Just thinking about it brought him out in a cold sweat. Usually he was great with women—even-tempered, patient, considerate. Just then he’d been...he’d been... Well, he hadn’t handled himself at all well. He could admit that.
It had been the confident expression on Amir’s face and his snide, ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to make her happy,’ as he’d walked past him that had done it.
Zach hated to admit it, but he’d got the better of him, because it had struck too close to the bone. And the whole time afterwards he’d been wondering what Farah had told him. What she had revealed to make the soldier so sure of himself.
I hate you.
‘Great going, Darkhan. Maybe you can develop an app that will show men how to get their wives on side.’
Not.
He stopped pacing when he reached the back of the stable and clasped his hands over his head, trying to reassemble his thoughts. One of the junior staff members caught sight of him and quickly scurried for cover.
First, he listed mentally, you might hate the guy but you can’t dictate who she does and doesn’t see. You know that.
Second, you need to pull back. Get some perspective on how this marriage is going to work.
And third... Third, he just needed to apologise to her for being such an idiot.
Feeling that his emotions were on simmer instead of a rapid boil, he took a deep breath and went in search of her.
When he found her in their living room reading a work file, it pulled him up short. Nice to know their argument hadn’t interrupted her focus.
Glancing up as he approached, her eyes turned wary. He stopped and took a deep breath. ‘I was wrong to yell at you. I’m sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she dismissed politely.
‘Of course it matters,’ he said just as politely.
‘Look, Zach...’ She hesitated. ‘Things haven’t really been the same since we returned from Ibiza and if we’re honest—’ she took a breath ‘—which I like to think that we always have been with each other, then I can’t see things getting any better between us.’ She looked up at him then. ‘Can you?’
Zach nodded as if he agreed but really he was thinking that he’d been right to assume that she wanted out of the marriage. She did but she was hardly being honest about it.
‘The truth is,’ she continued, ‘we’re both victims in this situation.’
Victims? ‘You’re only a victim if you think you’re a victim,’ he bit out tautly. ‘And I am no victim.’
‘Well, that’s easy for you to say. You’re a man and a prince.’
‘I don’t care what I am.’
‘Fine.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I was only trying to make this easier.’
Zach paced across the room to put some distance between them. ‘You were trying to say that now that I won’t prosecute your father there’s no reason for us to stay married. How’s that for honesty?’
She flashed him a pained look. ‘That’s not the only reason but with the past laid to rest it certainly means that there’s nothing holding us together any more.’
Nothing. There was that word again.
Zach looked at her and saw her eyes shiny with tears. Or was it defiance? Because she had done nothing but defy him all along and he...he’d been arrogant enough to assume that she would eventually fall for him as almost every other woman had. That he could make this marriage work from sheer will alone.
The truth was he hadn’t wanted to disappoint his mother, who had suffered so many disappointments in her life, and he hadn’t wanted to disappoint himself. But when you broke it down, he’d enjoyed the sex—a little too much in retrospect—and he’d done what a lot of women he’d been with had done with him: he’d mistaken lust for love.
‘Zach?’
Talk about feeling like a chump.
He turned back to her. ‘That’s fine,’ he heard himself saying as if he were an actor on set. ‘I can see you’ve thought this through and, really, I’ve been so busy I haven’t. But you’re right. We have nothing holding us together.’
* * *
Shaken by Zach’s ready acceptance of everything she’d said, Farah got up and restlessly moved around the room. She noticed that the orchid bloom, the gift from his mother, had fallen from its stem and laid on the table. Carefully she picked it up and cradled it in her palm, gently stroking the dying petals. She couldn’t help but think it was an omen, as if fate was directing her.