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“People are watching.”
He lets out a strange sound through his nose. “They just want you to think that, Princess. Panopticon and all that.”
I have no idea what the word panopticon means, but it sounds sinister.
His words send twin tingles down either side of my spine, the electric pain in the back of my head worsening. He’s wrong, of course. But that doesn’t mean he can’t do damage.
Cam would never allow Rudy to do this.
I must find my way to him.
“Why are you doing this, Rudy? You’re throwing it all away.” I glance at the house. The curtains in the first-floor bay window move just enough.
A flimmer.
A ripple.
A sign.
A warning.
“Throwing what away?” he challenges, bold and angry.
“Your career. Your life. You’re a nice man. You have been a very good bodyguard to me.” I glance meaningfully toward the house, but Rudy is too heated to see. “I cannot save you. You know this, right?”
Too blinded by his own selfish needs to stop himself from certain doom.
“Maybe I want to be more than a bodyguard.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not attracted to me too, Paigelynn.”
I jolt. “I’m not,” I reply honestly. Rudy’s attentions have grown in the last month that he’s worked with me, but I brushed them off, thinking myself too sensitive.
I’ve been told that my instincts are strong. I’ve been told that letting my thinking brain take over too much violates my purpose in life. I’ve been told that I’m to report any man’s touch that is not sanctioned.
No one had to tell me, though, that while I am not allowed to have impulses, there would be men in my life unable to control theirs.
What kind of control would Cam have around me? What if I don’t want him to restrain himself?
Imagination is a terrible burden for someone like me, predestined for a role that saves mankind. At night in bed alone I’ve had tortured fantasies, the need to imagine greater than the resolve to fight the urge.
Rudy grabs Winnie’s leash and yanks hard enough for the dog to yelp. The sound pierces my eardrum, but my eyes go to the window. Relief and horror tingle along my skin. I’m never left entirely alone with any man.
That would defeat the purpose of my entire existence.
“Princess,” Rudy hisses in my ear as I bend to comfort poor Winnie, who cowers as her eyes dip up with reproach toward Rudy. We’re both bent down, the charade complete.
“Are you okay, Winnie?” Rudy says in a loud, demonstrative voice. “I didn’t mean to step on your little foot.”
But it’s not the dog he touches.
Rudy’s palm opens, the heel of it running up from my ankle to the back of my knee. The touch is sinister, a promise that is nothing more than a violation before the fact.
Worse, though, is that Rudy has just guaranteed my fate.
I will never see Cam again.
