Eternal Temptation

❥ 38| to soar to the skies

"Good." I nodded, walking over to the other counter to make myself some tea. "You?"

"I'm good."

I didn't know what to say after that. I didn't even have anything to do with my hands since I was done making my tea and I just stared down at it awkwardly, wondering what to say. Did I talk about last night? Did we leave it unspoken? What was I supposed to do?

This really wasn't how I pictured this morning going.

"Zayaan—"

"Faithe—"

We both began at the same time and quickly shut our mouths after realising the other had something to say.

He shook his head. "Sorry. You go first."

"No, it's fine. You speak first."

"Faithe, please. I'm sure—"

"Zayaan," I interrupted. "Speak."

He sighed and said, "I'm sorry about last night."

All the hope I'd let build up immediately smashed into smithereens. He regretted it.

"You're sorry?" I asked, unable to disguise the hurt in my voice. "You regret it? Are you serious, Zayaan?"

His eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head. "No, Faithe. I—"

My defences kicked in and I started to ramble. "No, actually. You know what? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to kiss me. I should've known that it wouldn't do us any good. I should have realised that you would regret it. I should have realised that I couldn't trust you." With my heart.

But I didn't voice that aloud. Not that I tried because when he took a few steps forward, foregoing the idea of personal space, and placed both hands on my shoulders, I immediately shut up.

"I shouldn't have started like that," he said slowly, peering into my eyes earnestly. "That was wrong and I'm sorry, Faithe. But you shouldn't jump to conclusions. I never said that I regretted our kiss. All I said was that I was sorry."

My eyebrows tugged down and I opened my mouth to argue, but thought better of it and just let him speak.

"I'm sorry because of how rushed it was. I'm sorry because I wanted our first kiss to be more romantic than that. I'm sorry because you deserved something better than a kiss right after a rejection. I'm sorry that you felt it was a kiss only out of pity. Because it wasn't, Faithe. I could kiss you out of many things, but not pity. Never pity."

When he slowly took a step back after his last sentence, all I could think to say was: "You really are a romantic, Zayaan Haidar."

Zayaan laughed. "Yeah? Well, thank you but it seems I'm only a romantic when it comes to you."

"You better be," I affirmed. "Because I'm not sharing you with anyone else."

"No?" There was a glint in his eyes. "Not even with my future wife?"

I slapped his shoulder. "I'm your future wife. Your only wife. There's not going to be any woman after me. There better not be, Haidar."

"There's not going to be, Faithe," he said honestly. "However, I would really like it if my wife could trust me. I would like it if she didn't jump to conclusions and immediately try to pull away when I say something. I worded it wrong, and I'm really sorry about that, but you shouldn't jump to say those things, Faithe."

I shut my eyes, mentally berating myself. I'd said that I shouldn't have trusted him. If he'd said that to me, my heart would have broken.

"I'm sorry, Zayaan," I apologised, glancing up at him regretfully. "That was horrible of me to say. I panicked, and all my defences kicked in and I started saying whatever I could to lessen the wound I thought was coming."