I stare out the window once more, wishing more than anything she was here with me, that we were going home together.
My phone buzzes.
It’s a message from Zara.
My heart pounding, I click on it.
Fuck. I drop my head in my hands once more.
ChapterThirty-Six
Zara
“Jesus Christ, Zara.” Eloise sits back on the sofa, her hands to her mouth. “When I suggested you have a holiday fling, I didn’t mean withMyles.”
We’re sitting in her kitchen diner, sun coming through the long windows looking out onto the garden. Spring arrived while I was away, the trees suddenly bright with green, flowers peeping through the garden beds. A time of year when things come back to life. Yet I feel the opposite, my insides cold as winter, a Persephone permanently stuck in the underworld.
“Iknowww,” I wail. I can’t get past the image of Myles in bed, his hands on Katya while she smirked at me.
“And he said he wanted to be with you?”
I nod. I feel like absolute shit. I keep apologising to Eloise for letting her down; she got me the job, after all, and I’ve screwed it up in the worst possible way. She keeps telling me to stop apologising. As soon as she got my call she immediately went into crisis mode, driving to the airport to collect me and bustling me into her home, warm with love and the scent of baking, telling me I was staying with her for the next few days, the guest room was all made up and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
And now I’m telling her everything.
“Was that… before?”
“Before he told me I couldn’t work for him anymore? Or before we had sex? God.” My head drops into my hands. “I’m such an idiot? Whyyyy do I keep doing this to myself?”
“Holy shit, Zars.” Eloise’s hands come to her mouth again, her blue eyes wide. “I still cannot believe you slept with him! I mean, I saw the photos and I know you both so I thought maybe something was happening, but not that!”
“I know,” I mumble, shame hot within me. I won’t be surprised if she never wants to speak to me again.
“How was it?”
“What?El, I can’t?—”
“I’m sorry,” she continues, quickly. “I know this is a shit situation and it all sounds awful, but seriously, Zara. This isMyles. He’s fucking hot.”
I get it. She’s trying to jolt me out of my sorrow. But it’s too deep for that. Still, she’s my best friend. I can’t lie to her. “It was… amazing.” Tears come to my eyes and I blink, looking out at the garden. “Until she showed up.”
“Oh, Zars.” El’s hand comes to mine. There are tears in her eyes as well now. “I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like, when you like someone and you don’t think they like you and?—”
“But your situation worked out!” Eloise met Anwar through a friend and had what she thought was a one-sided crush on him for ages, until a particularly spectacular night at a mutual friend’s wedding. “Anwar was in love with you! And oh my God, there weren’t any photos of you both in the paper, or an irate supermodel involved. And you didn’t lose your job!”
“Right. Okay. Maybe it was a bit different.” Eloise chews on her lip, glancing at me as though I’m a bomb and she’s not sure whether I’m about to explode. “But, have you considered he might have been telling the truth? That he does want to be with you? Why is it so hard to believe?”
“What?” I frown at her. “No. It was probably just some sick game, and I’m the fool who got caught up in it. I was just someone to be with until Katya came back into his life.” I rub my face with my hands. “What was I even thinking? He acted like he could barely stand me most of the time. I’ve been an idiot. If I hadn’t resigned, he would probably have fired me anyway.”
“So you’ve definitely resigned?”
“Yes. I put it in writing. I can’t go back into that office. I’m really sorry, El. I know I screwed up.”
“Oh pssh, stop apologising.” El looks thoughtful. “He said he’d broken up with Katya? And you were going to be together? And Katya just showed up?”
“Yes.” My mind goes back to that awful moment again, coming in from the terrace with my heart full, only for it to break. “I went outside. I came back in and she was there, in bed with him.”
“And what was he doing?”
