Chapter 17 #2
"Thanks," I said quietly, scared that anything else would open a floodgate, that I’d reveal the truth that, despite what we’d shared last night, I didn’t know what to expect when I saw Oliver next.
I didn’t know if I’d get stoic, calculated Oliver or passionate, wild Oliver.
And I still wasn’t sure if I was happy about sleeping with him.
“I need some air,” I told Parisa, who nodded understandingly. “I’ll be in the garden off the main terrace if you need me.”
With a final hug, we went our separate ways.
I wandered to a quiet spot in the garden with a fountain and several benches, sitting on the one that offered me the most cover from the outside world, and tried to sort through the tangle of emotions inside me.
My hand slipped into my pocket, fingers closing around the button I'd found. So heavy for such a small thing.
We'd crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed, and now I had to figure out how to maintain our professional arrangement when I could still feel him moving inside me, desperate and unhinged.
And the way he whispered my name, like he’d die if he didn’t feel me coming around him, unraveling with him.
But it wasn’t just us that had shifted. It was me .
The way Oliver had looked at me, like I was the sun without which his universe would fade into darkness, had awakened something I'd thought long dead, something I'd buried after Ryan.
Trust .
I'd trusted Oliver with my body, with my pleasure, with my surrender. And he hadn't taken advantage. Hadn't used it against me. Hadn't made me feel small or afraid.
Oliver, with all his stops pulled, all his logic and rules thrown out the window, made me feel safe.
“My Lumina.”
Goosebumps freckled my skin when the words echoed in my head, spoken so tenderly, as if I were the most precious thing he’d ever held in his arms.
The scent of the blooms lay heavy in the air, and I closed my eyes, trying to steady my racing thoughts, to find some semblance of control before I spiraled further.
“Zahra, there you are.” Aunt Maryam appeared from around the fountain. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
The warmth in her voice was a lie. A veneer of concern stretched thin over something colder, sharper.
She glided toward me, effortlessly regal, undeniably in control. Even in yoga pants, she carried herself like a woman who had already won whatever battle she was about to start.
When she lowered herself onto the bench beside me, I moved instinctively, making space.
“Darryl’s mother is insisting on more flowers in the arrangements, and your great-aunt just informed us she’s bringing a plus-one, so we need to work on the seating charts.”
“I’ll handle it.” I started to rise, only to be stopped by her hand on my wrist.
Aunt Maryam released a long, disappointed sigh. “It should have already been handled, Zahra.”
I sank back onto the bench. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't rearrange the seating chart or handle the florist." Her perfectly manicured nails dug into my flesh. “This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. You were always reckless.”
I stiffened, my teeth clenching. “I’m not reckless.”
“No?” She tilted her head, her gaze flicking to Oliver’s mark, her nose crinkling in disapproval. “Then what would you call it? Destroying your reputation over a man who won’t even be here in a week?”
“I don’t understand.”
She smiled, and I braced myself.
“Oh, Zahra.” She exhaled my name like a sigh, like a mother dealing with a particularly difficult child. “The entire hotel knows what you were doing last night.”
The weight of her words sank into my stomach like a stone.
She shook her head. Not angry, not even surprised. Just disappointed.
"I knew that man was no good the moment I laid eyes on him."
"Oliver?" The unfairness of her judgment stung, but I couldn’t bring myself to outright argue with her. She’d long been the matriarch of our family, the one whose authority we all deferred to, and challenging her, at her own daughter’s wedding no less, was the kind of disrespect I was raised never to commit.
“Do you have any idea what obscenities people are whispering about you? No decent man would cause a woman such public shame.”
I bit my tongue against the defense that rose in my throat. Years of experience had taught me it was easier to weather Aunt Maryam's storms in silence.
“He lets you run wild,” she said simply, her hold like cast iron shackles despite being light. “A good man would be guiding you, shaping you into someone worthy of your status.”
My stomach twisted. In Auntie’s mind, guidance actually meant control.
“He’s nothing but a distraction from your bright future.” She smoothed invisible wrinkles from her yoga pants. “A future you should be building here in Norman, with your family.”
“My life is in Seattle, Auntie,” I said quietly, my eyes fixed on the fountain.
“What life?” she asked with a disdainful laugh. “Your scientist? He’ll be gone in a week, back to whatever laboratory he crawled out of. And where will that leave you?"
Alone. Exactly as planned.
“My business is in Seattle, too.”
“Your business would have been thriving if you’d stayed here, and married a respectable young man from a good family. Someone with connections, with the power to open doors.”
The realization was a slap to the face. She wasn't merely disapproving of Oliver; she was actively pushing me toward someone else. Someone she deemed more suitable, more aligned with her vision for the Nazarian clan and their affluence in Norman.
Someone like Ryan.
My stomach twisted into nausea-inducing knots. This was more than Ryan effectively working his charm, this was a calculated choice. Not about my happiness, not about my wellbeing, but about expanding my family’s reach. I was nothing more than a trading card for Maryam.
"This weekend isn't about me," I said carefully. "It's about Parisa."
"Precisely. Parisa understands her role. She and Darryl will build something meaningful here—a family with influence." Her gaze sharpened. "You could have the same if you stopped chasing distractions."
My chest constricted, breathing becoming harder by the second. I had to get out of there.
"I need to finish the seating arrangements." I forced the words out, just barely.
"Yes, you do." Maryam stood, straightening her designer yoga top.
"And Zahra? Remember that a night of passion is nothing compared to a lifetime of position.
" She touched my chin, forcing me to meet her gaze.
"I just hope that when Oliver leaves—and he will leave—better men will still find you worthy of their time. "
Her words sank into me like fangs full of venom. Not because I was worried about Ryan’s current or future interest in me, that was never happening, no matter how hard Aunt Maryam pushed, but because she was right.
Oliver wasn’t staying.
Those were the rules.
Those were always the rules.
And the worst part? I was the one who made them, the one who agreed to every goddamn clause and signed my name at the bottom of the contract.
The one who was so adamant from the very beginning that this was just business.
And I had no right to miss him before he was even gone, because I knew how that story ended.
I was the girl who let him bleed and walked away.
The girl who chose silence when he needed my voice the most.
The girl who wasn’t worth staying for.
And in ten days, he was going to erase me from his life all over again.