“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice cracking open. “I’m so sorry, Lillian, but I’m going to explain everything—”
“Dalal told me,” I interrupted.
He lifted his head but kept his gaze down. “She did? You...you know?”
I nodded. For a beat, he stayed there, shoulders caved with heavy shame. I slipped two fingers under his chin and tilted his face upward. Only then did he let his eyes meet mine—wide, wrecked, brimming with a hurt he clearly wished he could hide.
My hand answered something in him before my mind could weigh in, cupping his cheek. His skin was warm, too warm, as though grief itself had fevered him. He leaned into my grip like a man starving for comfort, and I hated how much that single gesture made my heart ache.
“I’m sorry, Khalifa,” I whispered. “What she did to you was terrible.”
His hand found mine before I could pull away. He brought it to his lips, pressed a kiss to my palm, then another to each finger, his breath catching between them. When his lips brushed my wrist, my pulse stuttered beneath his mouth, traitorous and alive.
I tore my hand free, clutching it to my chest like it burned. The tears I’d been holding back all day finally betrayed me, sliding hot and silent down my face.
He saw them and brushed one away before another took its place. “No,” he murmured. “Don’t cry over me. Yell at me, hit me, break my heart if you have to—but don’t shed a single tear. I’m not worth it.”
“You lied to me,” I breathed. The words shook, more fragile than I wanted them to be.
“I know,” he said. “But in the beginning...I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it. I thought it would be easier if you didn’t know.” He paused, his voice thinning to a thread. “And later—after I fell in love with you—I thought if you knew, you’d leave me, and I can’t—Ican’tlose you.” He lifted his gaze to mine, eyes red-rimmed and anguished. “I hate that I hurt you,but it gave meyou. It gave me the chance to love you, to have you, even for a moment. How can I regret that?”
Even though I wanted to scream, to throw his confession back in his face, all I could do was sit there, heart splintering, because part of me understood exactly what he meant.
“I thought I knew you,” I whispered. “I thought I kneweverythingabout you. I told you things that I have never told anyone, Khalifa—every shameful secret, every regret, every heartbreak, every fear—” My voice broke, collapsing under the weight of it.
“You do know me,” he insisted. “This is the only thing I ever kept from you. You know me better than anyone. You’re the only person that Iwantto know me.”
I could hear it—the truth, the despair, the love he didn’t know what to do with.
The thought escaped me before I could think better of it. “You slept with someone else.”
He froze, panic blooming behind his eyes.
I hated that it mattered, hated that Icared. But it wasn’t just the act—it was the intimacy of it. The thought of another woman’s hands on him, another body tangled with his, another heartbeat pressed to his chest where I’d believed only mine belonged. Someone else had known him like that, seen him like that, felt him like that. For everything new I’d experienced with him, it was something old he’d already lived through...with her.
He shook his head, his hands reaching for mine again. “Just once,” he said quickly. “They were getting worried that we still didn’t have a child. But it didn’t mean anything.” His voice wavered, the admission pulling something raw from him. “You have to understand,” he went on, gaze flicking to mine, desperately sincere. “I never thought I’d be with anyone else. I thought that was it for me—a marriage without love, a lifealready decided. I didn’t think I’d get a second chance. But you were my first, Lillian. In every way that matters.”
I stared at him, at this man I loved so much it felt like he’d healed every shattered part of me without even knowing it, and wondered how love could feel like both salvation and slow poison.
“Can you forgive me?” he whispered. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Lillian, but Ineedit. I needyou. You make everything better, you makemebetter.” He cupped my face, his thumb tracing the dip in my chin. I hated how I leaned into it, how I still longed for him despite everything. He kissed my cheek, my jaw, the space just beneath my ear. “Can you, Lillian?” he murmured. “I love you,onlyyou. Do you still love me?”
Of course I did. That was the curse of it. If only I could stop, everything would be simpler, less excruciating. But I’d never been good at half-measures. My heart always insisted on throwing itself into the fire.
His lips grazed the corner of my mouth, and I turned—just slightly—and caught them with mine, kissing him softly. He pulled back a little, his breath warm against my skin. “Is that a yes?” he asked. “Do you forgive me?”
I knew what he wanted to hear, what heneededto hear, and I was too tired to fight anymore.
“Yes. I forgive you.”
He let out a shuddering breath and pulled me into his arms with tender relief. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m so sorry. But I’m already in the process of divorcing her, and then she’ll be gone and—”
I silenced him with another kiss, pressing my mouth to his before the words could finish breaking me apart. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to talk. I just wanted, for one last moment, to forget.
KHALIFA HAD FALLENasleep hours ago, every inch of him fused to me like he was afraid I might vanish if he loosened his hold. Maybe some part of him already knew. Maybe I did, too.
He’d whisperedI love youa hundred times—after every kiss, every sigh, every heartbeat that collided between us. I never said it back. I couldn’t. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it wastootrue. Because if I said it out loud, I’d never find the strength to leave.
I lay still for a long time, staring at the ceiling as his chest rose and fell against me. My fingers found their way to his face, tracing him quietly—his eyelids, soft and heavy with sleep; the slope of his nose; the faint curve of his lips. I memorized him in pieces, the map of a man I’d once believed would lead me home.
