“Do you see your uncle much these days?” Zakai asked after a few moments of silence.
I shook my head. “I moved out of my uncle’s house the night I came to you that New Year’s Eve.”
Zakai froze, his face registering shock. “What? Why?”
I sighed. “I don’t tell you this to make you feel worse, but . . . Braxton tried to kiss me that night. I took my things and I left. We don’t have a relationship at all anymore.”
Zakai let out a staggered breath, his expression crumpling. “Oh Jesus. That night. You came to me for help.”
I nodded.
“And I pushed you down. After . . .” His face contorted in pain. “God, I’m so sorry, Karys. I had no idea.”
I watched him for a moment, his suffering palpable. If someone would have told me I’d experience Zakai’s pained regret over that night up close and personal, I would have expected to relish it. But I didn’t. We’d both been struggling. We’d both been hurting. He’d thought I was considering giving up my second chance—an education, a life I could be proud of—to once again, follow him. “Funny enough,” I said, “those hardships helped me grow up in ways I wouldn’t have without them. Is it funny to say part of me is grateful for that pain?”
His gaze moved over my face, and I thought I detected relief in his eyes. Understanding. “No. I know what you mean.”
I reached for my wine glass, taking a small sip. When I’d set it down and looked back at Zakai, I found him staring at me, a small smile on his face. “What?” I asked.
“We’re both different now, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” I’d had the very same thought. I chewed at my lip for a moment. “And no. So much has happened.”
He nodded, reaching forward and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear that had fallen loose from the bun at the nape of my neck. Our eyes met and I could see in my peripheral vision that his hand trembled very slightly. My heart rate increased and I saw the pulse speeding up where it beat on the side of his neck. Yes, much had happened. So many things had changed. But one thing that remained the same was the connection between us. Emotional. Physical. History. Chemistry. Chemistry that sizzled, despite the many years of disconnect and distance.
That sparkling rush of charged atoms made me feel off balance. Out of control. It reminded me of the girl I’d once been, and I wasn’t sure I trusted her. “The other day,” I said, my voice breathier than I wanted it to be as I asked the question that had skated through my mind off and on since I’d left him at the museum, “you said you hadn’t made other choices . . . all these years. Did you mean—”
He pulled his hand back, sitting straight. “I haven’t slept with anyone else. I’ve only ever been with you.”
Oh. A mixture of surprise and happiness twisted together inside of me. But so did confusion. I’d seen him half-naked in ads with scantily clad female models for years. At parties. Always surrounded by beautiful women. “Why?”
He laughed uncomfortably as he flattened his palms on his knees before looking down, appearing thoughtful. “Because I want sex to be something that’s meaningful. Haziq took so much from us, and he made sex something it never should have been. But I get to take that back. I get to define what sex means to me.” He paused and I saw both sadness and pride in his eyes. “I want sex to be what it was those first beautiful months when it was only ours. That’s what I want. And so, no, I didn’t have random sex with women I didn’t like, much less love.”
Wow. Okay. I felt so shaky. Everything I’d thought, everything I’d assumed was . . . at most, wrong, and at least, lacking context. I didn’t blame myself for not seeing the truth. Zakai hadn’t allowed that. But there was a lot to wrap my mind around.
“Anyway,” he went on, looking slightly embarrassed, “that’s not to say I don’t miss it.” He gave me a wry, pained look and I laughed softly. “I’ve missed you,” he said, “everything about you.”
I let out a breath, looking away. I missed sex too. But that was an entire can of worms I wasn’t willing to crack open. Not now and perhaps not ever. For the time being, there were more important topics to address. I worried my lip in indecision.
“So um,” Zakai said before I’d decided if right then was the time to share the bigger can of worms with him. “I told you about the work I’m doing with that foundation?”
“The Willow House?”
“Yes. Jake and his wife Evie are in town this weekend for a fundraising event. I was hoping you’d come with me.”
“An event?”
He nodded, reaching for something on the counter and holding up a postcard, handing it to me. “The information is on here,” he said. “I think you’ll like Evie a lot. In addition to running The Willow House, she’s the author of several children’s books.”
I glanced up at him, tilting my head. “Wait, is her name Evelyn Madsen?”
He smiled. “Yes. Do you know of her?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “Her books are very popular . . . I mean, I hear, well, kids love her books.” I had all three of them at home.
He gave me a small, confused smile. “Yes, I hear that too.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, uh, I can pick you up on Friday at six?”
I glanced down at the details and then looked up at Zakai. Going to the event would mean I had a few more days to work up the nerve to tell him he was a father. I would call him before Friday, and then I’d leave it up to him if he still wanted me to attend the event with him. I knew I was being a coward, but I also knew the information was going to rock his world. And mine. And I just needed a few more days. “I’d love to go with you.”
His grin was instantaneous. “Great.” He set the postcard down, and picked up a pink, folded menu. “Now, I do believe I promised you dinner.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The event was held at the estate of one of the largest donors of The Willow House Foundation, an organization that had begun as an independently run community center and had grown into a multi-state company. Its mission was to help children who were part of foster care thrive, both during and after they’d left the system.
Zakai walked beside me, gorgeous in a tuxedo, as we stepped out onto the stone patio, stretching from one end of the massive house to the other. A white tent took up most of the lawn, lanterns hanging inside and glowing in the dusky light.
My hand fluttered to my belly, as though I might contain the nerves fluttering within. Zakai smiled at me knowingly. “You look beautiful,” he said, taking a glass of champagne from a tray offered by a woman in a black and white uniform, handing it to me but not taking one for himself.
I took a small sip. I didn’t belong here. Not because it was a party being hosted by strangers, but because I’d had ample time since I’d had dinner with him on Tuesday to give Zakai information he deserved to have. I’d lost my nerve again and again, picking up my phone as the days went by, and always placing it down again, my heart in my throat.
What was stopping me? At this point, I was knowingly deceiving him.