Chapter 72 Under My Guard
Rowan
I don’t slow my pace as I lead her down the hall.
I don’t look back either.
If I do, I’ll soften. And she doesn’t need softness right now. She needs certainty.
My bedroom door opens with a quiet click, and the space beyond it never fails to feel like a contradiction even to me.
The rest of the house is built like a fortress. Steel. Stone. Glass reinforced to withstand impact. Cameras, sensors, redundancies stacked on redundancies. Everything designed for defense, control, survival.
This room is none of that.
The walls are darker here, muted charcoal instead of white. The lighting is warm and low, indirect, built to soothe rather than interrogate. The bed dominates the space, large and heavy, dressed in dark linen that looks untouched even when it’s not. There are no personal photos. No trophies. No reminders of who I am outside these walls.
Only a single chair by the window. A small table beside the bed. And the quiet hum of the city far below.
This room is where I sleep.
Not where I plan wars.
I feel her pause at the threshold. Of course she does.
Her hesitation is practically a language at this point.
I turn just enough to see it. The way her shoulders tense. The way she scans the room like she’s looking for traps instead of rest.
“You’re safe,” I say, not because she asked, but because she needs to hear it.
She nods, but doesn’t move.
So I make the decision for her.
I step back into her space and place my hand at her lower back, gentle but deliberate. Not pushing. Guiding. A quiet pressure that says this is happening, and you don’t have to fight it.
She inhales sharply but doesn’t pull away.
Good.
I guide her forward, my hand steady, until the edge of the bed presses against her knees.
She looks back at me once. Searching. Measuring.
I don’t give her an opening.
“Get in,” I say calmly.
She does.
She kicks off her shoes without comment and crawls onto the mattress, curling slightly on her side like her body knows exactly what it needs even if her mind refuses to admit it.
I step back immediately. Distance matters. Control isn’t about crowding.
She’s asleep before I even reach the chair.
That fast.
I stop short, watching her chest rise and fall, slow and even. The tension drains out of her face like someone finally cut the wire holding her upright.
A smirk tugs at my mouth before I can stop it.
So that’s all it took.
I take the tablet from the bedside table and settle into the chair by the window, pulling up the camera feeds out of habit more than necessity. Exterior first. Perimeter clear. Street quiet. Then interior systems, scrolling through them with a practiced eye.
Everything is exactly where it should be.
I glance back at the bed.
She hasn’t moved.
Her hand is curled near her face, fingers relaxed, no longer clenched like she’s bracing for impact.
Something tight in my chest loosens.
Maybe she just needed me nearby.
The thought settles deep and dangerous.
I lean back in the chair, one arm resting on the armrest, tablet balanced in the other hand. The city glows outside the window, distant and irrelevant.
I’ll stay here.
I’ll watch the feeds. I’ll make sure nothing slips through.
And when she wakes up, the world will still be standing.
I keep my eyes on the tablet, but my attention drifts back to the bed anyway.
She hasn’t moved. Not even a twitch. Whatever is usually coiled tight inside her finally let go the second her head hit the pillow.
I didn’t expect that.
I didn’t expect… this.
I shift slightly in the chair, watching the steady rise and fall of her breathing, and thoughts start slipping in where discipline should be. Quiet ones at first. Harmless. Domestic.
Dangerous.
I imagine waking up like this. Morning light cutting across the bed instead of security screens. Her hair a mess against the pillow. That faint crease between her brows gone because she isn’t bracing for another day yet.
I imagine going to sleep knowing she’s there. Not checking cameras. Not listening for alarms. Just… her.
Meals drift in next, uninvited.
Would she cook, if she felt safe enough to take up space in a kitchen that wasn’t hers? Or would I need to hire a chef full time because she’d forget to eat when she was focused? She does that. I’ve seen it. Coffee in hand, hours passing without food until someone reminds her.
Coffee.
She prefers iced. I know that much. Even when it’s cold out. Always iced, always with a specific ratio she never writes down. I wonder if she ever drinks tea. Something tells me no. Too slow. Too gentle. Coffee is efficient. Immediate.
Breakfast.
Pancakes or waffles?
I’ve seen her eat pancakes. That morning in the kitchen. She took small bites at first, distracted, then relaxed into it like her body remembered hunger before her mind did.
I’ve seen her eat more than that too.
That night.
Through the feed.
Thai food spread across the counter. She sat cross-legged on the chair, carton balanced in her lap, chopsticks forgotten halfway through because Camille made her laugh. She’d pushed her hair back behind her ear without thinking, eyes lighting up over something stupid and ordinary.
I’d sent the food. The phone. The shoes.
The briefcase.
She uses that briefcase every day now.
I notice things like that.
I shouldn’t have felt anything watching her that night. It wasn’t about control. It wasn’t strategy.
It was… satisfaction.
The quiet kind.
The kind that settles in your chest when you know you’ve provided something someone needed without them having to ask. Without them knowing it mattered to you.
I don’t want her to know that yet.
Not until I know where she stands.
Not until I know whether her defiance is just instinct, or if there’s something underneath it that turns toward me instead of away.
I glance back at the bed.
She shifts slightly, sighs in her sleep, and curls closer to the center of the mattress like she’s instinctively seeking warmth that isn’t there.
Something tightens low in my gut.
I force myself to look away, back to the tablet, back to perimeter feeds and system checks and the things I can control.
There will be time.
For questions.
For answers.
For whatever this is becoming.
For now, I watch over her while she sleeps, letting myself have this one quiet, dangerous thought before I lock it back down.
She fits.
And she will be mine.