Zahra wasn’t sure how to react to Gregor showing up at her front door at three in the morning. Her first instinct had been to slam the door in his face, but he looked so damn pitiful she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
“It’s three in the morning, Gregor. What are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you,” he said.
“Really? Well, I’ve needed to talk to you for the past week, but you’ve avoided me. Maybe you should leave, and I’ll give you a call when I’m ready to talk.” She attempted to close the door, but he stopped her.
“Zahra, please.”
She allowed him inside, then led the way into the living room. “Make this quick. I’m tired.” Which wasn’t a lie. She’d finally dozed off, only to be awakened by the very person keeping her up at night. How ironic.
When Gregor motioned for her to have a seat, she folded her arms across her chest in a defiant manner. Mainly to hide the fact that she still wore his engagement ring. Not for much longer. “Say what you’ve come here to say,” she said.
“I’m not good at apologies. I’ve never had to be. In the past, expensive gifts were all I needed to make things right.”
“Your bribes won’t work on me,” she said.
“I know.” He paused for a couple of seconds. “Are you sure I can’t buy you a Bentley?” He gave a nervous laugh.
Stone-faced, Zahra said, “Are you sure you want to waste your extremely limited time here on jokes?” It was clear he was using humor to help him approach whatever he struggled to say, but she wasn’t in a laughing mood.
“I...” He blew a heavy breath. “I needed time to—”
She gave a humorless laugh. “It’s been a week.” She shook her head. “I honestly didn’t fault you for needing a day to get your thoughts together. A day. But one day passed. Two days passed. Three. Then an entire week. Not one single word from you, Gregor. Not a peep. Nothing.”
“Zahra, I—”
She wanted to stop to give Gregor the opportunity to speak, but there was so much pent-up frustration inside her that she couldn’t keep herself from continuing. “Did you ever consider that I needed you?”
“I—”
“No,” she snapped. “You never once thought about me, only yourself. Only your suffering. You weren’t the only one suffering, Gregor. It was my naked body going viral on the internet. It was me being called everything from a freak to a THOT. I was the one who was being absolutely humiliated in front of the world.” When Gregor reached for her, she abruptly moved away. “Don’t you dare touch me,” she said through clenched teeth. “You no longer have that privilege.”
“Okay,” he said, barely audible.
Zahra’s heart sank a bit when she noticed the raw and pure hurt in Gregor’s eyes. He took a step back and slid his hands into his pockets. Dammit. Stay strong.
Unshed tears burned Zahra’s eyes. “During all of my suffering, the only thing I wanted, the one thing I needed, was you. Whispering in my ear that, though this was bad, we would get through it because we had each other.” A tear finally slid down her cheek. “I needed you, Gregor. I needed you,” she repeated. “I needed my protector, my lover, my best friend. But you weren’t there. So why are you here now?”
“To fight for you,” he said without hesitation.
“You should have been fighting with me,” Zahra said.
“You’re right. I should have been by your side.” He washed a hand over his head. “When I watched that tape, Zahra, it triggered something inside me.”
The admission jarred her. He’d watched the tape? The idea made her stomach queasy.
“Something...” A pained looked distorted his features. “I was wrong, baby. The way I handled things. The way I shut you out. I was so wrong.”
“Yeah, you were. You hurt me, Gregor. It was the one thing you’d promised to never do. And I trusted and believed you.”
“I know.” He lowered his head briefly. Meeting her eyes again, he said, “I don’t like to talk about my past, but it’s the only way for me to help you understand. My past molded me into who I am.” He shrugged. “Good and bad. Before The Cardinal House, I’d never had anyone, Zahra. No one to talk to. No one to listen to my problems. No one to care. No one had my back but me.”
Gregor’s body language told her how difficult this was for him. The urge to comfort him grew intense. She fought it with all her might.
He continued. “When things happened that I couldn’t handle, I’d shut down. It was what I knew. I would retreat into my shell like a turtle in hiding. And when I was there, it was always hard for me to come out. My ther—” Gregor stopped abruptly but continued a second later. “My therapist says it’s a self-preservation mechanism.”
Therapist. Wow. She was stunned he’d shared this with her. A part of her softened.
Gregor eyed her intently, like he expected her to have a negative reaction to him seeing a therapist? She wished more people—especially black men, who often carried the weight of two worlds on their shoulders—would seek the professional help they needed instead of holding so much inside. She thought no less of Gregor for seeking professional help.
“Why did you hesitate to share the fact that you’re in therapy?”
“It’s not something I go around advertising. Until this moment, I’ve never even admitted it to myself. I disguised it as talking to an old friend.”
Zahra studied him for a long moment. “Is that all your therapist had to say? Nothing about ego? Pride? Stubbornness?”
“He may have mentioned something about pride being a catalyst for destruction.”
“Sounds like a smart man.”
Gregor closed the distance between them. “I’m not perfect, Zahra.”
“I never needed you to be. Yet, it seems like you expect perfection from me.”
“To me, you are as perfect as perfect can get. You’re the closest I’ve ever gotten to perfection.”
Zahra glanced away, wanting to pretend his words hadn’t touched her, when they truly had.
Gregor placed a hand under her chin. This time she didn’t pull away.
“You changed my life, Zahra. You believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. I love you, Zahra Antionette Hart. I. Love. You. And I’ve never been surer about anything in my life.”
Nope, she refused to allow his words to penetrate her shell.
“For as long as I can remember, my looks, then my money, then my fame have been my blankets. You stripped that all away. All that was left was me. The real me. Gregor Denton Carter. You make me feel as if that’s just enough. That I’m enough. Just me.”
For someone who wasn’t good at expressing himself, he was doing a damn good job of it. “How do I know, Gregor? How do I know that the next time we approach stormy weather, you won’t shut down?” How could she live with such uncertainty?
“You can’t know, Zahra. And I can’t convince you. All I can do is ask you to believe in me again. I’m asking you to trust that I’ll never again do anything to jeopardize us.”
Zahra took several steps back, turned and lowered her head to her engagement ring. Behind her, Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” began to play. She turned. “Is this supposed to influence me?”
“In one of your books, you said the perfect song could soften a heart,” he said.
Zahra cursed the tender sentiment that swirled inside her, turning her hardened heart to mush. “That was in reference to my characters and their love story.”
“Baby, we are a love story. We’re just waiting for our happily-ever-after.” He captured and lifted her left hand, then eyed the diamond on her finger. “You still love me, Zahra, or you wouldn’t be wearing your ring.”
She never said she’d stopped loving him. “It’s stuck,” she said with mild humor in her tone.
“That means fate has spoken. You’re stuck with me.” He tossed his phone aside and cradled her face between his hands. “Being in this kind of love, Zahra, is like an emotional minefield for me. But I’ll risk life and limb every single day just to be with you.”
She swallowed the swell of emotion lodged in her throat.
“Stick with me, baby. Stick with me, and I swear I’ll make you the happiest woman alive.” Moments later, he lowered himself to one knee. “Zahra Antoinette Hart, will you find your way back to me? Will you forgive me? Will you love me? Will you spend your life with me? Will you make me whole again?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, because she wanted to feel complete again, too.
Gregor’s head dropped, and he exhaled heavily as if he’d been holding his breath. A second later, he came to his feet and snatched her into his arms and held her tight. “God answered my prayers,” he whispered into the crook of her neck. “I’ll love you for a lifetime.”
She knew he would.