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“I swore I would never need a man. Not after everything I went through. I promised myself that I could survive by myself. That I needed no one. And then you just…” I let out a shudder, closing my eyes. “You just swooped in and starting being you.”
“I’m sorry,” Zayn says insincerely.
“God, I hate you,” I murmur against his lips as I lean down to kiss him, softly. “And I can’t imagine not being with you. You’ve forced yourself into every part of me.”
I bite his lower lip. “So, if you think you’re going to leave me now…” I let the rest of the sentence trail off on a threatening note.
Zayn’s hand comes to grasp my nape as he kisses me, and I taste his blood on my lips. “I already put my leash in your hands. I belong utterly and entirely to you, Eve. Do with me what you will.”
“Do you love me?” I demand, wanting to hear the words from his mouth.
He gives me a serious look. “I adore you. I worship you. You are everything to me, Eve. So, yes.” His smile is faint. “I love you.”
“Good.” I take a shuddering breath, feeling as if a part of my heart is hurting with this knowledge. Opening my eyes, I gaze at him. “Now tell me what you think will have me walking out that door.”
Zayn’s hands move to my legs, and he grasps them. “The first memory I have of my mother is her on the floor with a man on top of her. She was a junkie who made money off of her body for the next hit. I don’t ever remember her being kind to me, but I remember her telling me that I was soon going to be her next paycheck.”
Knowledge moves inside me, settles, and horror grows. “No.”
Zayn’s lips twist humourlessly. “I was her paycheck several times; too young to understand anything besides the pain. Sometimes, she’d feed me afterward. Other times, she’d be too busy shooting herself up. It was one of her clients that got too rowdy with her, and he slipped her a little too much. She was completely out of it when he turned to me.”
Zayn’s breathing is harsh, as if the very memory is like a physical blow.
“There was a plate on the floor. It had a piece of rotting cheese on it that I had managed to get from the dumpster outside. And there was a knife that had looked so shiny and sharp that I had taken that too.” He paused as if gathering his thoughts. “He came towards me, and I could see the intent in his eyes. And I was so tired, and scared.”
“You killed him,” I murmur softly.
“I butchered him.” Zayn meets my gaze, unflinching. “And then Elijah came. And he took me away and asked me if I wanted a clean slate. And I said yes.”
“You killed a man who was going to hurt you as a child, and you think that’s going to drive me away?”
Zayn clenches his jaw. “I have blood on my hands.”
“I don’t care,” I say, and it shakes me to realize that I don’t care.
I spread my hands on his chest, marveling at the coarseness of his chest hair. “I’ll take you any way I can. But you’re not allowed to leave me. Ever.”
The small smile on Zayn’s face grows till the fierce joy in his cold blue eyes steals my breath away. He reaches out and tangles his hand in my hair, wrenching my head towards him in a breathtaking kiss that is pure unbridled joy.
“Never,” he vows.
17
Zayn
Three weeks.
Three weeks of silence.
Aside from the random article or a picture of Eve in public, the paparazzi started to back off. Especially when I sat down to an interview with a reporter, under the condition that Agatha was able to manipulate the questions. I mentioned the opening of my club which is in the coming month, and casual questions of my family were thrown in, enough to clean to refute all the garbage that made my family’s life hell for the past few weeks.
It was a difficult decision for Eve to reveal Mila to the public, but things were getting so out of hand that Agatha stepped in to make the transition easier.
I made it a point to discredit the pudgy tabloid reporter whose articles pulled Eve’s life apart. A small article popped up a few days later from Frank but it wasn’t as vicious as it could have been, and Agatha disregarded it, telling me the man faced a lot of backlash over the lies he had been spouting.
Good riddance to bad fucking rubbish, my friend muttered, a sharp smile on her face.
Right now, as I watch Eve try to convince Mila to put a shirt on, I can’t help but grin, popping a slice of mango in my mouth.
