Chapter Eight: For This Moment

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Zeynep knew she was dreaming. She HAD to be. Bariş had actually turned her down - TWICE! In what realm was that a possibility? She stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Fuming, she paced back and forth, eventually stepping into the bathroom to scowl at her own reflection in stubborn disbelief. This could not be happening. Not here. Not tonight. Not in this dress and certainly not in THESE heels. This was NOT how this evening was supposed to go.

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She'd spent the entire day thinking about him to the point missing him became a physical ache

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She'd spent the entire day thinking about him to the point missing him became a physical ache. She had picked out this dress with him in mind. She wanted to drive him as crazy as she felt. Eda had read her like a book and gleefully helped plan her attack. She'd even specifically requested Zeynep wear these designer heels that were, as Eda empathetically proclaimed, made for sex. What had she called them? Fuck-me pumps?! Zeynep turned the exact shade of said shoes just thinking about it. She couldn't believe she'd been so open with Eda. The woman had a way about her that made you want to tell her everything. The good, the bad and the grey in-between. Including how she fell in love with her boss.

In love. Zeynep brought her hand to her chest and felt her heart pound in response to the thought as her blood rushed through her veins. She was in love with Bariş. It was the one thing in life she was sure of at the moment. The trip to London had given her the opportunity to completely remove herself from the chaos she was forged in and detox from its harmful effects. Taking assessment of herself outside of everything she once fervently believed to be true had been a harsh lesson in tough truths. She'd never known genuine love before.

Her birth parents had cloaked her in guilt and raised her with in responsibility to care for them from the time she was a child, but they had never cared for HER. When Zeynep was subsequently sold her to her foster parents, that family had sheltered her in privilege, but with that came specific obligations that demanded unquestioning loyalty for the kindness and never actually gave her a choice or a say in her own life in any real way. By the time she met Mehdi, her idea of love was so distorted she mistook the safety she felt with him as love. That safety had shown itself to be a deranged obsession and possessiveness of her. And just like the homes that formed her, that version of love had come with a price. A debt she would be asked to pay with her life.

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