Page 4 of The Beast’s Hidden Rose (Obsessed #8)

four

. . .

Guy

I knew it would happen. Part of me wanted it to happen.

That's why I left the door unlocked during the storm—a test, a trap, an invitation.

Still, seeing her here in my sanctuary, surrounded by the evidence of my obsession, hits me like a physical blow.

She's holding one of the explicit paintings, the one where she's on her knees, looking up with an expression of perfect surrender.

Her real face shows shock, fear, confusion—but not disgust. Not yet.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" The words scrape out of me, rougher than intended. I haven't spoken directly to another person in weeks. Haven't spoken to her ever, despite rehearsing conversations in my head a thousand times.

She looks up at me, eyes wide, lips parted.

Fight or flight visibly warring inside her.

The storm rages outside, mirroring the chaos in my chest. For three years I've kept her at a distance, watching, wanting, waiting.

Now she's here, in the heart of my obsession, all my secrets laid bare between us.

I should be furious. Should berate her for trespassing, fire her, send her away. That would be the sane response. But sanity abandoned me the moment I first saw her at that farmers market three years ago.

"I asked you a question," I say, stepping further into the room, letting the door close behind me. Trapping her. Trapping us both.

"The door was open," she says, and her voice—God, her actual voice addressed to me—sends electricity down my spine. "I thought—with the storm—I thought something might be wrong."

A reasonable explanation. A lie wrapped in concern. I don't care. All that matters is that the moment I've both dreaded and craved has arrived. No more pretense. No more distance.

"And now you know," I tell her, acknowledging everything without apology.

"Now I know," she echoes, clutching the canvas like a shield.

She's afraid—I can see it in the rapid pulse at her throat, the tension in her shoulders. But there's something else too. Curiosity. Maybe even fascination. She hasn't run screaming. Hasn't called the police. She's still here, waiting for... what? Explanation? Confession? Absolution?

I move closer, watching her body tense in response.

The power dynamic between us has never been more obvious—her small frame on the floor surrounded by my obsession, my much larger body blocking the only exit.

I'm aware of how this looks, how I look.

The scarred beast cornering the beauty in his lair.

"You should be terrified," I say, the honesty surprising even me. "You should be running."

She swallows hard but meets my gaze. "Maybe I should be. But I want to understand." She gestures at the canvases surrounding her. "All of this... these are me. From before. Before I came here."

"Yes." No point denying what's obvious.

"How long?" she asks. "How long have you been... watching me?"

I move to a workbench, putting some distance between us, giving her space to breathe. My hands fidget with a brush, needing occupation.

"Three years, two months, fourteen days." The precision of my answer makes her eyes widen. "Since the farmers market downtown. You were buying sunflowers."

Recognition flashes across her face. "I remember that day. The vendor gave me a discount because his son had just graduated from college and he was feeling generous."

I nod, surprised she recalls such a small detail. "You wore a white dress with tiny blue flowers. Your hair was shorter then."

Her hand rises unconsciously to touch her hair, now falling well past her shoulders. "You've been watching me for over three years, painting me, and I never knew?"

"I'm good at not being seen when I don't want to be." The understatement of my life. I've perfected invisibility, turned it into an art form as precise as my painting.

She looks around at the dozens of canvases bearing her image. "But why me? Why... all this?"

The question I've asked myself a thousand times, never finding an adequate answer. "I don't know," I admit. "I saw you, and something... clicked. Like recognition. Like I'd been waiting for you without knowing I was waiting."

It sounds insane, spoken aloud. But no more insane than the reality—that I've built my life around glimpses of a woman who didn't know I existed.

"So you followed me." Not a question. An accusation, but her voice holds curiosity rather than judgment.

"Observed you," I correct, though the distinction is meaningless. "From a distance. I never approached you. Never interfered with your life."

Until I did. Until I manipulated circumstances to bring her into my home, under my roof, where I could watch her every day instead of just stolen moments each week.

She seems to read my thoughts. "The job. This job. Was that...?"

"Arranged? Yes." My candor surprises her. Good. Let there be truth between us now, however ugly. "I bought the café where you worked. Had it closed for 'renovations.' Made sure Winters put the housekeeper listing somewhere you'd see it."

Her eyes widen at the calculated nature of it all. "You cost me my job so I'd have to find another one? So I'd come here?"

"I made sure you'd find a better one." No remorse in my voice. I'd do it again. "Higher pay. Housing included. References arranged to make sure you'd be hired."

"By you." Her voice has an edge now. "You manipulated my entire life to get me here."

"Yes." No point denying it.

She stands, still holding the explicit painting, looking down at it with new understanding. "And these? The ones where I'm... where we're..."

Heat floods my face, but I refuse to look away. "Fantasy," I admit. "What I imagined. What I wanted."

"What you want," she corrects, and the present tense makes my throat dry.

"Yes." One word, heavy with confession.

She puts the painting down carefully, then approaches the wall where most of the portraits hang. Her fingers hover near but don't quite touch a rendering of her laughing, head thrown back, sunlight catching in her hair.

"These are... beautiful," she says quietly. "Disturbing, but beautiful. You've made me more than I am."

"No," I say sharply, moving toward her without conscious decision. "I've shown you exactly as you are. You just don't see yourself clearly."

She turns to face me, and we're close now, closer than we've ever been. I could reach out and touch her. The temptation burns in my fingertips.

"This is madness," she whispers. "You know that, right? This isn't how normal people behave."

A laugh escapes me, harsh and unexpected. "I'm well aware I left 'normal' behind a long time ago."

"Why didn't you just... talk to me? Ask me out, like a regular person?"

The question is so simple, so reasonable, that it momentarily silences me. Why didn't I? The answer, when it comes, is shamefully honest.

"I was afraid," I admit. "Not of rejection. Of acceptance."

She frowns, not understanding.

"If you said yes, then you'd see me. Really see me. Not just these," I gesture to the scars on my face, "but what's beneath them. What's broken inside me. And then you'd leave anyway, eventually. Better to keep you at a distance. Keep you... pure. Untainted by me."

"So you watched from afar. Created this... shrine." She gestures around the studio. "Brought me into your home under false pretenses. And then what? What was the plan?"

"There was no plan." The truth burns as it comes out. "Just... having you here. Seeing you every day. It was enough. It had to be enough."

She shakes her head slowly. "How can you claim to... care for me when you don't even know me? The real me, not this version you've created on canvas."

The words cut deeper than they should. "I know more than you think," I say, moving to a cabinet and pulling out a sketchbook.

I hand it to her, watch her flip through pages of observations.

"You take your tea with honey but no milk.

You hum when you're concentrating. Always the same tune, though I don't recognize it.

You're kind to spiders—you catch them in cups and release them outside rather than killing them.

You touch the spines of books before opening them, like you're greeting an old friend. "

She looks up from the sketchbook, something shifting in her expression. "Those are observations. Details. Not knowing."

"Then tell me what I don't know," I challenge, stepping closer still. "Tell me who Iris Moreno really is."

Her eyes search mine, looking for something—sincerity, perhaps. Or madness. "Why should I? Why should I give you anything after... this?" She gestures at the paintings again.

"Because I've shown you everything," I say simply. "Every dark, twisted part of me is on these walls. No more secrets. No more hiding." I take another step, close enough now that I can smell her shampoo, see the small pulse jumping in her throat. "Your turn."

She doesn't back away. Something has changed in her stance, in her eyes. The fear is still there, but it's tempered with... curiosity? Challenge?

"I should leave," she says. "Pack my things tonight and go."

"You should," I agree, though the thought tears at something vital inside me. "It would be the sensible thing to do."

"But you don't want me to." Not a question.

"No." I reach out, not quite touching her but letting my hand hover near her face. "I want you to stay. I want you to see all of me, and decide anyway."

"Decide what?" Her voice has dropped to a whisper.

"If I'm a monster you should run from, or something else."

She's silent for a long moment, studying my face, my eyes, the scar that twists down my cheek. Then, slowly, deliberately, she raises her hand to meet mine, our fingers not quite touching in the charged space between us.

"You've been watching me for years," she says, and there's a new quality to her voice—something contemplative, testing. "Making assumptions. Creating versions of me on canvas. But you don't really know what I want."

The statement hangs between us, a challenge and an invitation. My heart hammers against my ribs with painful force.

"Tell me," I say, voice rough with need. "Tell me what you want, Iris."

Her eyes never leave mine, dark and unreadable.

"Maybe I don't know either. Maybe that's why I'm still standing here instead of running.

" She takes a deep breath. "But I know I've never felt seen the way I do when I look at these paintings.

Like you've been looking at parts of me no one else bothered to notice. "

My breath catches. Of all the responses I imagined to this moment—fear, disgust, flight—this wasn't among them. This quiet consideration, this weighing of madness against connection.

"I should be terrified of you," she continues. "You've upended my life, manipulated my circumstances, invaded my privacy in ways that are..." she shakes her head, "...completely beyond normal boundaries."

"I have," I acknowledge. No excuses.

"And yet." She laughs softly, incredulously. "I'm still here. Trying to understand why this doesn't feel as wrong as it should."

Hope flares in my chest, dangerous and unwelcome. I crush it down. "Don't mistake fascination for acceptance, Iris. Don't confuse shock with forgiveness."

"I'm not a child," she says sharply. "I know what I'm feeling, even if I don't understand it yet."

We stand there, suspended in the moment, surrounded by images of her created through years of obsessive devotion. The storm continues to rage outside, but within the studio, a different kind of tempest builds between us.

"If I asked you to stop," she says finally, "to destroy these paintings, to never paint me again without permission—would you?"

The question cuts to the heart of everything. Would I? Could I?

"I would try," I answer honestly. "But making art—making you—it's like breathing to me now. I don't know if I can stop."

She nods slowly, as if my answer confirms something. "At least you're honest about it."

"I won't lie to you, Iris. Not now. Not ever again." The promise comes easily, urgently. "No more manipulation. No more secrets. If you stay, it's with eyes open."

"If," she repeats, and the word carries the weight of possibility.

I don't dare speak, don't dare move. The moment feels balanced on a knife's edge, her decision carrying the power to save or destroy me.

"I need time," she says finally. "To think. To process... all of this." She gestures around the studio.

It's more than I dared hope for—not an immediate rejection, not a panicked flight. Just... consideration. A pause rather than an ending.

"Whatever you need," I tell her, meaning it completely.

She nods once, then starts toward the door, navigating around me with careful distance. I let her pass, fighting every instinct that screams to stop her, to convince her, to make her understand.

At the threshold, she pauses, looking back at me over her shoulder. "Guy," she says, the first time my name has passed her lips, and the sound of it sends electricity through me. "Those paintings—the explicit ones. I'm curious..."

I wait, hardly daring to breathe.

"Are they just fantasy? Or prophecy?"

The question lands like a live wire against my skin, shocking and dangerous. My entire body tenses as I stare at her like a man starved. She turns and leaves the room before I can formulate a response.