He hung up the phone, trying to sort through the implications of what Fairfax had just let slip. There was a tape. It pertained to him. Sophie had made a deal so she could destroy it, and that was why she had told him about Leila.
Heart pounding, he stood and was walking out of his study before he even realized what he was doing.
She had not betrayed him. Sophie had not betrayed him. He had known it, deep in his soul he had known it.
But he had sent her away. In a rage. He had said he would not see her again, and with Jasmine, those words had been prophetic.
Terror, anger, pain, gripped his stomach. Echoes from the past tearing through him.
He had to go to her now.
Because he had already lost one person he loved with nothing but venom hanging between them when she’d breathed her last.
He would be damned if that happened again.
* * *
She hadn’t thought to bargain for her job. Oh, well, you couldn’t have everything. Sophie ran across the street, and made it onto the last block that she had to walk to get to her apartment, her arms aching from holding the box that contained all of her possessions. Well, not all of her possessions, just all of the possessions that had been in her desk—her shared desk—at the Herald.
Colin was playing hardball. Which, he said, a person like her should appreciate. Too bad she wasn’t the kind of person he thought she was. Too bad she was just heartbroken.
She imagined that wedding coverage would start soon. She needed to find a very fluffy blanket to hide under until it all passed. She imagined not even a fluffy blanket would be able to insulate her from that kind of pain. But she couldn’t watch Zayn pledge himself to another woman.
Christine would fall in love with him, that was a certainty. Because how could she not?
“But I loved him first.” She said the words angrily, defiantly, as she continued to walk down the street.
She was the one who had known he wasn’t just stone. She was the one who knew he was flesh and blood. A beating heart.
There was someone standing in front of her building, a tall man, dressed in a suit. She slowed her walk, her eyes pinned to him. His posture was familiar, the way he stood was familiar, everything about him was familiar. But that was impossible. It couldn’t be him. He wouldn’t be here.
He lifted his head, and his eyes locked with hers, and even at this distance, she knew. She stopped, and the box slipped from her fingertips, falling to the sidewalk. A little ladybug planter that had been inside popped out the top of the box and landed on its back on the cement. She looked at it for a moment, but only a moment. Then her eyes went back to the man who was now walking toward her.
“Zayn?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I thought you said we were never going to speak again.” He had said they wouldn’t see each other. He had said they wouldn’t speak. Oh, how she had needed him to keep that promise. Because she couldn’t look at him again, not without having her heart torn to pieces. And it had already been torn to pieces, barely smashed back together on the flight home, just in the interest of keeping her breathing, and now he was going to destroy it again.
“That was before I realized I had unanswered questions. And I will do what I must to have them all answered.”
“I don’t think I can answer all of your questions.”
“You’re going to. I’m going to start now. Who is Isabelle Harrington to you? Why did you need this scandal for her? What was so important that you came from New York to Surhaadi on the promise of a stranger?”
There was no harm in saying so now. Or maybe there was. Or maybe there had never been. She couldn’t tell anymore. All she knew was that she was tired, tired of dishonesty. Tired of the dull pain in her chest. Tired of how unfair life was.
“Isabelle was the only person who made friends with me when I went to college. She didn’t mind that I was younger, she didn’t mind that I had come from nothing, that my family name wasn’t important. She got me my job at the Herald—I lost that today, by the way—and she needed me.”