Page 143 of Zayn: The Relentless Tycoon

He stares at me, wide-eyed, for several moments before slowly shaking his head and releasing my hands.

Stepping away, he walks to the couch in the living room.

“No, Selene,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to put myself in a position where you reject me again.” He rubs both hands over his eyes. “And I don’t want you looking at me like you hate me, like I disgust you.”

So that was it?

This entire time, he’d been hurt by the way I looked at him? He’d stayed away because he couldn’t bear seeing that expression on my face again?

With a groan, he lets his head fall back onto the couch and sinks deeper into it.

Dressed in gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt, his tattooed hands spread over his face and thigh, he awakens something inside me that never truly disappeared.

I only tried to bury it.

Tried stubbornly to cling to the one thing that hurt me, even though none of it had actually been his fault.

“I can’t do that again, Selene,” he repeats from the same position, barely moving.

I don’t answer.

Instead, I walk slowly to him, stopping when I’m standing between his spread legs.

When he senses how close I am, his eyes open.

But he doesn’t have time to react before I lean over him and place both hands on his shoulders.

His hands lift instinctively, reaching for my waist, but he stops himself from touching me, leaving them suspended in the air.

“Selene…” he says my name in a dark, restrained tone.

But I don’t let him continue.

I climb onto the couch, straddling him with one leg on either side of his body, and look down into his eyes.

“Then let’s choose a position where you can’t look at me,” I tell him firmly.