His gaze traveled slowly up my back and settled on my pale face.

He approached one step at a time until I was trapped between him and the desk.

He showed none of the embarrassment I expected from being exposed.

Instead, there was an unsettling relief in his face, as though he had finally torn off a mask.

“Are you afraid?”

He lowered his head and lightly brushed cool fingers against my cheek.

“Now that you've seen it, I don't need to pretend anymore.”

He leaned closer.

“You're always saying I'm cold. That I don't love you. That I treat you as though you don't matter.”

“Do you know how much effort it takes me every day to resist locking you in this room so no one else can see you?”

He took my hand and pressed it firmly over his heart.

“I didn't keep you away from the hospital because I was embarrassed by you. When those male doctors smiled at you, when they looked at you one second too long, I was jealous enough to want to gouge their eyes out.”

“I stayed away. I didn't hold you. Because I was afraid touching you would expose every ugly thing inside me. I was afraid you wouldn't be able to bear it and would run.”

His eyes were red. Two years of suppressed emotion churned inside them like a storm.

The face I had always thought so cold and solitary looked dangerously beautiful beneath the force of his feelings.

“I disguised myself as a rational, detached doctor so I could stay beside you like a normal man. And what did that get me? You left me. You went away with Xavier!”

His arms tightened abruptly, binding me against him as though he wanted to make me part of his flesh and blood.

“I've lost you once already. I can't keep pretending.”

He lowered his head, warm lips against my ear, a frightening madness in his voice.

“If you think I'm insane, then let me be insane. Even if you hate me, I'll never let you leave me again.”

He held me so tightly I could barely breathe.

I should have been afraid.

Any normal woman would have screamed and fled from a man who secretly collected her belongings, photographed her without her knowledge, and filled a journal with obsession.

Yet when I was forced to look up into his bloodshot eyes, my heart pounded like a drum.

Maybe there was something wrong with me too.

Instead of being frightened off, I found him compelling.

“You...” My voice shook. My legs were so weak I needed him to hold me up. “Let go first...”

“No.”

Thinking I was trying to escape, his eyes grew darker.

“I... I can't breathe.”

My face flushed as I pushed at his chest. The moment his grip loosened, I slipped beneath his arm.

Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, I stumbled out of the study.

I ran into my bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it at once.

Leaning against it, I pressed a hand over my racing heart and gasped for breath.

I was doomed.

The realization filled me with despair.

Sebastian hadn't scared me away.

My body and soul were crying out for him.

...

Night fell.

I lay tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw Sebastian's face in the study, wild and full of love, and felt the danger radiating from him.

As I lay restless, a faint metallic sound came from outside the door.

Click.

Someone used a spare key to unlock it.

I sat up in alarm.

In the moonlight spilling through the window, I saw his tall figure push the door open and approach the bed.

“Sebastian... what are you doing? Get out!”

He didn't speak.

He came to the bedside, the moon outlining his hard jaw and deep-set eyes.

There was nothing concealed about the danger in him now.

He stared at me, put one knee on the mattress, and leaned over me.

“Why are you running, Sophie?”