Zahra had been in the bathroom for almost fifteen minutes.
To say it was extremely awkward between us would be an understatement. She hadn’t spoken a word to me or met my eyes. It was obvious that she did not want to look at me, and to be fair with myself, I’d rather not look at her either—with the thoughts swirling in my head, it took more than willpower to remain here.
I busied myself trying to decipher what else was missing from my body. I somehow did not feel complete, and my gaze swept around the room twice, but I couldn’t find any of my belongings still lying around.
Sighing, I dropped my head, waiting—a distinct feeling of anxiousness clawing at my insides—but I could still feel a tiny bit of numbness—self-misunderstanding, and maybe slight anger if I dug deep enough.
My phone had been left behind on theCelestial, and I needed a way to contact Angelo or Casmiro. If they had somehow figured out I wasn’t on board, this whole thing might get nastier than necessary.
Just then, the door to the bathroom opened, and I raised my head.
She came out wearing a familiar black oversized hoodie sweater that covered most of her. Still, I knew she had on checkered boxer shorts underneath, as it was her preferred choice of indoor clothing.
I recognized the sweater as one of mine and wonderedhow she had managed to get her hands on it without my knowledge—then I stopped wondering when it registered in my head that she was a thief, so it would have been easy for her.
She closed the door behind her and raised her gaze to meet mine before dropping it and heading to the dressing table, pulling out a drawer and a thick file from inside it.
Closing the drawer, she visibly let out a breath, then walked toward me, extending the file as it shook slightly in her grip, showing me that her hands weren’t steady. They were shaking.
Ignoring that, I accepted the file.
“Those are the receipts,” she said, her voice surprisingly firm. Too controlled. “I collected everything because I knew you would have questions.” I watched her sit on the edge of the bed, right in front of me, slightly curled into herself—uncomfortable—as she fumbled with the neckline of the hoodie, dragging my gaze to the imprint of my hand around her neck.
I’d bruised her. I took from her instead of giving. I sated my anger with her body.
It was wrong but now was not the time.
I removed my eyes from her, letting the silence stretch on while I looked back at the file in my hand… not reading, not waiting for a papered truth that might as well be lies—I shouldn’t even stand here for this. I should leave. Give no room for explanations, no room for this.
I shook my head, dropped the file on the table behind me, and crossed my arms.
She tentatively looked up from the file and then to me, a question in her eyes, a heaviness I could read perfectly, one stemming from the way I’d treated her, like those other men from her past, but I ignored it.
I should apologize.
I should.
“You’re not checking it?” For the first time since I’d knownher, worry tainted those eyes, uncertainty ruled, courage was nowhere in sight, and the usual stubbornness that kept me on my toes had vacated.
“I do not see the need to look through heaps of papers supplying me what could very well be lies. If you do not deem it fit to justify your actions by actuallytalkingto me, then we can call it a day.”
She swallowed, slowly and laboriously. But she remained silent.
I ground my teeth, clenching my jaw. “We can start byyoutelling me where the hell I am; that is, if your silence is drawn from your inability to find a proper beginning.”
Her hands fisted around my sweater, hugging herself slightly. “It’s… Vitale’s penthouse… He rented it for a month, but he was never here because he returned to Sicily after your warning,” she supplied.
A warning he foolishly adhered to. An idiot I couldn’t wait to teach a life lesson. I loved biding my time, but this information from Zahra had my skin burning and my head hot with anger. This wasn’t necessarily his fault, but since I could not hurt Zahra, he would take the blow in conjunction with the one I had been waiting weeks to give him.
“You brought me,” I started, “to another man’s house—”
“Don’t put it like that, he didn’t even stay here, and he wanted to let them rent it out to someone else, and if I had let him do that, the money would’ve gone to waste. And I had all this planned, and I didn’t have enough money to get someplace better, so I just asked him to let me use it.”
I watched her for a while, not detecting any lie, even as she shrank beneath my stare.
Something had changed in her. An odd aura she gave off in my presence. A vulnerability that wasn’t there before, one I could tell—with her body language—grew from insecurity.
Just as she had crossed me with her actions, I had crossedher with mine. I should say sorry—sit beside her, take her hands, pull her to me, and say I did not mean to be rough or brash or to have spoken to her that way.
