He finally choked out, “What truth?”
“That you no longer want me.”
This was literally the last thing he’d expected her to say. It hit him so hard, everything in his mind fractured.
“Jenan, this is insane...”
“Yes, it seems my name is quite apt. I must be insane to feel crushed now when you already told me what you wanted from the get-go. But you don’t want it from me anymore, and I’m here to tell you it’s your right to change your mind. But it isn’t your right to drag this out, to not just release me. If you think evading me is letting me down easy, it’s far more painful than if you’d just looked me in the eye and told me it’s over.”
Every word fell on him like a sledgehammer.
He’d been so consumed in his worries and efforts to put things right, he’d made things catastrophically worse. He hadn’t even thought how his evasions would seem to her, but she’d found them so inexplicable, so hurtful, she’d reached the worst possible conclusion.
Before he could think of anything to say, she strode past him, heading toward where Najeeb was seated.
He pounced to stop her. “Where are you going?”
The spasm of pain that twisted her face almost tore his heart apart. “I said not to worry. I won’t try to stay or to impose on you. I’ll just get some stuff I need. You can send the rest later. Or just throw it away.”
He wanted to blurt out a thousand protests, but only one thing made it out of the churning mess in his mind. “This is your place.”
Her forlorn expression deepened, widening the wound her pain had gouged in his being. “I only considered it mine when I thought you were, too, when we were together. But you’re not, and we won’t be again. Tomorrow I’ll send you the papers reverting the ownership to you.” She tried to move again, and his hand tightened convulsively on her arm with horror at the terrible things she believed. And suspicion blossomed like an ink stain in her eyes. “You have someone inside?”
Shocked all over again at her horrific assumption, more evidence of how disastrously he’d messed up, he could only stare at her helplessly.
And everything in her eyes died. It felt far worse than anything he’d endured in captivity, seeing that look in her eyes.
“Jenan, please...”
Tears arrowed down her cheeks, drowning her words and his. “I never expected you to love me as I loved you. I only ever wanted you to be honest with me.”
Hearing her for the first time say she loved him—only for her to make it in the past tense—was unbearable. Like knowing he could have saved someone’s life, and out of his own negligence, he’d arrived just moments too late.
This time he didn’t let her resist him, but crushed her in his arms. “Jenan, Jenan, what have I done to you, to us? I damaged your trust in me so much you think I have a woman in there?” A tear splashed over his chest, corroding its way through to his heart as she shook all over and struggled to escape his embrace. He crushed her to him harder, groaned between feverish kisses all over her face. “Everything you think is the absolute opposite of the truth. It agonizes me to know I made you think it. But it’s true I don’t love you like you love me.” At her lurching sob, he squeezed her tighter, as if he’d merge her into his body. “After all I’ve suffered in my life, I love you far more than you can ever love me.”
This time when she struggled, it was to look up.
Her eyes looked so fragile and inflamed she had to have been weeping long before she’d come. But that dreadful grief was giving way to hope. His heart swelled with impending relief only to shrivel the next second.
“It’s true he doesn’t have a woman in there. The secrets he’s been hiding are far, far worse than that.”
Both he and Jenan swung around at the dark drawl.
Numair’s arms loosened around Jenan with dismay, letting her go as her face went slack with surprise. “Najeeb.”
He couldn’t have them both here now. It might cause a chain reaction he wouldn’t be able to control.
Numair turned urgently to Jenan. “I do have secrets, but they have nothing to do with us, with what I feel for you. I also have reasons for the way I’ve been behaving, and I’ll explain everything, only later. Please, ya habibati, just go now, let me conclude this with Najeeb and trust that everything I do is for you, for us.”
As Jenan’s eyes softened with such relief and tension left her body, Najeeb’s harsh sarcasm washed over them once more, stiffening her all over again.
“Your powers of manipulation border on magic, don’t they, Numair?” Najeeb’s steps were measured, his face as hard as stone, his eyes simmering with rage. Then he turned his gaze to Jenan. “When I heard your anguish as I approached, I thought he’d told you everything.” His gaze swung back to Numair. “But then I realized you were still playing her. What I felt the moment I saw you was right. There are far darker things to you, and colder, more terrible motives to your being with her than even I feared. But you realized I was on to you, and you poured on the pretense, conned me like you conned her from the start.”