Page 29 of His To Unravel (His & Hers Duet #1)

NINETEEN

nathaniel

The city lights stretch below me in fractured silence as I sit at my desk, the glow of my screen illuminating the empty space.

Olivia’s phone logs fill the display, each message and movement a piece in the ever-deepening puzzle that she’s become.

At first, her attention was mine, given freely and without hesitation. But now…something has shifted. A subtle deviation that pricks at my every thought, gnawing at the foundations I’ve carefully built.

She thinks she can mask these moments of doubt, the little pauses in her gaze, or the polite deflections whenever I reach for something deeper. She’s skilled—graceful, even—in sidestepping my questions, pivoting conversations back to light, academic matters as though I won’t notice.

But I notice everything.

Scrolling through her cloned messages, I trace her interactions with surgical precision, dissecting each text, each insignificant exchange with friends, searching for any thread that might lead me to the distraction.

She’s started staying at her dorm more often under the guise of needing “quiet space.” And when I suggest joining her there, she demurs with a gentle smile, assuring me it’s just about needing to manage the semester workload.

As if I’m a mere distraction.

I click through her tracking history, retracing her movements over the past week.

Her steps from class to the library, the occasional stop at The Nook alone, moments I wasn’t there to share with her. It grates against me—the thought that she can find solace, even the faintest trace of peace, without my presence to anchor her.

I lean back, closing my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to remember the way she once looked at me: open, her eyes filled with unguarded affection.

She’s been my accomplice, my willing equal in this dynamic we share, each touch between us an unspoken promise. The memory flickers, sharp against the quiet tension I now sense whenever I hold her.

That warmth is fading, slipping away like sand through my fingers, and I’m left with a hollow, gnawing rage at the thought.

Others might dismiss it as a mere fluctuation, a lover’s paranoia.

But not me.

I know her too well, having studied every inflection in her voice, each shift in her gaze. The distance she now builds, brick by cautious brick, is an insult. A betrayal.

My jaw tightens as I read the last few messages she exchanged with Sophie and Carolyn, and I feel the insatiable hunger for control tightening in my chest.

I’ve been patient. I’ve given her freedom, indulged her social ties, her trivial friendships, and yet she still seeks more. A foolish notion, one that has no place in what we’re building together.

I will not lose her to these fleeting whims of self-sufficiency.

She belongs to me . Her time, her thoughts, and her very essence are mine to shape, to protect. Every second she spends beyond my reach, every moment left unmonitored, feels like a challenge, an invitation to tighten my hold.

And I will.

The measures I’ve taken—the surveillance, the precautions—they are all born from devotion. Proof of my loyalty, my love.

My gaze fixes on the last notification, my jaw locking as her tracker’s location pings from her dorm. Once again, she’s chosen to be there tonight, without me .

She’s made a mistake in keeping this distance, one that she will soon come to regret.

A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, my resolve hardening in the cold light of the screen. Whatever shadows of secrets linger between us—I’ll dismantle them, one by one. She will look at me the way she did before.

She will give me that trust again, that yielding obedience, because I will allow no other alternative.

This little rebellion of hers is nothing more than a spark. One that I will extinguish.

Satisfaction curls in my chest as I pull up the newly-activated feed from Olivia’s dorm room. The camera flickers to life, offering me a clear, unobstructed view of her small, personal world—the one place that has remained out of my grasp. Until now.

Securing this access was almost comically easy—a few carefully worded emails to the maintenance department and a quick study of the dorm’s infrastructure.

A simple suggestion that an inspection was overdue, paired with a timely financial incentive slipped to one of the university staff, was all it took to arrange for a “sprinkler inspection.”

I watch the crisp, high-definition view of her room on my screen, the angles perfect, giving me a full sweep of her space. A surge of satisfaction ripples through me.

The footage is empty for now, but I can see traces of her in every corner: a half-open notebook on her desk, a neatly folded blanket at the end of her bed, even the mug she favors resting on her windowsill. Each item feels like a revelation, a fragment of her world that I now have control over.

The surveillance, the tracker, the cloned phone—all of it only confirmed the most routine, ordinary parts of her life. She’s simply been studying late, messaging her friends, gazing out that window in thought, her expressions unreadable.

Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I must be missing something.

I lean closer to the screen, my eyes narrowing as I watch her return to the room.

She moves with the same grace that I know so well, settling into her study routine without a second glance at the world beyond.

She’s beautiful in her simplicity, her focus so intense that I can almost imagine I’m right there beside her.

The way she absentmindedly tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, the slight furrow of her brow when she’s lost in thought—each movement a personal, private show only for me.

Yet even with this view, I feel the gnawing edge of frustration creeping in. This unbroken rhythm of hers, the ease with which she lives a life seemingly independent of me, it’s like a slap in the face.

How can she go on, day after day, without the weight of my influence? Every time I watch her laugh with someone else, or shut her door to me, it feels like a challenge she doesn’t even know she’s issuing.

As I continue watching, a thought settles with an unsettling clarity. She still believes that she can compartmentalize me into one segment of her life while keeping the rest untouched.

How naive. She has yet to understand that I’m not a chapter in her story—I am the binding that holds it all together.

I feel the frustration ebb slightly as I consider my next move.

I lean back, my gaze never leaving the screen, watching as she sighs, rubbing the back of her neck in a way that sends a wave of possessive satisfaction through me.

Her family, her friends, her ambitions—none of it will compete with what I can offer her. And if she doesn’t yet recognize that, I won’t stop until she does.

The library at Halford is dim and hushed, its silence settling heavily like a tangible presence.

I’ve always been fond of its isolation, the way sound is absorbed into the worn carpet and thick bookshelves.

Today, it serves a different purpose—a space where Olivia can’t slip away, where I can finally observe her without interruption.

The private study room feels smaller than usual, with the narrow table between us and the stacks of her neatly organized notes spreading outward like a delicate map of her mind. She sits across from me, her posture slightly more rigid than it was during our previous sessions.

Watching her sit there, surrounded by the chaos of our shared work, I feel the satisfying rightness of my own design. Orchestrating this project pairing had been one of my earliest moves—ensuring her time, her focus, her presence would belong to me.

Transferring into all her classes had been tedious but necessary. But this project… this is the jewel. A perfectly valid reason to demand her time and attention, one she can’t easily avoid.

My hand brushes against hers as I reach over to examine her notes, holding her gaze as I do.

She’s quick to pull her hand back, hiding her discomfort behind a tight-lipped smile.

I let the silence stretch between us, the weight of it pressing down until she looks back, her eyes uneasy but compliant.

“You’ve been distant lately.” My voice is calm, probing, the tone controlled but with an edge I know she’ll catch .

She blinks, surprised, and then quickly masks it, letting out a small, forced laugh. “The semester is just catching up to me,” she replies dismissively.

“If there’s anything else bothering you,” I say, my voice dipping to a softer, darker note, “I hope you’ll tell me.”

Her gaze drifts to the side before she forces herself to meet my eyes. “I’m fine, really. Just…family stuff.” Her voice is quieter, and the exhaustion creeps into her tone, betraying what she’s so clearly trying to hide.

Family . The word lodges like a thorn in my mind.

Over the past few days, I’ve seen the stream of messages from her mother—relentless, demanding, piling on task after task as if Olivia were a servant rather than their daughter.

It’s pathetic, really, the way they cling to her.

My blood simmers knowing they are drawing her focus away from where it should be.

On me. On us.

Her eyes flicker with an unspoken thought, a heaviness behind them that she isn’t ready to share.

She’s guarding something, and that deflection only sharpens my focus, pulling my attention like a taut wire that threatens to snap.

She looks down, pretending to refocus on her notes, but I can feel the tension building between us, a chasm she has created.

What else is she hiding? The thought of her retreating even an inch from me is infuriating. I want to close that gap, to pull her back where she belongs.

I force myself to hold back. A direct confrontation would only create more resistance, and I can’t allow that.

No, this will require a more methodical dismantling. If her family is pulling at her… I’ll sever that thread, delicately, before she even realizes it’s missing.

“You know,” I say slowly, letting my words sink in, “you don’t have to carry all those burdens on your own.”

She offers me a small smile, but it lacks its usual warmth. “I know. Thank you,” she replies softly, although it’s obvious that she’s only saying that to placate me.

I lean in. “Olivia, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” The words hold an edge, a promise of something deeper, more binding. “You only need to ask.”

She nods, but I can see that her walls are still up. I clench my jaw against the impulse to push harder.

Not yet. But I will tear down those walls, brick by brick.

Until there’s nothing standing between us.

Back at the penthouse, I stand by the windows, looking out over the Boston skyline, though my mind is miles away.

It’s still trapped in that cramped library room—trapped with the memory of Olivia’s guarded gaze, her tense shoulders, the way she so carefully, so deliberately withheld herself from me.

The image sears through me, igniting a slow, relentless frustration that refuses to burn out.

I can no longer deny it. I crave her submission in a way that’s almost visceral. The thought of her yielding to me, fully and without resistance, stirs something dark and unrelenting beneath my skin.

But another part—a small, infuriatingly vulnerable part—is terrified of her slipping beyond my grasp entirely.

It’s a maddening paradox: I want to possess her completely, yet I fear that my grip might stifle her, drive her away.

But is that fear even justified?

Olivia needs someone to anchor her. She might resist now, but deep down, I know she craves stability—stability only I can provide. She’s seen it in glimpses, experienced it in flashes of our time together, but it’s time for her to accept it fully.

I let out a slow breath, the air thick with the weight of my decision. If she can’t let herself lean into our relationship—into me —then it’s time for a push.

My mind begins to spin, piecing together the possibilities, the ways I can guide her, steer her into a deeper reliance on me. A quiet, potent thrill surges within, imagining her surrendering each part of herself to me.

She will choose me freely, or her will shall be bent until complete surrender is her only remaining option.

The line between gentle persuasion and absolute control is one I’m willing to walk, if only to ensure she remains mine.