Page 81 of Ceremony of Lust

My knees buckle, and I crumple to the plush carpet beneath my feet. “Last night, he said he loved me. If he loves me, then why did he leave? It doesn’t make sense.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulder and tugs me against him. “I’ve known Zev a long time. Nothing he does makes sense, but he has good reasons for everything he does. It all works out in the end. We have to trust he knows what he’s doing.” My fingers wrap around his T-shirt and his hands run lightly up and down my back. “Let’s give him a few days.”

“A few days?”

“Yeah,” he breathes out.

“My birthday is in a week.” And our wedding anniversary is in two weeks.

“Oh.”

I push away from Fraser and stand. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“I’ll be here if you need anything,” he says with a half-smile I’m sure is meant to reassure me but doesn’t. It only emphasizes the fact my husband left and wants a divorce.

I manage to get through my shower without breaking down, but when I emerge from the bathroom, Fraser is sitting at the foot of the bed, my divorce papers in his hands.

“He asked me for these two days ago,” he says, shaking them. “I thought he changed his mind. I thought he wanted them so he could destroy them. I didn’t think he’d actually give them to you.”

I take the paperwork out of his hands. My eyes land on the grounds for divorce.Incompatibility. I laugh because it couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re compatible in so many ways. He’s the perfect man for me, despite his questionable past. I can’t imagine myself married to any other man. I can’t imagine myself loving anyone else.

Zev Landau is the only man my heart beats for. He’s the only man who’ll ever have it, and he’s the only man who’s broken it.

I hand the papers back to Fraser. “You said to give him a few days,” I say softly but firmly. “I’ll give him that time.”

“Does that mean you’ll sign the papers?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I certainly never imagined myself nineteen, divorced, pregnant and alone, but then again, most girls my age aren’t forced into arranged marriages.”

Something Zev once said to me pops into my head. I have another chance to take charge of my own life, and the life of my unborn child. I can be whoever I want, do whatever I want because I would be free of Ripley’s unorthodox culture.

“Maybe,” I say finally, slipping the paperwork back in the envelope.

45

Zev

Areyou sure you want to do this?I silently ask my reflection as I slip on the crisp black suit jacket hanging from the back of a chair.

“No,” I say aloud. “But it must be done.”

It’s not lost on me that today is Yael’s birthday. A year ago, we were matched. She was chosen for me. It’s amazing how one decision can change everything.

Today will be another day of great change, one no one expects. I only hope it’s not irrevocably; one day, I hope to earn her forgiveness and win back her love.

This is a part of your plan.

There’s a soft knock on the door, and it opens. Hadassah appears, dressed somberly in a black caftan. Her normally outlandish accessories are equally subtle. She knows her role is changing as well. She no longer holds the fate of Ripley in the palm of her hand. That was my first demand—no more Match Ceremonies, no more arranged marriages.

I was surprised when she didn’t fight me.

“The Elders are meeting now,” she tells me. “We need to go.”

In a matter of hours, the main chamber of the Ripley Temple will start to fill and my heart fills with the hope of seeing Yael. Will she come tonight?

We walk through the stark white halls of the temple, our footsteps echoing as we make our way toward the private chambers of the Elders. In my hands, I carry the evidence I need to take over. The proof that gives me power over these men.

All of the Elders look up in surprise, which quickly dissolves into anger when we walk through the doors of their sacred space.