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“Yes. But I should have looked out for you, should have made sure you knew his background. Abba took me to task for it enough times.”
The mention of his dad was enough to make a lump rise in Yana’s throat.
Izaz Hadeed had been one of the kindest men she’d ever known. Enough that she’d loved living in his home when Diana had been married to him. Enough that she’d known whatever had brought them together wouldn’t last long because Diana didn’t know what to do when good things came into her life and so she destroyed them.
Something Yana thought she’d inherited from her mother, in her lowest points, along with good skin and thick hair.
Enough to know that his son—while grumpy and caustic on the outside—had inherited that very same kindness. God, the stupid dreams she’d weaved, imagining them all together as one big, forever family.
Even after he and Diana had separated, even after Yana’s own horrible shenanigans and false claims about Nasir kissing her, Izaz had always kept in touch with her. Calling her on her birthday, sending her gifts wherever she was in the world, asking her if she was okay after Nasir and Jacqueline’s wedding...he’d made her feel like a cherished daughter.
He’d loved her like one.
She bit her lower lip with her teeth hard enough that the pain held back the tears that threatened to spill. “Ahh, so that’s what this is about. Izaz Uncle finding fault with you. That’s why it still rankles after all this time.”
“It wasn’t just Abba’s criticism that got to me...” His chest rose with the deep breath he took. She knew it was raw grief at mentioning his father, who had passed not a year ago. Only Izaz’s affair and subsequent marriage to Diana had been the biggest divide between father and son—conquered and forgiven years later when he’d reconciled with Nasir’s mom. And yet, she remembered Izaz being heartbroken that Nasir hadn’t forgiven him completely, that his son had become a hardened man in the subsequent years.
“It rankles, still, because it’s true.”
In a sudden move she didn’t expect, he clasped her cheek with a gentleness that shocked her. When she’d have pulled away, he held firm. Something about the expression in his eyes threatened to break her into so many pieces. His second hand joined the first one, in this assault of kindness.
She felt locked, pinned, splayed wide open.
“The world only saw your confidence, your success, your brazenness. But I know now, as I should’ve known then, that you were young, naive, so unused to the vipers and Gregors of the world. I should have warned you that he was a predator.”
The genuine regret in his eyes forced out an answer. “He didn’t...do anything I didn’t want him to, Nasir. And if mistakes were made, I was twenty-one and so I’m allowed them.”
She didn’t know why she was propagating yet another lie between them when she could instead choose to clear the air and admit that she’d refused all Gregor’s advances. Especially since it seemed Nasir’s main regret, that he hadn’t interfered, persisted after all these years.
“That mistake shouldn’t have happened in the first place. You should’ve been—”
She slapped his hands away, his gentleness nothing but a hidden strike. “I think I prefer the version of you that blamed me for my impulsive, lazy, ruinous tendencies rather than this...patronizing one that invalidates my very existence. How dare you feel sorry for me? Or is it disgust over my actions and how you should have saved me from myself that keeps that massive ego of yours boosted?”
“Yana, you misunderstand me.”
Without waiting for his clarification, she pushed the car door open and stepped out into the dark night.
She was so very exhausted—all the way down to the marrow of her soul. Just when she hoped that he saw her,actually saw her, and was beginning to respect her, he set her back to square one. And however many times she promised herself never again, it didn’t seem to stick.
Her legs felt like they were made of that JELL-O that Zara adored as Yana stepped out of the car without falling face-first into the rough gravel. Not that she’d have managed even that without Nasir’s steadying arm around her shoulders.
Once she could trust her legs, she quickly moved out of his reach. His scowl told her he hadn’t missed her instinctual rejection.
She rubbed her eyes again, all the different time zones playing havoc with her body’s rhythms. There was a chill in the air that nipped at her bare legs and chest. She inhaled deeply anyway, loving the scent of pine and something old in the air. Tugging the lapels of her jacket closer, she raised her head.
It was a big castle—no, strike that—a humongous castle that greeted her. Rather, it was the shadows and outlines of one, since twilight had now given way to thick, dark night. The castle looked like it had sprung right out of one of Nasir’s stories. The stories that were situated perfectly at the periphery of dark woods, the ones that housed all kinds of scary and outcast creatures. The ones she’d always liked the best because she’d felt like she’d belonged in them.
Once he straightened, she reached to take her heavy shoulder bag from him. He held it away from her.
She ran a circle around his body, trying to reach for it, bumping into him. “It’s fine. I can carry it inside.”
“You’re being ridiculous, you know that?” When she jumped for it, he circled a hand around her neck with a gentleness that made her pulse leap. The gesture was so unlike him, so much bordering on possessiveness, that she stilled. Every atom in her body stilled. “It’s just a damned bag, Yana. Let it go.”
Yana raised her hands in surrender, an unholy humor coursing through her at his cursing. There was nothing better than seeing him devolve to her level—whether in vocabulary or gestures or actions. Suddenly, power and something else between them felt more fluid than she’d ever assumed.
“Where are we?” she asked, following him as he began an upward trek from a gigantic courtyard where the chauffeur had dropped them off.
Small, hidden lights dotted across the land illuminated a gravel pathway toward the looming castle. All the tension she’d felt while imagining them together melted away as she took in the fresh air and the beautifully dark setting.
