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‘What was that?’ I hiss. ‘Were you trying to mark me or something? You know I’m not yours to own, right?’
Zayan’s jaw tightens, and the cold look he had directed at Farouz has melted into something blazing and heated.
‘Of course you’re not mine to own,’ he says harshly. His cologne fills my lungs, making me feel dizzy. ‘You belong to only yourself. But I’m mine to give. I belong to you. That guy needed to know that. You need to know that.’
My heart goes into overdrive, its beat pulsing all the way down to my thighs.
Zayan’s brown eyes are bright with questions, and hues of blue light from above cut over his face in a mesmerizing way. I know he wants me to push it. To ask him what he means by all this. I can see it in his heavy gaze. But I can’t handle asking Zayan if this means something. Not if there is even a miniscule possibility of him disappearing from my life. Not yet.
So I do the only honourable thing I can. I press a palm to Zayan’s chest and gently push him away.
‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I mumble, and I make my escape.
I place my palms on either side of the porcelain sink and force myself to breathe. My panic is bubbling to the surface, and the feeling isn’t helped by the fact that my head simply won’t stop thinking. I rapidly replay every single moment I’ve had with Zayan in my mind, like a movie on fast forward – every 3 a.m. call, every brush of our hands, the breakdown at the Limelight, the times we’ve shared a stage, a cup of chai, a laugh. He’s stitched into every memory I’ve made over the last two months, and I can’t believe I missed it before.
It’s so clear, abundantly clear, to me now. I don’t know how I pretended for so long.
I’m in love with Zayan.
All of him. The small, quiet parts of him. The parts that match my own. The ones that don’t. I’m burdened with the realization that I’d like Zayan to meet my mother one day. That I’d like him to come home with me. That I can envision my future with him. A future that goes beyond the next day, or the next week, or even the next month. I can see myself with him forever.
I’m ready for forever.
I love him.
The metronome of my heart beats with these words:
I love him.
I love him.
I love him.
‘Enough,’ I whisper to myself, wishing I could press the heels of my palms to my eyes, but that would smudge my make-up. I force a breath in against the rising panic and blinding fear. I switch the tap on to its freezing-cold side and push my hands under the stream.
The cold shocks my senses, allowing my terror to recede and a sense of methodical logic – that feels suspiciously like Anushka – to take over.
You could always tell him.
That thought makes every muscle in my body lock up. I’m not oblivious enough to think Zayan’s feelings for me haven’t changed. That whole I belong to you speech clearly means something. But … But I’m not sure I’m ready to cross that line. I’m not sure Zayan is either.
What happens when we tell each other how we really feel? What happens next? What if there’s even a tiny, minuscule possibility that, after everything, Zayan leaves?
What if we confess our feelings and lose the friendship we’ve spent so long protecting?
The sound of the bathroom door swinging open cuts through my mental war. I look up to see who’s walked in.
And it takes all my strength for my jaw not to drop when my gaze meets Laiba Siddiqi’s.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Laiba Siddiqi is as beautiful in the flesh as she is on screen – made up of shades of brown, from the darkness of her eyes to the bronzed glow of her skin, wearing a metallic gold-coloured dress that Serena van der Woodsen would envy. We stare at one another, and I’m surprised to see recognition glinting in her irises. The silence is heavy, weighing down on my neck, forcing me to drop my gaze from our staring match back to the sink. The tap is still running, and I make no movements to stop it.
I hear rustling behind me, and I count slowly to five before looking up, in the hope that this has given her enough time to occupy one of the stalls.
It has.
I breathe in a sharp, silent breath, facing myself in the mirror. I look rattled, like I’ve seen a phantom. I’m about to leave and find Zayan when his voice flickers in my mind.
