After a few moments of lying there, catching our breath, Paolo withdrew and pulled me tightly to his body, wrapping his arms around me.
“Never again,” he whispered.
I remember he’d said the same thing the night before.
“Never again what?” I asked.
“Let you go.”
“I hope not,” I murmured. Not after this. And, if for some reason we ever got separated, I could only pray he’d find me again.
“Wait. You never told me how you knew where I was,” I said.
His eyes went wide, and he hopped from the bed, disappearing into the bathroom.
What the…? “Paolo?”
I heard him clear his throat. “We have our ways,” he called out.
“Paolo, stop hiding and come here. What ways?”
Paolo appeared in the doorway with a white towel wrapped around his waist. The blissful, sated look on his face had evaporated. Now he just looked downright uncomfortable.
“Holy shit, Paolo,” I sat up, “you guys didn’t put some microchip in my head, did you?”
He scratched his forehead and came to sit beside me. “No.”
“Then what? And why do I feel like I’m not going to like this.”
“Because you won’t,” he said. “But remember, we did it for your own good. And it did save you.”
I pulled the sheet up over my body and crossed my arms. “Tell me.”
He sighed. “Hand me my phone.”
I did, and he began tapping the surface. Then he showed me the screen.
“What the hell?” I said. It was a page from my notebook. “You guys copied my diary?”
My mind began to race with all of the crazy, stupid, and personal—yes, personal!—things I’d written in there.
I grabbed the phone and flipped through the screens. There were hundreds and hundreds of pages. My dreams of Paolo, my self-deprecating thoughts, and lots and lot of…just me, pining for Paolo.
“How embarrassing.” I looked at him. “Both you and my father read this?”
He nodded.
“My most private thoughts.” I’m going to kill them. “But how did you make copies?”
“We didn’t,” he replied. “The notebook is,” he cleared his throat, “not really a notebook. It’s made from a special material that only looks like paper. Everything you write goes through a small, nearly undetectable transmitter that can’t be tracked.”
I wanted to punch him but was too mortified.
“Your father,” he continued, “though I disagreed, thought it was the only way to really know what was going on in your life, who you were hanging out with.” He smiled stiffly. “I’m sure he meant well.”
I dropped my head. I couldn’t believe it. I’d written down my very explicit dreams. Every detail. And come to think of it, that one morning when Paolo had arrived to take me to school, he’d been incredibly flustered.
“Wait. When you disappeared earlier this year, was it because of this?” I asked. Because I wouldn’t blame him. I must’ve sounded like a depraved slut.
“Your father was not happy when he saw what you wrote,” Paolo said. “Then you wished I’d go away because I was ruining your life, and he was more than happy to oblige. I was more than happy to get the hell out of there before you got me into trouble.”
“So that’s why you left?” I asked.
He nodded. “You have no idea how hard it was to keep my hands off you, Dakota. Especially after you wrote about us in the shower. I wanted you the moment I saw you, but after that, you made it fucking impossible. I haven’t been able to take my mind off you since.”
That makes two of us.
“I think,” he added, “the fact you told you’re mother about me—that you didn’t know me—saved my ass. I wouldn’t have lasted another day if she hadn’t found out your father lied to her.”
Lied? “About what?”
“That was her rule. She understands why he does what he does. I think she loves him for it. But her one condition was to keep you and her completely insulated. No bodyguards. No spying on you guys. She insisted you have a normal life.”
That explained my mother’s bizarre behavior once I told her the truth about Santiago.
“I can’t believe this.” I paused to digest for a moment. “But if she didn’t know who you were right away, then why did she act like she knew you the day I got run over?”
“I lied to her.” He flashed a guilty grin. “I told her you and I had been secretly dating for almost a year, but that you were afraid to tell her. She was extremely upset at you for not trusting her.”
No wonder she never brought up anything about him. And no wonder she acted so pissed at the hospital that day. “Paolo! How could you?”
“I did what I had to.”
“And when you came back to watch over me at college?” I asked, because by then she already knew who he was.
“I think she realized she couldn’t protect you anymore. She asked your father to bring me back. Of course, he knew you were still…into me,” he coughed.