“Gianna,” he breathes, the rise and fall of his chest steady beneath my hands. “Please tell me what he did to you.”
“Promise me you won’t tell a soul or take it further,” I demand shakily.
He only lets out a long breath, searching my eyes. “You know I can’t promise that.”
I relent with a sigh, knowing that he’s right. He’s never made me a promise that he didn’t think he could keep. And yet, I decide to trust him with my secret anyway. Because what I also know is that Zayn would never do anything to hurt me, physically or emotionally.
“Daniel…,” I swallow. “He…,” I drop my gaze to Zayn’s lips, but can barely see through the tears welling up in my eyes. “He raped me.”
Zayn goes unnaturally still.
The kitchen is so quiet I can hear my heart thumping away in my chest. It’s the first time those words have left my lips, but instead of the fear and humiliation I expected to overwhelm me, instead I feel… I don’t know. Safe.
Relief at having told someone. I don’t have to ask to know that Zayn believes me. To know that he won’t brush it off as anything but the marital rape that it is. I feel relieved… even though Zayn is staring down at me now like he’s ready to tear the world apart before setting it on fire and roasting Daniel over the flames.
“I know we were married, but I didn’t want it.” Tears track silently down my cheeks, and Zayn’s palm cradles my face to keep my eyes on him. “I found out he was cheatingon me and I told him I was leaving. That’s, that’s…. when it happened. He said I wasn’t going anywhere, and I was his to do what ever he wanted with.”
Zayn’s eyes are so dark, so cold, that a deathly chill settles over me. Yet still he runs a thumb down my chin with the softest touch. When he speaks, his voice is calm. Almost too calm.
“I am going to make him regret every single time he laid a finger on you, both consensual and not,” Zayn promises me quietly, lethally, sending a shudder down my back. “He will regret the day he ever laid his fucking eyes on you and decided he wanted what will never belong to him.”
I blink and tears overflow, rolling a salty, uneven path down my cheek. Zayn tracks the movement with a tick of his jaw, reaching his thumb to catch my tears before they can reach my lips.
“Please, Zayn. I just want to forget.” I breathe, finding way too much comfort in his touch. I’m too vulnerable, and he’s toohere.
“I will help you to forget,” his words are as soft as his thumb that continues its caress against my face. “But him?” His tone turns to ice. “He doesn’t get that luxury.”
20
Istand under the spray and let the heat from the water soak all the way through to my bones, attempting to erase the chill that’s settled over me since discovering Daniel has been in my home.My home.
I know it’s technically his house too, but not really. I’ve lived here in solitude and safety since he assaulted me, and now that safety has been violated. Was he hoping to catch me here, or did he specifically wait for me to leave before coming and rummaging through my things?
The former scares me senseless, the latter gives me the creeps.
I didn’t find anything else that looked out of place, and honestly, I don’t even know what he was searching for. I had been waiting to hear from him since Zayn sent him my request for Consent Orders two weeks ago, and definitely thought it was odd I’d had nothing but radio silence from him. But I expected a confrontation, not a break in.
I lather my hair in shampoo and rub the suds into my scalp as I think about Zayn in my living room right now, settling into my couch. He insisted on staying the night herein case Daniel returns, declaring my apartment unsafe until he can get someone out to change my locks in the morning.
He just doesn’t want to leave you alone now that he knows you were assaulted.
That’s what I tell myself when my heart flutters and my mind starts to believe he’s here for any other reason. How would he look if he left me in a compromised apartment after I told him my past assailant was the one who broke in? Like a complete asshole. He had no other choice, really.
The last of the conditioner disappears down the drain as I switch off the taps and wrap myself in a towel.
Zayn knows my secret.
My awful, shameful secret. The epitome of my stupidity.
I put up with so much from Daniel. Emotional abuse. Financial abuse. And finally, sexual abuse.
I can’t help but blame myself for what happened that night. I blame Daniel as well, of course, that fucking psychopath. But I wassostupid to let all of the abuse over the years slide because I felt that because he didn’t physically assault me, then it wasn’treallyassault. Now I can see it for what it really was, but it’s too late to go back. The emotional and financial abuse was just the lead up to the grand finale.
Would Zayn view me differently now? Does he think I’m fragile? Delicate? Breakable?
Is he combing over that night in the hotel room with a fine-tooth comb, wondering if he was the first man to touch me since Daniel? Wondering if he was gentle enough? Considerate enough? Does he regret it?
That’s the last thing I wanted. Zayn’s touch that night, even though I didn’t know who he was at the time, was exactly what I needed to erase the memory of Daniel’s rough hands on my body. It’s serendipitous, now that Iknow. Zayn being the one to wash Daniel’s sin away, that is.
