Page 45 of Heart of a Villain

“But…something’s wrong.”

“Which is why you asked me what you asked me.” Ayesha sighed, the whites of her eyes clouding over. “Unfortunately, Adrían, what happened the night she arrived? It looked a lot like a trauma response, something I’ve seen many times and experienced myself. I think that’s why it feels like I’m hurting with her. I’m familiar with empathy, but this almost feels like it goes deeper than that.”

He cleared his throat and tapped the floor with his right foot to remind himself that Rafael had to remain where he was. That the asshole served a purpose. That he would ruin everything if he went to the basement, slit the bastard’s throat, bled him into a goblet, and then had him choke on his blood.

“Ayesha, I…I fucking missed her,” he said. “I missed her. God, I missed her, and now she’s here. She’s in front of me, but how? I watched her die.”

“It feels like a trick in some ways.”

“Yes, like I’m dreaming.”

“Then, to make matters worse, she didn’t come back to you the same.”

“Exactly, but I don’t mean that, over the course of a decade, she’s not allowed to change,” he clarified. “I’ve changed myself. But I sense it, Ayesha. I know she’s been hurt, and I’m afraid to allow myself to envision how badly, or else it will take me somewhere I haven’t been for a long time. A place I don’t want her to see me go.”

He punched the countertop. The stone punched back, but he welcomed the pain. He knew who Chamas was, what they did.

“Ayesha, I never stopped wanting her. I was forced to stop wanting her. Do you understand? To me, she died, so at some point, I had to give her up. I didn’t want to. I had to. If Curtis came back?—”

“I can’t answer that,” Ayesha said, both palms facing him. “I truly, truly cannot answer that, and I don’t want to try.”

“I know, and I’m sorry for asking.”

There was no untangling Ayesha’s feelings for Joel the way his feelings for her seemed to be unraveling, snaking their way back to who they’d always belonged to. Then, he couldn’t see Joel conceding the way he had, even if Joel’s “opponent” would have been Josiah and Theo’s biological father.

“Ayesha, I used to have these dreams. In them, I was wrong. Sayeda wasn’t the body I saw, but I don’t know that until we run into each other at a market. I see her, and as I’m going to her, I see she’s not alone. She’s with a child. Our child. The child I didn’t know I had also left behind. If she hadn’t ‘died,’ I would have wanted that with her. I would have wanted a family, and I thought I lost that chance, permanently, until you came to the door of your office. There you were, holding Theo, who looked like he could be our little Brazilian baby.”

“That must have been so hard for you.”

“In the beginning, yes. I started dreaming again. I hated holding on to wanting more, wanting that family, but I couldn’t let you go. I couldn’t let her go.”

“And when Joel came along?”

“It wasn’t when Joel came along that things changed,” he said. “It was when I learned how deeply you loved him. I was pissed, but there was a sort of relief.”

“You could stop dreaming,” Ayesha continued. “Finally, you could stop hoping for a second chance with Sayeda and accept that she was gone. You could heal. But then she comes back, the real Sayeda, and the issue isn’t that you’re falling in love with her all over again.”

“It’s that I’ve been in love with her for the last ten years,” he finished. “In this world, it’s me for her and her for me. I can’t lose her, Ayesha. If I have to, I want to go with her. She belongs with me. In life and in death.”

“You sound like Joel.”

“Well, we are best friends.”

She laughed.

Still, he enjoyed the sound.

It made sense now what she meant when she said she loved him. He wanted her to know only happiness. He wanted her life to be full of love and family and life’s riches, but he no longer desired to be the man to provide those for her. If there’d been no Joel and Sayeda returned to his life, the ugly truth was that he would have gone back to Sayeda—or tried to convince them to let him take care of them both.

“Adrían, think about it,” she began. “Brigadeiros for a breakfast spread? You’re not the only person trying to navigate feelings through hurt. In my professional opinion, Sayeda’s searching for the version of herself who loved you. She didn’t come back into your life. You both returned to each other’s lives. She needs you just as much as you want her.”

“And your…personal opinion?”

“It really depends on how long ago the trauma was and whether she’s processed it enough to move forward. After my situation with Lavigne, it took some time for me to be okay with sex. I still wanted Joel, still desired and craved him, but we had a small mountain to climb. You’re a sweetheart, and you love her. I think, with time, you both can work through it like me and Joel did.”

It wasn’t clear whether Joel would be receptive to his asking about how he’d handled it, but he was willing to risk his life to get Sayeda back.

“Tell me what to do,” he said. “Or are you not allowed to?”

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