Our eyes stay locked, but he reveals nothing.
Other than regrets, concern, and something else that consumes him, there is nothing I can read in his gaze.
“No one could anticipate that. Am I wrong?” I say.
Nodding, he admits I’m right. Or so I think.
“Why did he pick me?” I murmur to keep our discussion going.
Frankly, I’m not that interested in an answer.
People like Sloane follow their grossest instincts.
They refuse to reason and just jump your bones as if you belong to them.
All those disgusting lewd stares and creepy attempts to get me talking as if he was interested in what I had to say.
So disgusting.
“I don’t know,” he says, averting his eyes.
He sounds like he has a suspicion about why Ted Sloane has set his eyes on me, which snags my attention. But it’s not compelling enough to insist on finding out what he believes about the matter.
Maybe he wants to protect me.
“He won’t touch you anymore. That much I can say. He won’t even be with you in the same room from this point on. This shouldn’t have happened. You were lucky…”
He pauses before bringing his eyes to me.
“Alejandro wandered around because he couldn’t sleep. He knocked on Francisco’s door. That’s when he spotted Sloane. I made the connection when Francisco showed up at my door.”
It’s futile to deny Francisco was in my room.
“Sloane had spent a lot of time waiting for Francisco to get out,” I say. “He also saw you and Alejandro leaving. What happened wasn’t an accident. He had a plan, although I don’t know what he wanted to accomplish.”
“I don’t know either,” he says.
He thinks about it for a moment.
“When did Francisco come?”
“After midnight.”
He goes silent.
I’m sure he knows Francisco had spent a couple of hours in my room.
He rolls onto his back and runs his fingers over his face as if musing or grappling with a headache. Whatever it is, it doesn’t allow me to see his expression.
“What did he want?” he asks eventually.
I stay silent long enough that he removes his hand from his eyes and looks at me.
I’m sure he’s talking about Francisco.
“He wanted out,” I say in a clipped voice.
His eyebrows go up.