CHAPTER SEVEN

      SOPHIE COULD ONLY stare at Zayn, his admission settling heavily in the room, like a blanket of dust, covering everything it touched. She didn’t want to speak for fear she might disturb it all, for fear she might disrupt it, cloud the air and stop his confession. Interrupt what he was about to say. And yet, she found she could hardly breathe in the silence, waiting for him to continue. Waiting for him to explain.

      But he didn’t speak. He only sat, his dark eyes fixed on a spot behind her, not the tent wall, somewhere more distant than that. Perhaps somewhere back in the past.

      “Zayn?” she asked. Her voice seemed far too loud in the stillness, competing with the rain falling on the tent top. Disturbing the natural order.

      He still didn’t speak, a sharp breath making his chest pitch, lifting his shoulders. And then he looked back at her, snapping back to the present, as though he had never been gone. But he had been, she knew it as certainly as she was sitting there.

      “I am responsible for the death of my younger sister Jasmine.” He said the words again as though to affirm them both to himself and to her.

      He had mentioned his sister just last night, and yet, at the time nothing had been brought up in her memory. But now... Dimly she thought she might be able to remember a news story about the death of a royal princess somewhere in the world. But it was hard to say what was memory and what was her brain trying to forge a connection between this moment and a moment in her past. Trying to find a way to connect even more deeply than she already had. Which was a mistake, and yet she couldn’t stop herself.

      “And she was younger?”

      “By only a couple of years. Leila, my sister who is still alive, is the baby. Jasmine and I were much closer in age. And we were friends. Often, we got into trouble together. Until I outgrew her, until I started to do things I did not want my sister involved in. Of course, I did not want my younger sister sleeping around and drinking to excess. Those things were fine for me but in my mind off-limits to her. To this day I cannot say what I was thinking. Because I do not understand. I do not understand that man. That man I was sixteen years ago.”

      “Why have I heard so little about this? It seems as though if there were a real scandal here it would be covered in the news even now.”

      “Yes, and it would be, if anyone knew the full story.”

      “Are you sure you want to tell the whole story to me?”

      She had to give him a chance to change his mind. A chance to leave it unspoken. To leave her in the dark. But she wanted to push him to tell her, too, because this might be the scandal he’d mentioned. The one she needed to stop the Chatsfields.

       Did you ever stop to think who else it could ruin?

      No. And she couldn’t. This was for Isabelle.

      His dark eyes leveled with hers. “I am going to tell you the story. What you do with it after is up to you. You want the scandal, and this is the scandal I can give you.”

      “The scandal I’m after?” she asked, her throat dry.

      “Somehow I doubt it. But does it matter? You’re a journalist. And this is the better story. This is the thing you need.”

      Her throat tightened, her stomach cramping uncomfortably. “Is it about James Chatsfield?”

      “No, it is not. The only villain in this story is me. Or perhaps Damien, should you wish to cast him as such. But I don’t blame you if you do not wish to speak ill of the dead.”

      Dimly she thought she should turn on her digital recorder, but she didn’t want to interrupt him for anything. Didn’t want him to become conscious of her recording his words. It was okay, though, because she wouldn’t forget them. No matter what she did with his words after this, she would not forget them.

      “I’m listening.”

      “When you live a lifestyle such as mine you attract a certain sort of person. And it must be acknowledged that I was one of them. I was not above any of those I brought to the family palace. I was a part of them. I was the chief of sinners, in no way above any of their actions, and often leading them. These were the people I brought home. And my sister, who had been my closest friend growing up, was confused as to why I preferred these people over her now. Damien was my partner in crime. The drinking, the womanizing, he was there for all of it. I knew what manner of man he was, and yet, I introduced him to Jasmine.”

      Again she wanted to say something, wanted to interrupt and offer comfort in some way. Wanted to stop the flow of words from coming out of his mouth, so he wouldn’t expose himself in this way. So he wouldn’t reveal his secrets to her. Because she wasn’t certain she was equal to them, wasn’t certain she was worthy of them.

      She had no armor in this moment, adrift in a sea, rather than clinging doggedly to the pier and trying to appear as though she was secure.

      “She was taken with Damien from the first, but I assumed, in my arrogance, that Damien knew better than to touch her. Still, when I noticed my sister’s fascination with him I warned her away. I was not kind. I told her that silly virgins should never even speak to men like that. She asked if that meant she should not speak to me. Of course I said that was different. But I started to wonder if it was. I started to wonder why I was content to be the sort of person I would not allow my sister to associate with. But it was too late.”

      He continued. “One day I walked into my chambers to find Damien with Jasmine. He had clearly given her alcohol, and possibly another substance, and she was impaired. Laughing, and hanging all over him. And then Damien, my friend, looked at me and told me that she was no longer a silly virgin and asked if it was okay now for her to associate with him.” Zayn clenched his jaw, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “I was enraged, Sophie. Were there a weapon in my hand I think I might have destroyed Damien there and then. I told them to go. I told him to get out of my sight, to leave my home and never come back. And Jasmine, in love with him as she was, clung to him and told me she was going with him. And I told her I did not want to see her again. I told her...that she had brought shame onto our family and that she was dead to me. I said...I said terrible things to her.”

      He pushed his hands through his hair, and lowered his head. “So she left with him. And only an hour later we received word they were in a terrible accident, and that none involved had survived. So you see the reason there was no scandal. No hint of what went on between us. How could there be? It would endanger public opinion of me if word were to get out how I spoke to her at the end. Of course, I never imagined he would drive, not in the state he was in. But I should’ve known. Because the most disturbing thing about my confrontation with Damien was that it was like looking into a mirror. It was realizing that had the roles been reversed, had he invited me into his home, had his innocent sister showed interest in me, I cannot guarantee I would not have done the same thing he’d done. He didn’t love Jasmine. And yet he took her, took her from the palace, took her from this world. And I do not believe I would have done any better. I do not believe I would have acted any more honorably. It destroyed me to lose her. It destroyed me that I introduced her to the man who led her down that path, that I drove her away from the palace and into his car with him. And that was when I knew I had to change.”

      She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. “That’s why you believe so strongly in duty. That’s why you’re marrying Christine.”

      “I trust nothing