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“He took a beautiful young girl and turned her into a junkie.”
Zach jerked to his feet.His chair crashed into the wall behind.Karim jumped back, but his eyes continued to taunt Zach.
“How old are you, Miss Green?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“My sister would’ve been twenty-eight two weeks ago.But he ended her life.”
“Karim.”This time, the warning came from Nabila.Her eyes darted to Zach and immediately shifted away.
“I meant what I said in that message.You need to be careful he doesn’t do that to you, too.”
“Karim.Enough!”His father stared him down, but anger rolled across the younger man’s face.“Mr.Savage, I urge you to remember the terms of our previous agreement and reconsider.”
Zach calmly resumed his seat.“No.I’m telling Bethany before she signs.That is non-negotiable.”
“You trust her to keep our secret?”Nabila asked, her voice husky with the raw emotion displayed in her eyes.
Zach’s nostrils flared, and he swallowed hard.Bethany looked deep into his eyes and caught a glimpse of the desperately lonely boy yearning for a connection.She vowed there and then to be whatever Zachary Savage needed.
“I trust her to do whatever she feels is right for her.I’ve trusted her since the moment I met her, but I was too damned blind to see it.”
His words knocked the air out of her lungs.“Zach…”
“Give us the room please.”
“This is… Don’t think we won’t sue your arrogant billionaire ass if this goes sideways, Savage!You’ll be looking at serious jail time by the time I’m done with you if you don’t rethink this right now.”
Zach barely glanced at Karim.“No, you won’t.If you want to know why you won’t be coming after me, ask your mother.”
Nabila’s horror-filled gasp echoed in the room.Her husband turned sharply toward her, his eyes widening as her pale, pain-ravaged face crumpled and she began to sob quietly.
Stanley jumped to his feet and ushered the couple out.Karim followed at a slower pace, suspicion and confusion momentarily blanking out his anger.
The moment they were alone, Zach reached for Bethany and pulled her into his lap.He meshed one hand in her hair and then clasped her hand against his chest.“I’m sorry, Bethany.I should’ve done this a long time ago.I should’ve told you that night in Marrakech.”
“You needed time to sort things out in your head.You’ve held on to this for six years.Even though I feel like I can’t remember a time before having you in my life, it’s really been just three weeks since we met, Zach.I wanted too much, too soon.”
He looked a little shocked at the reminder, but he shook his head.“I wanted everything from you the moment I laid eyes on you.You had the right to demand the same from me.”He sucked in a jagged breath and let it out.“No more secrets, Bethany.”
She swallowed.“No more secrets.”
32
He kissed the back of her hand and nodded, resolute.
“The IL plane took off about an hour before Karim was due to land at McCarran.”His eyes clouded with regret at the memory.“I was so damned pleased with myself that I’d won.Farrah was ecstatic, and we started partying hard on the plane.We stopped over in LA to pick up a few more people.I suspect they were the ones who brought the drugs on board—I was too off my head with booze to enforce the no-drugs policy.I went to sleep and woke up somewhere over the Pacific.Farrah wasn’t in bed, so I went to look for her.”He stopped and swallowed.His eyes had turned dark with ravaging anguish.
“I found her on the sky deck.She had heroin next to her body.At first I thought she was dead.But I found a pulse.I held her until we landed back in LA.But the damage was too much.She went into a coma, and the doctors declared her brain dead.”
“Oh God, Zach.”
He shut his eyes and leaned heavily on her.“I was twenty-five.With a wife who was technically dead, in-laws who blamed me for everything, and a police force who thought I was a privileged asshole who deserved jail-time for putting a young girl on life support.Luckily, the cops didn’t find enough drugs on the plane for them to charge me.So I dodged that bullet.”His voice reeked with bitter mockery.“Then the doctors started talking about shutting off her life support.I hated that responsibility, but as her husband, it was down to me.I tried to talk to her parents about it.Fawad and Karim point-blank refused.Nabila… She just wanted Farrah to be at peace.We agreed to hire experts to get as much information as possible.I made it happen.Every single one of them confirmed she was… gone.”
Bethany’s hand speared into his hair, and his arms banded tight around her.She felt a touch of moisture on her chest and realized Zach was crying.Her big, powerfully magnificent man was breaking down in her arms.
“It’s okay, baby.I’m here.It’s okay.”