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I stand up abruptly, feeling restless. “It’s more than that with Eve.”
Prowling around the room, coffee forgotten on the table, I try to organize all these thoughts in my head. “She has this light inside her. I want it. I want her to look only at me. I want her to smile only at me. I want to hide her from the world and keep her for myself. All her smiles and laughter and tears, I want to monopolize her till I’m all she thinks about. I want her to be obsessed with me.”
“Tad bit dark there, Zayn,” Charlotte comments wryly from over the top of her mug.
I turn to face her, my expression strained. “I know. I know how it sounds. That’s why I tried to stay away from her before. But I see her now and my longing for her, it’s just more intense. I don’t want to destroy who she is. And I’m afraid that if I get her into my bed and into my life, I’ll crush her entirely.”
Charlotte gives me a doubtful look. “That’s very presumptuous of you.”
I blink.
She brushes some lint off of her skirt before saying, “From what I heard of Eve, she’s smart, resourceful, and strong. None of these things just happen overnight, Zayn. The circumstances that made her so wary of relationships and you are also the circumstances that made her into the person she is today. She seems to have fought against the odds and survived.”
Her smile is slow, containing a depth of knowledge that only women seem to possess. “Your Eve is a survivor.”
Her words burn into my skull, and I spend the rest of the evening turning them over. Even when Philip finally comes home and starts grilling me about Mila and when they can meet her, I give absent-minded answers, my mind imagining Eve shrouded in darkness that screams of pain but burning with fire and determination.
Charlotte has a point.
Eve is a survivor.
Maybe it is time I stop walking on eggshells around her.
Four days have passed since my conversation with Charlotte.
A week since that fateful breakfast with Eve and Mila where I ended up revealing more than I ever planned to.
The airport is bustling with activity as I stride through the terminal, a wistful longing in my heart. I haven’t seen Eve in a week.
Promoting my new club dragged me to New York. It was such an unexpected trip that I sent her a message telling her I would be in touch.
The one phone call that I had with her was strained.
Far too strained, I think grimly.
I was in and out of meetings and events and missed most of my friends’ attempts to get in touch with me.
Heaving a sigh, I walk towards the exit, wanting to hail a taxi and get home.
A quick shower and then I want to see my little Mila. I’ve known her for so little time but I miss her.
A smile tugs at my lips as I imagine her impatient excitement when I will give her the gifts I got her. I am just raising my hand for a taxi when I see a crumpled up newspaper on top of the trash bin.
Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have warranted a second look, but the picture on it has my blood freezing and my feet move quickly to the trash and I snatch the paper, smoothing out the tabloid section of it.
‘Playboy Millionaire Moving in on Single Mom’
A full-blown picture of Mila sitting in Eve’s lap as I watch Eve with an intense look is splashed over half the page. Anger, a shifting thing, almost a sentient being, moves through me as I skim the article, catching phrases like ‘unidentified bedmate’ and ‘little bit on the heavier side than his usual conquests.’
My spine stiffens at the cruel remarks, and my lips pull back in a snarl.
My eyes move swiftly to the name of the reporter.
Frank M.
This was published three days ago, the day I talked to Eve.
Carefully folding the page, I tuck it into my back pocket, and as a taxi stops on the curb, I enter the car, ignoring the odor of cigarettes and sex that emanates from it.
