34. CHAPTER 34 #2
Did he know there was another reason he ran though? A reason he chose to marry a woman he liked but didn't love? Mellie had every right to feel insecure. That was clear now.
Whether Zayne could ever feel for Kira, given the chance, she'd never know. She'd never know if the care he'd shown her could grow that one kiss into something more. If there ever had been anything more.
After all he'd been through, he let one person into his heart, and she betrayed him for the brother who hated him.
Zayne was afraid of love. He didn't think he deserved it even if he wasn't. Probably thought he deserved for Nadia to shatter his heart.
Why had she done it? Could she truly not resist Luke?
Kira couldn't understand wanting both brothers. Their values were so different.
This left Zayne alone, because even if he overcame his fear, he believed the Phaedra would use his love against him.
Such a lonely life.
“You've tried so hard to stay away from me,” Kira said. “It never works. Maybe you need a new plan.”
The suggestion prickled her skin, her entire body sensitive and aching. Kira didn't know what to do. She'd never felt this way before.
It made her dizzy.
Zayne walked to her, his movement shifting the thickness between them like water, so she felt the ripples of his nearness. Felt him drawing closer until she couldn't breathe.
He reached a hand to her.
Her heart skipped when her fingers slid along his, and their palms smoothed together.
When his strong hand closed around hers, and he pulled her to her feet, their bodies were inches apart.
That draw too strong. That tension packed into too slim a space.
Packed in so tight it would explode any second.
“It meant something to me.” Voice quiet, eyes unguarded, thumb pressing softly into the back of her hand. “I need to leave that behind. Let me.”
He withdrew from her, and it ripped the oxygen from her body.
Her hand sizzled.
She stretched her fingers, breathing in sharply at the surprise of his touch.
Then Kira closed her hand to capture the sensation, not ready to lose the feel of Zayne's skin.
His.
Not a stranger in a mask, but the man she knew.
A man forbidden to her.
Longing for him all these years didn't compare to seeing him but being unable to reach him. This hurt far worse.
When he placed his hand to the light switch, she hurried outside, afraid she may lose her mind in this small space with him.
The cool air relieved the heat in her cheeks but didn't reach what smoldered in her core. This was torture.
Kira and Zayne returned to the house without talking or looking at one another. Definitely without touching again.
“It meant something to me.”
Whatever it meant to him, she didn't know, but it was enough that it mattered. Her thumb worked along the side of her hand where his fingers had gripped her.
Nearing the edge of the woods, Zayne finally looked at her. “Your drone made it, by the way.”
Her foot hit a branch, and she stumbled, catching herself on a tree. “You knew?”
He smiled at her for the second time ever. “I haven't missed one of your drones in three years. If it doesn't make it where it's going, I need to find it.”
Just like the one that actually did go missing. Her heart melted and pooled inside of her.
“They're good drones.” He kept walking. “Very reliable.”
Kira could hear her heart beating the rest of the walk to the house. When they entered, she practically bolted for her room, needing space to collect her thoughts. But she halted when she saw Brock sitting in the living room.
“Hi,” she said.
Brock eyed her and then Zayne, who also stopped. “You two were gone for a while.”
That drew a quiet snarl from Zayne. “We were outside.”
“Looking for first flowers,” Kira said breathlessly, trying to keep her story straight just in case anyone did surveil them.
A smirk eased onto Brock's face. “Looking for flowers? That's sweet.”
“Shut up.” Zayne stalked past him for the hallway.
“Did you find any?” Brock asked.
“Much more than expected,” she said. “You here for dinner?”
“I am. Also, incoming.”
Kira looked up to see the headlights approaching. Mellie's driver. Great.
No, that wasn't nice. It wasn't Mellie's fault that Zayne kissed her, spent years protecting her, and never bothered to tell her. Or that Kira couldn't stop thinking about that night.
Definitely not his fiancée's fault.
The door opened, and Mellie called out to Zayne. Then her new friend found her and squeezed her tight.
“I'm so hungry.” Mellie sat on the couch beside Brock. “I can't wait to eat.”
Kira walked past Zayne to put her shoes away, and he stiffened. Literally stiffened.
No one else might have noticed, but she was so attuned to his every move right now that she couldn't miss it.
When she came back, she chose a chair on the opposite side of the room from him.
“Did you two fight?” Mellie glanced between Zayne and Kira. “It feels so tense.”
Brock snorted a laugh and tried—quite poorly—to cover it with a cough. Though he enjoyed teasing Zayne, that one seemed like a genuine reaction he didn't mean to have, and it fanned the flame in Kira's cheeks again.
Eyes narrowing, Zayne cast a glare at Brock.
“What?” Mellie asked. “You did, didn't you?” She slapped the couch. “I told you to be nice to your cousin.”
“I didn't do anything,” Zayne said.
“Oh, I'm sure you didn't.”
Mellie continued to bicker with him while Kira sank lower into the chair, trying to disappear from the woman who didn't know that she wasn't her fiancé's cousin.