“Actually, he’s madly in love with you,” Zayn said quietly.
Julia gulped. “The poor thing. So he posed the whole episode. To break us up?”
“Yes.” It was a grunt. “How can you feel sympathy for that man?”
She dug her hands into the pockets of her linen dress. “Oh, I’m angry with him, too,” she promised Zayn firmly. “But he was a mess back then. He almost got expelled because his behavior was so below what was expected. He wasn’t in his right mind.”
“I suppose that, at least, gives him an excuse.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” she said wistfully. “You saw those photos and immediately started planning how you could retaliate. Do you know what it felt like? To see you parading woman after woman through your life? I was so in love with you, Zayn.”
“And I with you,” he countered forcefully, resisting the strong urge to pull her into his arms. “I loved you, Julia. I should have questioned the email, but I was so devastated, I couldn’t think straight. I thought you’d cheated on me. I just wanted to prove to everyone – you, most of all – that I was over you.”
“You did it. My heart had an open wound and you just kept pouring acid on it.”
He ran a hand through his hair, knowing there was no way to even start apologizing for the way he’d burst back onto the bachelor scene, publicly hoping to wound his innocent and naïve ex.
“I have to tell you something,” he said, inspiration arriving when he needed it most. “Please.”
It was so unlike Zayn to ask, instead of simply demanding, that she pushed aside her reluctance and followed him into his study. She hadn’t been in there since the day she’d discovered the email, and she hesitated on the threshold now.
“Please,” he said again, pinning her with his dark eyes.
She nodded and moved across to his desk. He angled the laptop towards her and she stared at the document on screen. “This is the purchase contract for my father’s business,” she commented numbly, not reading more than the title. She looked up at him. “What is your point, Zayn? To remind me of just what length you were prepared to go to in order to ‘buy’ me?”
“No,” he shook his head. “Julia, look at it. Read the name.”
She lowered her gaze to the screen and this time, forced herself to read the black and white on screen. “You’ve put the business in my name.” She looked at him, confusion apparent. “Why?”
He came around the desk and took her hands in his. “Because, habibte, I knew you would never forgive me if I didn’t.”
She frowned, so that a little crease formed between her brows. “But you think this makes everything okay?”
“Not at all. I just wanted to show you that in marrying you I hoped we would one day remember how much we had once cared. That we had once loved each other.”
“None of this makes any sense,” she said, pulling her hands free and moving away from him. “I don’t understand why you wanted to marry me. I don’t understand, Zayn.”
“I love you, Julia. I always have, and I always will. It was not easy for me to accept, when I thought you’d humiliated me by being with another man. And yet, I knew I loved you despite what I thought of as your betrayal.”
She shook her head. “Why not just tell me? Why not come back and ask me to marry you properly?”
“If you had said no, I think a part of me would have died,” he said with more honesty than he’d ever shown another person before. “I couldn’t risk it.”
“So instead you forced me to marry you? Didn’t you think you were risking far worse? That I might hate you forever?”
“At the time, I thought there was little likelihood of that happening. You were the one who pointed out my arrogant personality, Julia. I believed I could seduce you into submission, if nothing else.”
She smiled despite herself. “But then you couldn’t.” She sobered. “You said you didn’t want to be with a woman who was willing to have sex for money. Or something like that.”
He at least had the decency to look shame-faced. “Would you have ever forgiven me if I’d held you to the terms of our so called marriage ‘agreement’?”
She flushed to the roots of her hair, recalling how disappointed she’d been that night, when he’d put an end to their spectacular love-making. “I think there might have been compensating factors,” she said with her usual candor, earning a slow grin from her husband. “Don’t,” she held up a warning finger. “You are so far from being out of the woods.”
But Zayn sensed her weakening, and he was not above pushing his advantage. Like a beast advancing on his prey, he drew her into his arms and kissed her hard on the lips, tasting her with the sheer relief and desperation of a man who had messed up badly, and knew it.
Julia knew she should pull away, but she wanted nothing more than to be with her husband. Zayn loved her. He always had. It had all been a ridiculous disaster. But still, what precedent was she setting for the rest of their marriage by allowing him to get away with such a simple apology?
Holding grudges had never been her forte, though, and Julia could already feel her resentment slipping further and further away. With every moment their lips and bodies were connected, her anger and hurt diminished.