Another Shot at Forever, page 14
It would’ve been fine if she was alone in noticing how he was acting. Sadly, she’d had to endure several guests coming up to her and asking whether Ara was feeling all right.
She told them all the same made-up story, that he was feeling a little under the weather and that was why he appeared sullen. Since no one caught her on the barefaced lie, Zaynab assumed that Ara hadn’t revealed it to be so. Unfortunately for him she couldn’t find it in her heart to be thankful to him for not outing her deception as she wouldn’t have been placed in that awkward position in the first place had he not forced her hand.
And had he not made her fight back from biting his head off multiple times during the party.
Managing to hold her frazzled emotions together until they were in the privacy of his vehicle was the hardest thing Zaynab had done in a long while. It was almost as difficult for her as when she’d gone to ask him for a divorce at his sister’s engagement party.
Sometimes she’d questioned whether she should have gone in person all those months ago. If she had just called him to ask for the divorce instead, then they wouldn’t have ever ended up in her hotel room...
And I wouldn’t be pregnant.
She would never regret having their baby now, but then it wouldn’t have led Ara to talking her into living together, and by that logic they wouldn’t be here now, sharing the back seat of the chauffeured car with an oppressive tension settled between them.
Zaynab was just grateful now that her mother had chosen to stay behind and help Salma and her family with the party cleanup. And she was just as relieved when Anisa and Nasser had said that they were going to explore the city after the party and would find their own way home later.
With their houseguests all preoccupied, she and Ara would have the house to themselves to argue if it came to that. And she sensed that it would come to that. Though the luxury car had a privacy screen that would make it impossible for the driver to hear their conversation, Zaynab had hoped to wait until they were home alone together before she broached the subject of how he’d acted at the baby shower. But almost as soon as they were on the road her frustration and anger bubbled to the surface and spilled out.
“You humiliated me,” she said, refusing to look at him and staring out her window instead. Not that she was paying any mind to the buildings and streets they passed on their short journey home. She just didn’t want to see anything on his face that might make her stop. This was something Zaynab had to do. She had to let him know how awful he was making her feel lately. It still didn’t make it easier to spit out the bitter words that felt and tasted like gravel in her mouth. “Almost everyone asked me if you weren’t feeling well, and I said ‘yes.’ I lied to them for you.”
Ara’s long drawn-out, deep sigh snapped her head around to him, her anger blistering hot and choking her up.
“They’re my friends and family, and they just hosted a party for us and our baby! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does,” he said calmly but his cool tone only incensed her more. “I appreciate—”
Zaynab scoffed, not caring that she interrupted him. Leaning in closer over the console between them in the back seat, she glared incredulously at him. Because surely he wasn’t trying to argue that he hadn’t been abjectly rude at the party. “Did you, really? Because your actions said otherwise. My God, Ara, you were sulking. Sulking! At our baby shower!” She shook her head, the rage fading as quickly as it surged, heartache and disappointment taking over. “How could you?” she accused him softly.
Then, unable to stare at him a second more without crying, Zaynab looked away, bit her trembling lower lip and fought the tears pinching the corners of her eyes. Sobbing in front of him would only undermine the point she was trying to get him to see; that he was acting terribly, and that if Ara didn’t change back to the kind, sweet, thoughtfully attentive version of himself she’d seen of him, then they might not last the two months left of their six-month arrangement.
That she would have no choice but to continue with their divorce and break their family up.
As she discreetly wiped at a tear that leaked free, Zaynab was glad that Ara had read her body language perfectly and didn’t attempt to reengage her in their unfinished conversation. Because they would still definitely need to talk. She only needed a moment to gain her composure again and iron out the weepiness that gripped her now. Using the rest of the car ride to do just that, Zaynab didn’t speak again until they were walking through the front door of their home.
“Zaynab, I’m... I’m sorry.”
Ara’s apology drifted from behind her as she stormed toward the sitting room. It was spacious enough for her to pace angrily while they hashed this out.
Sensing that he followed her, Zaynab scowled and finally looked at him, her heart racing and her chest heaving.
“What are you apologizing for exactly?”
Ara’s brows slammed down in consternation. “For the way I acted...” he said slowly as though testing the waters with her, and when she didn’t snap his head off, he continued, “If I offended you, your mother and friends in any way, I am sorry for that. It wasn’t my intention.”
“Wasn’t it though?” When he didn’t answer, she gave her head a vigorous shake, an embittered laugh tumbling out. “I don’t know what’s worse—the fact that you’ve been acting so standoffish lately, or the lie.”
“Lie?” he echoed, his eyes growing as hard and cold as hers had to be.
“Yes, your lie. I ask if you’re fine, and you keep telling me that you are, but that’s a lie.”
She tried not to balk when he slid a step closer to her, bearing down as he gritted out, “That’s not a lie.”
“It is!” she retorted.
Taking another step, and then another, and backing her into the coffee table, Ara stopped his advance and glared at her. “Fine. You’re right. I wasn’t the consummate guest of honor. I just...”
“You just didn’t want to be there,” she said, punching her chin up and meeting his glare fearlessly. She wouldn’t be intimidated or guilted into silence.
Not that she believed that was what he was doing. Ara had never made her fear him physically, not once. The only risk he truly posed was to her fragile emotions. To my heart, she thought bitterly. And that was because she loved him.
I do love him.
She wouldn’t have married him if she hadn’t. And even though she’d asked for the divorce, it was to save her heart from shattering any more than it was being around him and knowing that he didn’t and probably wouldn’t ever return her love.
That was why they had to move through this, right now. Zaynab was tired of walking on eggshells and waiting for him to wake up and realize that he was pushing her away. Because he was, and unless he was doing it on purpose, and this was all some calculated ploy to chase her out of his life, Ara was risking her really walking away from him this time and for good.
“I am right, aren’t I?” she said far more quietly. “You didn’t want to be there at the party today. And you... You don’t want to be here with me now, do you?”
When he blew a harsh breath and spun away from her suddenly, Zaynab’s heart gave a lurch. Inhaling sharply, she squeezed her eyes shut at the sight of him retreating, feeling a fresh wave of new tears welling forth. Before the overwhelming sadness warped her voice and made it impossible for her to speak without sobbing, Zaynab sniffled and asked, “Why did you marry me?”
Silence answered her, and so certain that he must have walked away and left her, she blinked open her eyes, chancing the tears that flicked from her lashes and trailed down her cheeks. Only to see that Ara had simply moved a few feet away and was looking at her with this inexplicable fury twisting his handsome face.
It was when he spoke that she understood none of his unconcealed wrath was for her at all, but for himself instead.
“I’m not worth your tears, Zaynab,” he growled, the rumbling of his self-directed anger coming through clearly. “I never will be, and I shouldn’t have married you.”
Zaynab sucked in a whistling breath, her lungs burning and her vision of him blurring with the tears now fully wetting her face.
“So Sharmarke was right when he said you were spying on him,” she said, hating to admit anything that had to do with her father, especially now that she had to accept that, like her parents, she’d failed her marriage.
“He told you that.” Ara unbuttoned his suit jacket and loosened his tie, his expression far more menacing if that were possible. “He shouldn’t have. It was a problem between us, him and me. There was no need for him to involve you.”
“I’m your wife. His daughter. Why wouldn’t it involve me? Maybe he was trying to protect me from being hurt by you.” She lobbed that last part in a fit of pique, annoyed with him in part but also just devastated by their argument.
And Ara took it personally. His scowl was fierce and his eyes dark slits of irritation. “Is that what you think? That his intent was to protect you, and that you needed protection from me. That I would ever want to hurt you, Zaynab?” His big shoulders heaved and then fell, and he didn’t look quite as enraged by the mention of her father when he said, “I... I have hurt you, I know, but it was never with intention. Never part of some plot to inflict pain on you. Never. I swear it.”
Swallowing around the jagged edges of brittle emotions, Zaynab shook her head, exhausted and defeated, and knowing that pretending Sharmarke was ever concerned for her and hadn’t only been working to preserve his own reputation would be a waste of time.
This isn’t about my father and what he’s done wrong.
This was all her and Ara, and the wall of thorns he kept around himself, the feelings and thoughts he kept from her.
Smiling sadly, Zaynab forced herself to look at him as she blinked more tears. “You must have only married me for your cloak-and-dagger mission.”
* * *
Ara couldn’t believe it, but her hurled accusation was swirling in his mind, reverberating loudly as if Zaynab were uttering it over and over again.
And yet as much as it pained him to confess, there was a half-truth in what she believed of him.
“I did think that your father might be less inclined to be suspicious of me if I agreed to his suggestion of an arranged marriage.” Before she could crow with triumph—not that Ara thought for a second that gloating was her aim since she looked generally stricken at his confession—and knowing that he was hurting her made the next words easier to speak in the hope she would take even the slightest comfort in them. “I did not know that Sharmarke meant to give his own daughter away.”
“But you took the opportunity that landed in your lap anyway,” she said bitingly.
She meant that he’d used her to get to her father. Hearing that she still believed that of him pulverized his confidence that she might have learned to trust him since living together again. Why would she? I’ve isolated her again, and in our own home, and I made her feel this way. Made her want to lash out at me.
The fault was entirely his and his alone.
And yet recognizing that, Ara couldn’t give her what she wanted. What he could clearly see would soothe her.
Because even though it would be true if he told her that he loved her, he wasn’t willing to give in to it. Refused to participate and set himself and Zaynab up for any future torment if their love didn’t last. Or if it was killed.
No, he hadn’t changed his mind, and after all of this, Ara was only that much more determined to keep from fully loving her and protect her from loving him.
“You’re right,” he said, unclenching his jaw to force out the hateful words and lying to her, “I saw an opportunity in marrying you, and I took it. I believed it was my only chance to protect the public from your father’s criminal actions.”
“You never loved me.”
“I... No, I never loved you, not like that.” The lie fell from his lips smoothly, but inside he was a writhing mass of agony. Masking it as long as possible, Ara looked away from her and delivered what he hoped was the final blow to his ongoing misery, and what he prayed made Zaynab see the light and run far, far away from him. “We should divorce.”
He expected her to agree.
Maybe not immediately, as the quiet stretched on after he had proposed the suggestion, but eventually Zaynab would see that it was the best possible solution for her. He was a difficult husband. Unloving to her, and cruel for it, and she had always been right in her instinct to leave him.
Ara was bargaining on her still wanting the divorce, but she confused him when she asked quietly, “What did you say?”
“I’ll leave. Give you the divorce, move out, but I only ask that you allow me to help you with whatever you need for the baby.” Their child. Ara had wanted to be there when she gave birth, and had even once, not too long ago, secretly longed to remain by her side and watch their baby grow up with Zaynab.
Now he’d have to settle for visits and updates from her.
He could still be a good father and protect Zaynab and their child from afar.
It wasn’t ideal, but it kept love out of the mix.
“I don’t want a divorce.”
Baffled, Ara didn’t think he heard her correctly, until Zaynab made it clear that he had as her hands cradled her pregnant belly and she said, “I won’t let Button grow up without a father. You owe it to be in their life.”
“And I will be,” he agreed vehemently.
“I know what it’s like being a child of divorce.” Her voice dropped an octave above a whisper, her gaze far-off, no doubt reliving the memories of hardship after Sharmarke abandoned Zaynab and her mother. “It’s not easy. Questioning yourself. Rationalizing that it was somehow your fault even though it couldn’t have been.” She sucked in a shuddery breath, blinked and looked at him far more clearly. More than that, he noticed how she straightened her shoulders back as though preparing herself for battle. But since they were alone, her only opponent could be him.
“That’s why I don’t want a divorce anymore. We have to do better for our baby. Better than my father did for me.”
“Zaynab, I—”
“No, Ara, listen to me. I want this. Need it. If you can’t...” She broke off, and he knew he’d never hear what she might have said because she moved on with only the softest of hitches in her breathing, “If we can’t make our marriage work in any traditional sense, I’m open to stay together for our baby. For Button. Please...”
Her plea broke him.
He had barely nodded when Zaynab moved toward him. Ara watched her until she was standing before him, her warmth pulling at him, and the temptation to lean into her nearly overcoming his higher reasoning.
But he also couldn’t stand there any longer and withstand her dark eyes on him, her cheeks still wet from crying, and her sweet perfume infiltrating his staunch barriers.
“What are you...”
And before he could say more, she pushed her face up and pressed her lips to his. Shocked, Ara stood frozen as she kissed him. The salt of her tears mingled with the kiss, at both sweet and bitter. Though his surprise didn’t last long, she didn’t give him time to react, take her in his arms and return the kiss.
It was only after she pulled away that he realized why she’d done it.
“There. I think that’s intimate enough to break the iddah and undo our divorce,” she said, breaking his heart as she let him go. Zaynab walked around him then. And though technically he could hear her footfalls padding away, somehow Ara felt far lonelier than he had when she’d first left him in that big house of theirs in Berbera all alone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ZAYNAB HAD ALWAYS thought leaving Ara would be hard, but now she knew that staying with him after learning that he didn’t love her was going to be far tougher of a challenge for her.
I have to though.
For their baby’s sake, she had to stay. The last thing she would wish on her own child was a distant, if not fractured relationship with their father. And despite how hollow and bereft she felt being with Ara right then, Zaynab never doubted he would be a good father. He’d keenly cared for their child from the moment she’d told him she was pregnant. He’d moved to London when she hadn’t wanted to uproot her life, and he had even gifted her a lovely home as not only a dowry but to raise their child in.
It must have been why she’d thought he had a change of heart where their relationship was concerned.
I thought he cared.
More than that, Zaynab had really felt that he loved her. Clearly though she had deluded herself into seeing signs that weren’t there.
And now since she had decided to remain married to him, she’d have to learn to be stonyhearted like him. Even the thought daunted her. But if it meant that Ara was more comfortable with the idea of staying married to her and not loving each other in the traditional sense, then Zaynab had to make it work somehow and some way.
It didn’t help that her decision to end their divorce talk happened only about a couple days ago.
Two days in and she was already beginning to waver in her resolve and question her ability to maintain this cold front with him. It was downright exhausting to tiptoe around him, but she’d managed it. She had asked him to stop giving her rides to and from work, not wanting to be confined in the car with him if not necessary. And though they still had meals together, Zaynab no longer exerted herself in getting him to open up to her, not even when the silence that accompanied their meals only made her nervous enough to deal with indigestion all night long.
