Didn't You Promise (A Bad for You Novel) Read Online Free Page B

Haithem.
    I wasn’t sure what to say. If I waved my arm I could probably see the tension between Haithem and Avner wobble like jelly. “Um, thank you?”
    Haithem took the watch from the box and buckled it to my wrist, then squeezed my hand in both of his. “As long as you wear this, no matter what happens, I’ll be with you.”
    My scalp itched again. This time not because of the wig. I scanned his face. The groove between his brows.
    Avner moved next to Haithem and tapped on a keyboard. An aerial view of the area appeared with a flashing red dot over the building we stood in.
    “We can pinpoint your location to the centimeter. If you and Haithem become separated, or—” he glanced at Haithem “—we can find you within seconds anywhere in the world.”
    I stared at the screen. The dot seemed to throb with the same beat as in my chest. In any normal circumstances, my boyfriend gifting me a tracking device would fall under automatic grounds for breakup with a side of restraining order.
    But he and I had never been normal. Something like this might just end up saving my life.
    “Then I’ll make sure it never comes off.”
    “Oh it won’t,” Avner said. “Now it’s on it can only be unlocked remotely.”
    I turned my wrist over in Haithem’s grasp. The clasp of the watch rested like a small bullet on my skin, thicker than on any watch I’d seen before. My stomach sank. “Haithem?”
    His grip loosened around my hand. “Remember the telephone number I had you remember, and you asked me what it was for?”
    “Yes?”
    “It was for this.” He stroked my wrist above the watch. “I swore you’d always have the choice—you will—you do.”
    My fingers unclenched.
    “Just dial that number and this unlocks. The choice is yours. No one can remove it but you or me.”
    I stared at the watch. No one could remove this. No one could steal this. No one could take this away. He’d have to be the one to take the watch off me, to let me go. I’d wipe that number from my mind before using it.
    “And I won’t,” I said.
    He didn’t smile but his forehead evened. “There’s one more thing.”
    “Does it come with steak knives?”
    “Better.” His lips curved. “Just press here.” He placed my finger over the crown of the watch and pushed in. “Hold for five full seconds.”
    I held the crown in, squeezing against resistance. A sharp ringtone sounded from Haithem’s pocket.
    “And if I don’t respond in three rings...”
    An alarm went off on a computer beside Avner, squealing through the room. Avner hit a button on the keyboard cutting of the sound.
    I let go of the watch.
    “No matter what happens, no matter where you are, you press this and I’ll be there for you.”
    My throat closed.
    He searched my face.
    The only thing crazier than the fact that I actually needed a panic button strapped to my wrist was how freaking much it meant to me that he’d given me one. That he’d given me security right when I felt like a fish swimming against the current. As though he knew I needed something to touch, something I could lay my palm on and know everything would be okay.
    “Thank you,” I said, and touched the clasp that only we could open. “This is incredible.”
    “It should be, Haithem designed it.”
    My gaze snapped from Avner to Haithem. I’d realized of course, this wasn’t the kind of watch you could pick up at your local jeweler. But Haithem had designed something like this?
    I’d seen him tap away at his laptop, writing codes I didn’t understand, using programs I’d never seen. I knew he was smart . Knew he’d invented more than that one device that had us running around the world in secret. Yet when staring at a man whose appearance insisted he was an anti-nerd, you could be forgiven for forgetting he was an actual genius.
    “You designed this for me?”
    Haithem cleared his throat. “I needed to know you could always reach me.”
    I studied his lips, they’d gone soft.
    There were