Page 98
THIRTY-ONE
Zayn
Selene is incredibly tense and quiet beside me, and I wish I could figure out what’s going through her head. Unfortunately, my own mind is such a fucking mess right now that I can barely make sense of my thoughts, let alone hers.
She probably feels the distance between us. She notices that I’m different from the way I’ve been with her until now, and the truth is, I can’t pull myself together enough to act any other way. Every instinct tells me to reach for her, to pretend everything is fine, but the weight sitting in my chest makes even that feel impossible.
“Did something happen while I was stuck in those conversations?” I finally ask.
She slowly lifts her head from her phone and looks at me as though my question annoys her, almost as if she’s been expecting me to say something else entirely.
“No,” she answers, still watching me carefully. “I stayed at the bar with the girls and waited for you to finish those boring conversations and come back to me.”
Whenever she’s excited or extremely happy, her accent becomes so thick that it’s almost difficult to understand her. The same thing is happening now, except there’s nothing light or joyful in her expression. If anything, she sounds guarded, and that only makes the knot in my stomach tighten.
“I’m sorry I had to disappear for so long,” I tell her, bringing her hand to my lips.
I press a soft kiss to her knuckles before lowering our joined hands to my thigh, my fingers slipping between hers and holding on.
She doesn’t say anything else. She only gives me a faint smile, then drops her gaze back to her phone and resumes scrolling, leaving the silence between us to stretch.
I use it to try to sort through the chaos in my head, going over everything again and again, desperately trying to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do next—and, more importantly, what it is I truly want.
✨
A few hours later, I’m alone in bed.
She’d fallen asleep before I came out of the shower after we got back from the party, and I’d ended up falling asleep not long after her. Barely.
I hadn’t wanted to wrap my arms around her or touch her because I felt fucking filthy.
And I still do.
The thought sits heavily in my chest as I push myself off the bed and listen carefully for any sound that might tell me where she is in the house.
She moved in with me right after we decided to have a relationship. At first, she only stayed over every night, even though she refused to bring any of her things here. But slowly, piece by piece, she brought everything over—most of it after the two nights she spent alone in New York.
Now her presence is everywhere. Her clothes fill the closet, her things have found their places throughout the house, and somehow, it has started to feel like home to both of us.
It’s obvious Selene isn’t nearby. The house is silent, so I head downstairs to the lower level, my bare feet quiet on the steps.
The farther down I go, the more clearly I hear the music.
Then movement.
My steps slow.
When I reach the bottom of the last staircase, the living room comes fully into view, and I stop.
Selene stands in the middle of it with her eyes closed, unaware of me. She’s lost in the song drifting through the speakers, moving slowly to the rhythm as though there’s no one else in the world around her.
Sway by Michael Bublé floats softly through the house. Not loud. Not even close. Just enough to reach the stairs and, apparently, enough to make her want to dance.
For a moment, I simply stare, leaning on the railing, unable to tear my eyes away from her.
She’s wearing a black silk nightdress, its thin straps resting delicately on her shoulders, and she’s barefoot. The soft light moves across her tanned skin each time she turns, catching the subtle shifts of her body as she sways to the music.
Something inside me twists.
