" I kept my tone light, teasing.

His fingers tightened on mine. "I'm serious. Some doors are better left closed."

"Okay." I smiled, all innocence. "No digging into mysterious hotel clerks. Got it."

"Diana." The way he said my name - half warning, half pleading.

I stood by the car door, my hand still on the handle. "You know what's funny, Bernard? Five years ago, I would have been furious at you trying to control me like this."

"And now?" His voice was cautious.

I pulled out my phone, pretending to check messages while actually opening my recording app. "Now I just have work to do."

"Diana..." The warning in his voice was back.