“Why have I heard so little about this? It seems as though if there were a real scandal here it would be covered in the news even now.”
“Yes, and it would be, if anyone knew the full story.”
“Are you sure you want to tell the whole story to me?”
She had to give him a chance to change his mind. A chance to leave it unspoken. To leave her in the dark. But she wanted to push him to tell her, too, because this might be the scandal he’d mentioned. The one she needed to stop the Chatsfields.
Did you ever stop to think who else it could ruin?
No. And she couldn’t. This was for Isabelle.
His dark eyes leveled with hers. “I am going to tell you the story. What you do with it after is up to you. You want the scandal, and this is the scandal I can give you.”
“The scandal I’m after?” she asked, her throat dry.
“Somehow I doubt it. But does it matter? You’re a journalist. And this is the better story. This is the thing you need.”
Her throat tightened, her stomach cramping uncomfortably. “Is it about James Chatsfield?”
“No, it is not. The only villain in this story is me. Or perhaps Damien, should you wish to cast him as such. But I don’t blame you if you do not wish to speak ill of the dead.”
Dimly she thought she should turn on her digital recorder, but she didn’t want to interrupt him for anything. Didn’t want him to become conscious of her recording his words. It was okay, though, because she wouldn’t forget them. No matter what she did with his words after this, she would not forget them.
“I’m listening.”
“When you live a lifestyle such as mine you attract a certain sort of person. And it must be acknowledged that I was one of them. I was not above any of those I brought to the family palace. I was a part of them. I was the chief of sinners, in no way above any of their actions, and often leading them. These were the people I brought home. And my sister, who had been my closest friend growing up, was confused as to why I preferred these people over her now. Damien was my partner in crime. The drinking, the womanizing, he was there for all of it. I knew what manner of man he was, and yet, I introduced him to Jasmine.”
Again she wanted to say something, wanted to interrupt and offer comfort in some way. Wanted to stop the flow of words from coming out of his mouth, so he wouldn’t expose himself in this way. So he wouldn’t reveal his secrets to her. Because she wasn’t certain she was equal to them, wasn’t certain she was worthy of them.
She had no armor in this moment, adrift in a sea, rather than clinging doggedly to the pier and trying to appear as though she was secure.
“She was taken with Damien from the first, but I assumed, in my arrogance, that Damien knew better than to touch her. Still, when I noticed my sister’s fascination with him I warned her away. I was not kind. I told her that silly virgins should never even speak to men like that. She asked if that meant she should not speak to me. Of course I said that was different. But I started to wonder if it was. I started to wonder why I was content to be the sort of person I would not allow my sister to associate with. But it was too late.”
He continued. “One day I walked into my chambers to find Damien with Jasmine. He had clearly given her alcohol, and possibly another substance, and she was impaired. Laughing, and hanging all over him. And then Damien, my friend, looked at me and told me that she was no longer a silly virgin and asked if it was okay now for her to associate with him.” Zayn clenched his jaw, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “I was enraged, Sophie. Were there a weapon in my hand I think I might have destroyed Damien there and then. I told them to go. I told him to get out of my sight, to leave my home and never come back. And Jasmine, in love with him as she was, clung to him and told me she was going with him. And I told her I did not want to see her again. I told her...that she had brought shame onto our family and that she was dead to me. I said...I said terrible things to her.”
He pushed his hands through his hair, and lowered his head. “So she left with him. And only an hour later we received word they were in a terrible accident, and that none involved had survived. So you see the reason there was no scandal. No hint of what went on between us. How could there be? It would endanger public opinion of me if word were to get out how I spoke to her at the end. Of course, I never imagined he would drive, not in the state he was in. But I should’ve known. Because the most disturbing thing about my confrontation with Damien was that it was like looking into a mirror. It was realizing that had the roles been reversed, had he invited me into his home, had his innocent sister showed interest in me, I cannot guarantee I would not have done the same thing he’d done. He didn’t love Jasmine. And yet he took her, took her from the palace, took her from this world. And I do not believe I would have done any better. I do not believe I would have acted any more honorably. It destroyed me to lose her. It destroyed me that I introduced her to the man who led her down that path, that I drove her away from the palace and into his car with him. And that was when I knew I had to change.”
She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. “That’s why you believe so strongly in duty. That’s why you’re marrying Christine.”
“I trust nothing in myself, which is why I don’t depend on what I feel. I simply must do what’s right. It’s the only thing that matters. It’s the only thing that can matter.”
“Zayn, surely you have to know that it wasn’t your fault. Not really.”
“Do you remember what I told you about consequences? I had never in my life faced a consequence before that moment. Before my angry words, before my own selfishness, my own desire to deny my behavior for my sister. Killed her. There was no amount of money, no amount of power, that could bring her back. In that moment I was simply a man, and nothing I had would fix the devastation that I had wrought. It was my consequence. One I could not pay off. One I could not ignore. And I will not turn from it now. A man is meant to learn from his mistakes, to learn from the ramifications of his actions. I’d avoided that for years. Until the moment I could not avoid it anymore. So I bear it now, so I let it change me. Because if not, then her death truly is in vain. That cannot be.”
He stood, stooped beneath the roof of the tent, a strange kind of desolation in his dark eyes. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I am going out to check the SUV. And to get a look at the roads. I will return.”
He pushed open the flap on the tent and went out into the downpour, leaving her sitting there, shell-shocked and alone.
And then she realized, this was the end of the story. Or rather the end as it had happened so far. Ultimately, it would end with the wedding, the wedding to Christine. A wedding that was taking place as part of Zayn’s quest for atonement. The story of the nation, the story of the monarchy and the story of Zayn. He had told her to try and make her understand why he felt he’d fallen short, why he must go on to do his duty for his people.
And she ached for him, for the pain he had been through when he lost his sister. But she could not blame him. She could not blame him because she had spent her life refusing to accept what she had been given. Refusing to allow the decisions of other people to shape who she was. Jasmine had made a decision, one that might have been different with the benefit of age, but a decision all the same.