Page 33 of Ruthless Regret

I walk over to the sink and rinse my mug. The warm water running over my fingers grounds me, pulling me back to the here and now, to the things Icancontrol.

I might not be able to control Zain’s behavior, or what happened between us, but Icancontrol what I choose to do next.

I mentally tick off the list of things I need to deal with. The phone, the landlord, the drivers license. All things that can be handled easily. It’s the rest of it that’s the problem.

I stare blindly down at the sink, my thoughts tying me up in knots, reminding me of everything I’ve been avoiding. Every decision I’ve been too scared to face.

But I can’t avoid it anymore.

The truth is there, hovering just beneath the surface, waiting for me to acknowledge it.

Everything in my life right now circles back to Zain. He’s like a storm that keeps pulling me in, no matter how hard I try to resist.

I can’t keeprunning.

The thought echoes in my mind, louder and louder until it drowns out everything else.

Ican’tkeep running from what happened. I have to face it once and for all.

I lean against the counter.

What do I do now?

There’s no going back to the person I was before. That much is clear. The version of myself who buried her head in the sand, pretending life was neat and orderly, is gone. She crumbled the moment Zain bulldozed his way into my life, with all his bitterness and anger, forcing me to face a past I’ve spent years trying to forget.

But I also can’t move forward until I figure out what I’m supposed to do with thisnewversion of myself. The one who doesn’t fit into the life I’ve built. The one who doesn’t know how to reconcile everything she’s feeling.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

The Ashley who pretended everything was fine, that her relationship with Scott was normal, who avoided conflict and attachments—she’s gone. But the Ashley who’s standing herenow, alone in the dark, thinking about a man she’s supposed to hate, she’s still forming. She’s still trying to figure out where she fits in all of this.

Zain.

Every thought I have leads back to him. To the way he looked at me. The way his voice sounded when he wasn’t being the cold calculating bastard who forced me to marry him.

I push away from the counter, walk back to the table and sit down, so I can rest my head in my hands, and rub my temples. I keep trying to focus on anything but him, but new memories force their way through the self-guilt and confusion.

His touch, his kiss, the way his body felt against mine. It all rushes back in a flood of sensation that leaves me breathless. And beneath all of that, I remember his face. The vulnerability I saw in his eyes.

At that moment, I didn’t see the man who wanted to destroy me. I saw someone who was just as broken as I am.

I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. I can’t pretend that I didn’t feel something when he touched me, when he kissed me. It wasn’t anger or guilt. It definitely wasn’t love, but it wassomething, and it scared the hell out of me.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ZAIN

I’ve beenout of prison for five days. How have I been out for five fucking days? It feels like five years.

How did I manage to fuck up so much in so little time?

That’s the question that haunts me while I stare up at the bathroom ceiling. The room isn’t as small as my cell in prison, but it’s small enough that I don’t feel exposed.

The bed is too soft, too open, too big. I tried sleeping in it earlier, but the space swallowed me whole.

Fourteen years in a cell does something to a person. It makes you forget what it’s like to have room to breathe. Four walls, close enough to touch if you stood in the center of the room, became my world. Being in a room where I can stretch out without my fingertips brushing against the walls feelswrong.

So here I am, lying on the bathroom floor, staring at the ceiling and pretending I’m going to fall asleep.

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