Page 60 of Cruel Fate

“You want us to be . . . together?” I ask, unsure.

“Too soon?” He notes the surprise on my face.

“No, but...you...” I don’t know how to say I thought he was a player and wouldn’t want to be with just one woman.

“I’ve been stupid, Stella. Before we met. Losing my mom and dad made me crazy. Sometimes I still can’t believe...but I don’t want you to think...I don’t want you to think I’ll act that way when we’re seeing each other. If you say you’ll be exclusive, so will I.”

I don’t like how he phrased that, and I call him on it. “But if I say no, you’ll go back to sleeping with whoever will fuck you?”

Which is practically every woman in King’s Crossing.

“No. That came out wrong. I don’t want to be like that anymore. Even if you say you want to see other people, I won’t. I just...” He flops onto his back, the coffee nearly sloshing out of his cup. “The thought of you dating someone else hurts. That’s all.”

I set our mugs on the nightstand, crawl into bed, and lie against his chest, one of my legs between his, the apex of my thighs caressing his hip.

He hugs me close, and his eyes have a teary sheen. Oh, my sweet baby. Life is so hard.

I brush his lips with mine. “I won’t see anyone else. You’re the only one I want.”

“I love you, Stella.”

It’s time to tell him. “I love you, too.”

We make love, and it feels different now that we’ve said the words to each other. There’s more meaning behind it. An added layer that wasn’t there before. He gently holds me, and I murmur words of comfort into his ear.

I love him so much, and I’ll do whatever I can to make his life easier, help him reconcile his parents’ deaths.

Zane offers a car to bring me home, but I decline, leaving him dozing, our coffee cooling on his nightstand.

I have plenty to keep me busy all weekend, and I do my chores, his words whispering through my mind and filling my heart.

Let’s go shopping!

Zarah’s text lights up my cell phone’s screen later that afternoon. I’m in the middle of doing laundry and deciding what I want to eat for dinner. Zane said he needed to work the rest of the weekend, and I planned to spend the next day and a half alone.

After seeing her and Ash on TV, I thought, like Zane had, she would be too busy to do anything else.

I accept, and we agree to meet in her building’s lobby at four o’clock.

Since I spent the morning with Zane, that doesn’t give me much time. I shower and pin up my hair. I’m assuming we’ll be shopping for dresses for the party, and I like how I look when my hair’s up. Sophisticated. Elegant.

I don’t know what to wear to shop in though, and I decide on a plain navy wrap dress and beige flats just in case we walk a lot. Wearing my black trench coat, I look cute enough, as long as no one thinks to look at the brand names of my clothes.

My sunglasses are dollar store, not Dolce and Gabbana.

I hurry up the sidewalk from the train, and Zarah’s already sitting on the steps outside her building, a notebook laying in her lap. She’s scribbling notes, and she looks normal, like she’s not a billion-dollar heiress or the girlfriend of one of the richest men in the country. I catch her eye and wave, and she waggles her pen at me. This is where the press conference is going to be held. I like the look of it. I can picture Zane standing on the top step behind a podium, a hundred microphones capturing all he has to say, his building looming majestically behind him.

He’ll hold everyone’s attention and the press will gobble up his words. I wonder who will write his speech, or if he’ll handle that himself.

“Hi.” I’m closer now, and she looks like she did on TV when Lucille and I watched her this morning. Stiff, guarded. She’s not the same bubbly girl eating cheesecake and drinking wine in herkitchen. She stands, and it’s not my imagination she winces as she straightens. “Are you okay?” I ask.

Maybe she and Ash had a workout. The first time Zane made love to me, I hurt for a couple of days, but I didn’t tell him. Ash might have gotten a little carried away. Sometimes men don’t realize how strong they are.

“Hi,” Zarah says, ignoring my question and yanking her purse strap up her arm. Sunglasses hide her eyes. I want to pull them off and look into her face, but my hands stay tucked into the pockets of my coat.

I don’t know Zarah well. I don’t know if I can call her a friend. Not just yet.

“How are you?” I ask again as we start down the sidewalk. I have no idea where we’re going and I’m at her mercy.

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