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Chapter 11
“DO YOU HAVE A moment?” Millie toyed with her wedding ring, nervousness making her blood thrum at high speed through her veins. But it was more than nervousness. This was the first time she’d seen her husband in over a week, and even then, it had been at a distance, not like this. Up close, her heart spasmed, pain and love exploding through her, so she closed her eyes to steel herself for this conversation, running a hand over her very rounded stomach for comfort.
Zafar’s head lifted from his desk, his dark, intelligent eyes scrutinising her until her tummy was in knots that would surely never untie.
“Of course,” he said after several heavy beats had passed. He stood, gesturing to the chair opposite, and as she made her way across his expansive office, his eyes dropped to her stomach, the fullness there tightening his mouth and jaw, so her heart grew heavy.
“Is something the matter?”
She pushed her hands into the back of the chair, staying standing. Focus, she commanded herself. “We need to talk,” she nodded slowly.
“The baby —,”
“The baby’s fine,” she assured him quickly, brushing away his concern.
“And you?”
That was harder to ignore. Her heart thumped against her ribs, but she nodded quickly. “Yeah,” she cleared her throat. “But it’s been a long time since we’ve had a proper conversation. Since the night in the desert, I mean, and you said some things, in the heat of the moment…we both did, actually…and I wanted to…clarify…your position.”
“My position?” He prompted, with the appearance of calm. Only his absolute stillness betrayed his true feelings—tension emanated from the tautness of his musculature, the intensity of his frozen posture.
“On our marriage. You said you would no longer honour the terms of our contract,” she reminded him, her eyes slashing Zafar with defiance, even as her heart jumped around in confusion.
“I remember the conversation.”
Her lips twisted. “That’s not how I would characterise it, but anyway.”
He was silent and she hated him for that – his easy ability to put pressure on her to speak, when the right words were so hard to form. Except, Zafar was never really silent. His eyes were so expressive, and she had somehow got a PhD in reading them; their depths swirled with an intensity of emotion that took her breath away.
“We had a deal,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t have married you if I thought you’d abandon the terms of our arrangement.”
His own hands dug into the back of his chair until the knuckles turned white. “And is it what you still want?” He prompted, scanning her face. If she’d earned a PhD in reading his inner thoughts then he held a matching one. Try as she might, she knew she couldn’t conceal her doubts from him.
“Yes.” She nodded, pushing aside her uncertainty. “It’s the only thing we can do.”
“But is it what you want?” He insisted, and she had the strangest sense he was holding his breath.
“Nothing about this is,” she said quietly. “I never thought I could feel this way about you. Four and a half years ago you were my world. I would have walked over lava to get to you.” She shook her head sadly. “I would have gone anywhere you asked me to go, done anything you asked me to do. I did love you, Zafar.”
His eyes were hooded, his expression inscrutable. “I thought you’d grown up and realised it was just infatuation?”
“No, it was love.” What was the point in denying that? “I shouldn’t have lied about that.” She frowned. “If I’ve learned one thing about you over the course of this marriage, it’s that enough people in your life have withheld that from you. I don’t want to be another one of them. What we shared that summer was real—for me. I’ll always remember you as the first love of my life.”
“The first,” he responded, his face expressionless.
She didn’t answer—he didn’t need to know that she’d never love anyone else again. “You broke my heart that day.” She turned her back on him, moving to the window so Zafar wouldn’t see the frown that crossed her face. “And yet, you were right. There’s no future for us.” Her spine was ramrod straight, her heart tortured by the words she was saying. “My feelings haven’t changed since the desert. I can’t stay married to you.”
Silence filled the room, heavy and laced with blame, and she waited, staring at the vista before her, unseeing, her eyes tracing the line of the horizon in the distance by rote.
“I see.”
She turned to face him, almost against her will, her eyes probing his, seeking some indication of how he felt. But there was nothing. Damn it, he was so good at hiding his emotions from her, from the world. And could she blame him? Now that she knew the truth of his childhood, it was impossible not to understand his defensive mechanisms, to have sympathy for them even.
“I’m vulnerable,” she admitted softly.
He frowned, his brows drawing together. “Why?”
For so many reasons, she wanted to shout! Because she loved him now as much as ever. Because this baby would bind them for a lifetime. Because she knew she had to walk away even when it was the very last thing she wanted to do…
