But he was missing an important detail about his wife’s past, and he wouldn’t relax until he knew it all.
Not that he expected her to be vindicated. In fact, it was what he feared most. If it turned out that the photographs had not been what they appeared, he would never forgive himself for what he’d put her through. What he’d put them both through.
He didn’t need to worry too much on that score. After all, how likely was it that she’d been entirely innocent? It was her bed. Her body. Her email account.
“Sir? Lord Cottee will see you now.”
Zayn rose and crossed the reception area, not at all aware of the appreciative inspection the receptionist gave him. In his jet black suit, he made quite the picture, but Zayn was used to women’s attention. There was only one woman’s stare that had ever been able to set his body on fire.
“I’ve asked them to drop the title,” Andrew said with an apologetic flop of his unruly blonde hair. He ran his fingers through it, combing it carelessly to one side, before extending the hand to Zayn.
Andrew’s dark blue eyes were skittish, and Zayn wondered briefly if he was still on drugs.
“I imagine it would be a little intimidating to your usual client list,” Zayn agreed genially, taking Andrew’s hand and pumping it once. It cost him, to behave civilly to the man who had been to bed with his wife, but he managed it.
“Not to you, though?” Andrew asked, indicating for Zayn to take the seat opposite the desk, as he eased himself into his own office chair.
Zayn didn’t comply. “My title rather outranks yours,” he said seriously.
“Of course.” Andrew leaned back in his chair and made a show of straightening his tie. Zayn watched through narrowed eyes. The blonde man was nervous. Zayn was not in the mood to offer comfort. He was going to go straight in for the kill.
“Tell me about these photographs.” Zayn pulled his phone from his breast pocket and handed it to Andrew. The images were on screen, and Zayn watched intently as Andrew flicked through them. His cheeks were pale, his expression suddenly even more unsettled.
“Oh, God.” He squeezed his eyes shut and held the phone aloft.
Zayn took it and then crossed his arms across his chest. “Tell me everything, Andrew. For God’s sake, tell me what happened.”
Andrew forced himself to look at the other man. “Does Jules know?”
Zayn felt the heavy weight of regret getting heavier. “She sent them.”
“No.” Andrew shook his head earnestly, and the mop of hair fell forward once more. “No, she didn’t. I did.” His Adam’s Apple bobbled in his pale throat as he gulped in pained recollection.
Zayn let the words filter through his mind, and slowly, he sat down opposite Andrew. “Explain how you have these photographs of my wife, and why you sent them to me. Explain immediately.”
Andrew nodded. “Of course. Look, mate, I would have told Jules sooner, but there didn’t seem to be any point. You’d obviously moved on, and I thought she would too, one day. I was as shocked as anyone when you guys announced your engagement. But I just thought you’d worked through it all. That it was all in the past.” He raised beseeching eyes to Zayn. “It was stupid. In my defense, I was pretty much permanently high as a kite back then.”
“I know. I had you investigated.”
“You did?” Andrew let out a low whistle.
“Of course. I loved Julia. I might have been furious that she’d slept with another man, but I still wanted to be certain she was safe. What I discovered about you left me unsatisfied.”
“Rightly so,” Andrew concurred with sorrow. “I was a mess. In fact, it’s thanks to Julia that I’ve finally got my life sorted.”
“I’m pleased you feel your life is more balanced, but I came here to find out about the specific circumstances that led to these photographs being taken, and ending up in my inbox.”
“Right, of course.” Andrew took a sip on his coffee then spat it back into the cup. “Stone cold,” he said apologetically.
Zayn nodded impatiently.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat this,” he said with a self-recriminating frown. “I got Julia drunk. Intentionally. She can’t handle more than a sip of liquor, as you must know. I laced her champagne with vodka. And lots of it.”
Zayn’s head snapped as though he’d been punched. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”
“No. I suppose not.” Andrew licked his lips nervously, though he had no idea how close Zayn was to reaching across the table and unleashing a violent punch. “Look, I never intended to do anything to her. She has been one of my best friends for years. But… I wanted… I mean… presumably you’ve guessed that I’m in love with her too?”
Zayn narrowed his eyes. “It had occurred to me.”
“I thought I was getting somewhere. She and I were spending more time together. Then you came out of nowhere and she was lost to me. You were all she ever talked about. I simply thought I might be able to … cause trouble for the two of you. With you off the scene, I hoped she’d come back to me.”
“She didn’t though.”
“No. She never so much as looked at another guy after you. Not only that, she was miserable. Oh, not miserable, like normal people. It’s Julia, after all. She has the temperament of an angel, and she loves life with a passion. But there was always a darkness within her, after you left, and it was all my fault.” He took in a deep breath. “I was so close to telling her, so many times, but I knew she’d never forgive me.”
“Do you think you deserve forgiveness?” Zayn posed the question to Andrew, but he was really asking it of himself.
“No. Not in a million years. Hell, I’ve been waiting for the axe to drop for years. Is she angry?”
“She will be when she learns the full story,” Zayn promised.
“Please, just make sure she knows I never intended to hurt her.”
Zayn narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you? By your own admission, she was madly in love with me. And yet you sent me – Sheikh of Naman, a conservative Kingdom – pictures of Julia in bed, half-naked, with another man. You must have known it would be a death knell to our relationship. How could I, a Sheikh, put up with such a betrayal? So what did you think she’d feel? Overjoyed?” He lowered his head into his hands as the full, sprawling mess laid itself out before him. Julia had been the victim of Andrew’s scheming cruelty, and then of his, and she was the innocent in all of it.
“I hoped she’d transfer her affections to me, and that, yes, I’d make her happy.” Andrew looked guilty. “But it doesn’t matter now. You guys are back together. You’re married and happy. That’s the important thing, right?”
Zayn stood, and fixed Andrew with a glare that would have made a rhinoceros feel small. “Thank you for explaining things to me, Andrew. Please don’t ever contact my wife again.”
And despite what the other man had done to her, he couldn’t help smiling ruefully as he imagined Julia’s outrage when she learned that her husband had just broken up with one of her friends. Because Andrew had been right. Julia, sweet, effervescent, happy-go-lucky Julia, would have found it in her heart to forgive Andrew, despite the damage he’d wrought.
But ultimately, it was all at Zayn’s feet.
If he hadn’t been so proud! If he’d had the courage to call the woman he loved and demand an explanation, it would all have been resolved.
He couldn’t change the past, but he could damned well apologize for it. He’d only got off the flight from Naman a couple of hours earlier, but he wasn’t going to cool his heels in London any longer than he had to.
He leaned forward and commanded his driver to return to the airport. He was going home. He just hoped his wife would hear him out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Zayn?” Julia froze in the middle of the dining room, her expression impossible to read. She was wearing one of the more formal dresses he’d given her, and it looked heavenly on her petite body. “You look awful,” she observed frankl
y, as she took in his tired looking face, unbrushed hair, and crumpled business shirt.
“Thanks,” he drawled with a curt nod. He placed his briefcase down inside the door, and moved slowly towards her.
Julia, anxious and nervous, stepped backwards. “Amal and Adina are coming for dinner,” she said warningly. “I thought you might be them.”
“Can you cancel? We need to speak.”
Julia’s eyes were haunted. “No. I can’t cancel, even if I wanted to. Adina said she had something important to tell us.”
Zayn honed in on her phrasing. “You don’t want to cancel?”
“No,” she hissed at him, angrily.
“Why not?”
“Where have you been?” Her voice was hollow, her eyes round in her expressive face.
“Trying to get some answers.”
She stared at him, and it was obvious to Zayn she was waging a mental battle. “You mean you weren’t with another woman?”
Zayn would have laughed because it was so ludicrous, except she looked terrified, and he wanted to ease her burden. “Of course I wasn’t. You’re my wife. Why ever would you think…?”
“I distinctly remember you wouldn’t commit to a life of monogamy when we got engaged,” she reminded him now.
“I was not with another woman,” he answered her query directly. “I went to London. I needed to know the truth about those photos.”
“What do you mean?” She asked after a long silence.
“I went to see your friend Lord Cottee,” he said earnestly.
“Andrew?” She swayed a little. “Is it… what did he say?”
Zayn could read this woman like a book. “You suspect what happened that night, don’t you?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s the only answer. I hardly ever drink, and didn’t really that night. He’s had a terrible history with drugs, and he was pretty out of it at the awards. I always wondered if he’d drugged my drink, or spiked it or something. As you so shrewdly noticed, he does have a bit of a crush on me.”
“Actually, he’s madly in love with you,” Zayn said quietly.
Julia gulped. “The poor thing. So he posed the whole episode. To break us up?”
“Yes.” It was a grunt. “How can you feel sympathy for that man?”
She dug her hands into the pockets of her linen dress. “Oh, I’m angry with him, too,” she promised Zayn firmly. “But he was a mess back then. He almost got expelled because his behavior was so below what was expected. He wasn’t in his right mind.”
“I suppose that, at least, gives him an excuse.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” she said wistfully. “You saw those photos and immediately started planning how you could retaliate. Do you know what it felt like? To see you parading woman after woman through your life? I was so in love with you, Zayn.”
“And I with you,” he countered forcefully, resisting the strong urge to pull her into his arms. “I loved you, Julia. I should have questioned the email, but I was so devastated, I couldn’t think straight. I thought you’d cheated on me. I just wanted to prove to everyone – you, most of all – that I was over you.”
“You did it. My heart had an open wound and you just kept pouring acid on it.”
He ran a hand through his hair, knowing there was no way to even start apologizing for the way he’d burst back onto the bachelor scene, publicly hoping to wound his innocent and naïve ex.
“I have to tell you something,” he said, inspiration arriving when he needed it most. “Please.”
It was so unlike Zayn to ask, instead of simply demanding, that she pushed aside her reluctance and followed him into his study. She hadn’t been in there since the day she’d discovered the email, and she hesitated on the threshold now.
“Please,” he said again, pinning her with his dark eyes.
She nodded and moved across to his desk. He angled the laptop towards her and she stared at the document on screen. “This is the purchase contract for my father’s business,” she commented numbly, not reading more than the title. She looked up at him. “What is your point, Zayn? To remind me of just what length you were prepared to go to in order to ‘buy’ me?”
“No,” he shook his head. “Julia, look at it. Read the name.”
She lowered her gaze to the screen and this time, forced herself to read the black and white on screen. “You’ve put the business in my name.” She looked at him, confusion apparent. “Why?”
He came around the desk and took her hands in his. “Because, habibte, I knew you would never forgive me if I didn’t.”
She frowned, so that a little crease formed between her brows. “But you think this makes everything okay?”
“Not at all. I just wanted to show you that in marrying you I hoped we would one day remember how much we had once cared. That we had once loved each other.”
“None of this makes any sense,” she said, pulling her hands free and moving away from him. “I don’t understand why you wanted to marry me. I don’t understand, Zayn.”
“I love you, Julia. I always have, and I always will. It was not easy for me to accept, when I thought you’d humiliated me by being with another man. And yet, I knew I loved you despite what I thought of as your betrayal.”
She shook her head. “Why not just tell me? Why not come back and ask me to marry you properly?”
“If you had said no, I think a part of me would have died,” he said with more honesty than he’d ever shown another person before. “I couldn’t risk it.”
“So instead you forced me to marry you? Didn’t you think you were risking far worse? That I might hate you forever?”
“At the time, I thought there was little likelihood of that happening. You were the one who pointed out my arrogant personality, Julia. I believed I could seduce you into submission, if nothing else.”
She smiled despite herself. “But then you couldn’t.” She sobered. “You said you didn’t want to be with a woman who was willing to have sex for money. Or something like that.”
He at least had the decency to look shame-faced. “Would you have ever forgiven me if I’d held you to the terms of our so called marriage ‘agreement’?”
She flushed to the roots of her hair, recalling how disappointed she’d been that night, when he’d put an end to their spectacular love-making. “I think there might have been compensating factors,” she said with her usual candor, earning a slow grin from her husband. “Don’t,” she held up a warning finger. “You are so far from being out of the woods.”
But Zayn sensed her weakening, and he was not above pushing his advantage. Like a beast advancing on his prey, he drew her into his arms and kissed her hard on the lips, tasting her with the sheer relief and desperation of a man who had messed up badly, and knew it.
Julia knew she should pull away, but she wanted nothing more than to be with her husband. Zayn loved her. He always had. It had all been a ridiculous disaster. But still, what precedent was she setting for the rest of their marriage by allowing him to get away with such a simple apology?
Holding grudges had never been her forte, though, and Julia could already feel her resentment slipping further and further away. With every moment their lips and bodies were connected, her anger and hurt diminished.
He moved his lips to her forehead and pressed a kiss against the soft flesh beneath her hairline. “Julia, I need to know how bad this is for us,” he said honestly.
Julia relaxed her body against his. To herself, she acknowledged there was nowhere else she wanted to be in the world. But she wasn’t sure she could completely trust her heart to his man yet. “What do you mean?” She asked, fixing him with a quizzical stare.
He let out a gruff noise of complaint. “You are really going to ask me to demean myself, aren’t you?”
Her lips formed an impish grin. “I think you owe me a little groveling, don’t you?”
“Fine,” he said with a smile of surrender. “I love you, Julia. With all my he
art. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the matter.”
She pretended to consider it. “Well, I’m flattered, naturally. I mean, you are, after all, the great Sheikh of Naman. A natural born womanizer…”
“Not anymore,” he contradicted gruffly.
“Mmm, well in that case,” she said, finger posed on her lips as she pretended to think things through.
“Julia?” Adina’s voice broke into their private conversation, drifting in from the hallway beyond, and Zayn swore softly.
“Saved by the bell. For now.” His eyes shone with promise.
Julia gave him a small wink and then moved away from him, out of the study. Zayn watched her go, a small frown tugging at the corner of his mouth. He was almost positive that she loved him back. That she would, in time, forgive him for his foolish behavior. But she still didn’t have the full story, and Adina and Amal were the two people on the planet who could spoil it for him.
With another oath, he realized he needed to speak to her properly, before Amal let it slip that Zayn had formally agreed to take over the rule of Naman. Julia had made it clear that she didn’t want that life for herself. If she thought he’d gone ahead and blithely arranged it anyway, then she would be furious. And he couldn’t keep expecting her to forgive and forget. Even the most generous of natures could be tested by too many incursions against it.
He moved swiftly, but Julia had already joined Adina and Amal in the lounge area of his home. And a third guest sat prettily between them.
“Hello, Maysan,” he greeted the child in English, for Julia’s benefit.
Adina’s smile spread from ear to ear. “We were just telling Julia,” Adina said with so much happiness it was almost contagious, “that we’ve expedited our adoption of Maysan. How can we ever thank you for finding our beautiful daughter, Julia?”
Somehow, Julia managed to look genuinely delighted as she congratulated Amal and Adina. Only the glance she quickly flicked in Zayn’s direction betrayed that she understood the deeper ramifications of their decision to adopt. For Adina had been explicit. They couldn’t adopt while Amal was ruling. “I had hoped it would work out like this,” Julia said truthfully, squeezing the little girl’s hand.
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