Page 91 of The Agreement

It was the item in his hand that had her straightening higher in bed, pulling the sheet up around her to keep her breasts covered.

“What is it?” she asked, confused.

“That’s what I’m asking you. What is this? What is it doing here, Karine?”

She eyed the item he held warily. “A notebook?”

“It’s a sketchbook.”

That accusatory tone of his felt like a slap, especially when she didn’t have the first clue why he was leveling it on her. What did a fucking sketchbook have anything to do with what happened last night, and why she woke up at three in the morning to find him gone from her bed.

Hell.

Karine should be the one asking questions. “I don’t know. Where did you find it? I haven’t seen it before.”

Instead of answering her, he started flipping through the pages of the sketchbook. She couldn’t see whatever was inside from where she still caught a few glimpses of colors on the pages despite how fast he went through it.

The whole time, Roman glared.

At each page.

He scrutinized the images closely—like they meant something to him, and he had a personal connection to what was staring back at him. She couldn’t quite the same.

Still watching him in silence, an uneasiness settled deep inside her. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him, or what he might do. For the first time, she wasn’t afraid of a man.

Well ...

This man, anyway.

He had looked at her in a way that said he would never hurt her. And yet, Karine couldn’t put a finger on why all of this felt so wrong.

“You’re telling me you don’t know where I found it?” he snapped, the question raking over her skin. Like hot coals searing lines down her body. When he turned his eyes to her again, she found fire staring back. It burned from where she sat on the bed, still lost to what was happening.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Karine replied, trying desperately to keep her voice level. She hadn’t done anything to warrant the way he was treating her. “I don’t know what it is, or why it matters.”

“I found it under your bed, Karine. I almost tripped on it when I got up to go for a piss. It was right there.”

She looked at it again, her brow furrowing. He brandished the sketchbook in the air like a sword, daring her to deny what he was saying. Despite not knowing what the sketchbook was, what it held, or why it had been stuck under her bed, simply looking at it caused a swell of emotions that she couldn’t explain.

All bad.

It drowned her.

The confusion was heaviest, and most prominent. Except it was best friends with the disgust that filled up her stomach with nausea the longer she stared at the item he held. It was the fear climbing up her spine simply because he had the sketchbook that concerned her the most, though. All of those warring emotions—all at the same time, too.

Why did a sketchbook have that effect on her?

Karine didn’t know, and she didn’t care to find out. Not tonight, certainly not when everything else had been so perfect. Just like everything else in her life that didn’t make sense and scared her, she wanted to hide it away and bury it as deep as it would go—wherever it would go.

Those details didn’t matter.

It just needed to leave.

Now.

“Roman, please—can you put that away?”

Her tone remained calm.