AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And you call me manipulative.”
“I never called you that. Not even when you lied about kissing me all those years ago. You’re far too reckless and destructively honest to be manipulative.”
“You’re just saying those things to try and calm me down.”
She walked through the vast closet, feeling betrayed. No one could spew vicious truths like Nasir’s mom. And she was already defenseless, having barely recovered from her own mom’s betrayal, and from the void her thaata had left with his death.
“You should’ve told me she’d be here.”
“Then you wouldn’t have come.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Only Zara matters, Yana. Ammi knows that.” He raised his palms in surrender when she glared at him, his jaw so tight that she could see a vein bulging there. “I promise, I won’t let her near you.”
“Youcan’tensure that, Nasir, unless you stick to me like last night’s gum.” A strange tsunami of emotions built inside her, and Yana couldn’t grasp it back under control. That Amina might be right, that she’d lose herself all over again over Nasir... “You can’t control Amina...her grief, her loss, her...hatred. Not when they’re all so raw after losing your dad just last year.” She pushed her fingers through her hair roughly. “I get enough of this drama from my mom, and I’ve already had enough lashes about the past from you. I can’t take it from her, too. Not even for Zara. Not when I’m trying to start a new chapter in my own life. Not when you both tried to make sure I lost your dad a long time ago.”
Something about how still he stood arrested her frenzy. Yana knew she was losing it, betraying all the anger and resentment she’d tried hard to bury when Nasir had attempted to cut her out of his Dad’s life, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Not when he looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time.
The real, messy, vulnerable, hurt-as-hell her. The girl no one had looked out for. The woman who’d thought she didn’t deserve that kind of looking after. That kind of love.
“When I was growing up, I didn’t know how deep words like that could wound. How toxic they could make me behave in turn. But not anymore. I can’t keep getting battered by you and her, and my mom and all the shadows of my past mistakes. I’ll fall apart and where will that leave Zara then?”
His fingers came around her nape in a firm, yet tender grip, stilling her. “Shh...breathe,habibi. Breathe for me, baby. You’re okay.”
“I—”
And then his arms were tugging her to him, and Yana sank into the embrace. It was a gift. As necessary as breathing. She’d been starved for touch for so long. Starved for understanding as she’d tried to hold her life from imploding. Starved for a lifetime of being held like this by him.
“You’re safe here,habibi,” he kept crooning at her temple, holding her as if she was the most fragile, most precious, thing in the world. Her breath came in shallow pants and she was trembling, and he kept whispering endearments as if he meant them. That bergamot and sandalwood scent dug deep into her roots, making a home there. Centering her. His large hands stroked all over her back, soothing her.
He’d been like this once before. A long time ago. He’d been kind and patient and... And he was only being so now because she was very near a breakdown and he needed her to not fall apart. He was a good father and would do whatever was required to keep her here for Zara.
She was in his life just because Nasir loved his daughter—she couldn’t forget that.
“No lies,” she said quietly, pulling away from him. “You decided it was okay for me to be exposed to your mother’s vitriol. You’re fine with treating me however you please because I’m an eternal car crash anyway, right? But no more. At least for Zara’s sake, ask Amina to keep her mouth shut about Jacqueline.” She wrapped her arms around herself, reminding herself that she was steel and ice. “I’ll stay but you don’t deserve it because you’ve broken my trust again.”
After walking into the en-suite bathroom and closing the door behind her, she leaned against it. Yes, seeing Amina had thrown her. But she was stronger than an angry, bitter old woman, stronger this time than her childish attraction to Nasir. She’d be stronger for herself and for Zara.
CHAPTER SEVEN
NASIRSTOPPEDPRETENDINGthat he was getting any work done—even though it was a chapter he’d already plotted multiple times, minutes after he saw Yana walk to the pool with Zara’s little hand tucked in hers. As he walked through the myriad corridors of the castle, their laughter floated upward from the multiple open terraces.
For over two weeks now, he’d told himself that work was more important, especially after the forced break while he followed Yana all over the world. But it was a fruitless exercise when all he wanted was to join them both and play happy family in a way Zara had never experienced with him and Jacqueline. Even that startling thought didn’t stop his progress.
Every day, after walking the dogs, Yana and Zara promptly arrived at the pool. When Zara went down for a nap under the supervision of her actual nanny, Yana disappeared back inside the castle. Then the two of them would show up in the cozy library in the evenings, either reading or drawing or listening to rhymes. Yana even ate dinner with Zara. He didn’t doubt one bit that Yana’s day was precisely planned to have minimum intersection with his. Even during that early dinner, she retreated halfway through it to give him time with Zara.
It was exactly the kind of experience he’d wanted for Zara, with a few structured activities and free playtime, but had been unable to achieve with any of the myriad staff he’d hired. In only a couple of weeks of Yana’s being here, Zara laughed, played naughty tricks and was more open and demanding with them—everything that a healthy, thriving five-year-old should be. Even his mother had to agree that Yana had an innate ability to love Zara like a mother.
With him, though, she was an ice queen extraordinaire. A thorn under his skin. The flicker of anguish when she’d said her pain was an acceptable price to him haunted him, day and night. The flash of grief when she’d said that she’d lost his dad, too, showed he’d become a villain in her life.
He knew he’d compounded his mistreatment of her by throwing her out after he’d learned that Yana was supposedly Jacqueline’s character witness to enable her to gain solo custody of Zara. Having seen her open love for his daughter, he more than doubted his accusations now. Yana wouldn’t have done that to Zara. Jacqueline must have instructed her lawyers to name Yana without telling her.
All of his distrust of her just because she’d claimed he’d kissed her when he’d never even touched her. It had been a stupid, juvenile impulse she’d given in to when she was only nineteen. Had he really behaved any better—a man twelve years older than she was? Had he shown any more maturity than she had?
Now she’d shut him out so thoroughly that Nasir felt as if he had been robbed of something he’d never even realized he had. He’d made peace with his attraction to her. But where did this need to be acknowledged by her come from? To be forgiven for all his multitude of sins?
Wherever it came from, it was so not a good idea. Especially when she’d always be a part of his little girl’s lifeand his life. And still, he kept moving, instead of turning back.
