Page 60 of Creep

“Have you searched her apartment thoroughly? You know, besides snooping in her underwear drawers?”

I shot him a look.

The fucker just grinned at me.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the fireplace, thinking. If Lia had the book, surely she would have known about it and looked through the contents. And if she had, those rose-colored glasses she wore around her father and Leo would have been effectively off.

But she still looked at them like they were her heroes.

I didn’t know I was a jealous man until her.

Until I realized I didn't want her to look at any man like that, save for me, even if there was no fucking way possible she had any romantic feelings toward them.

No, she didn’t know about the book. And there was a small part of me that didn’t want to look any further, knowing I wouldn’t be keeping this from her.

There would be no secrets between us, but once she knew, once she realized she had been lied to her whole life, she would be hurt.

And fuck, how I hated the thought of her hurt.

19

LIA

I smoothedmy hands down the side of the black leggings I wore, trying to muster up some excitement over my second date with Mael.

And I was excited, but overshadowing that excitement was the fact that my stalker had visited me every night since that second time he came back, always around midnight and leaving sometime after three.

All he ever did was hold me.

And I was now so fucking confused, I didn’t know how to react or think anymore.

If this was psychological warfare he was waging against me, trying to break me down… he was fucking winning.

I blinked.

The morning sun shone through the window. It was an unusually warm fall day. And though it had snowed a couple of weeks ago, most of the snow had melted from a random heatwave we’d gotten a few days before.

I should be happy.

I shook my head.

Mael was taking me hiking, so I had no makeup on. No makeup to hide the bags under my eyes, the paleness of my skin, or the chapping of my lips. I pinched my cheeks, trying to get some color into them, and put some lip balm on my lips.

I still looked tired, but better than I had.

A part of me had wanted to call and cancel.

The other part was angry that I was even letting this… thiscreepmess with my life in any way.

I didn’t call to cancel.

A knock came at the door.

It was too late to cancel now.

I walked over to the front door and opened it to see Mael standing there with a bouquet of white and red roses in his hand.

My smile was stuck frozen on my face as I took in the flowers. I hadn’t been lying when I told Mael that white roses were my favorite. They were still my favorite, but that was tainted by the fact that my stalker knew of this and had been giving me roses before he decided to make his presence known to me.

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