17. Victor Comes Back

Zara's POV

I should have known my day was going too well.

The moment I step out of the boutique and spot Victor Black leaning against his car across the street, every pleasant thought I have entertained since breakfast disappears. He looks exactly as I remember him, dressed in an immaculate charcoal suit, his expensive watch catching the afternoon sunlight, his dark hair perfectly styled, and that handsome face wearing an expression of wounded regret that would probably fool anyone who didn't know what an excellent liar he could be.

Unfortunately for him, I know.

I know what he looks like when he lies, how his voice softens when he wants something, and how quickly he can turn himself into the injured party when his own actions threaten to expose him. I used to find those little mannerisms endearing. I used to believe they meant he trusted me enough to let me see the vulnerable man beneath his polished exterior.

Apparently, I was an idiot.

"Zara," he calls when I start towards my car.

I don't stop.

"Zara, please. I need to speak with you."

"Then speak to a therapist, Victor. I'm sure they'll be fascinated by whatever the fuck is wrong with you."

He catches up with me before I reach my driver's door, and I turn so sharply that he stops a few feet away.

"Do not touch me," I warn when he reaches towards my arm.

He lowers his hand, his expression tightening before he replaces it with the familiar look of regret.

"I wasn't going to hurt you."

"That's reassuring, considering you managed to humiliate me without lifting a finger."

"I know you're angry."

I laugh in disbelief. "You don't say."

"I deserve your anger, Zara. I know that, and I'm not here to pretend I didn't make mistakes."

"Mistakes?" I repeat, staring at him. "You mean sleeping with my sister while you were engaged to me? Or was it the part where you stood there when they forced me to marry Damon on what was supposed to be our wedding day? I need you to be specific because you've given me quite a selection."

Pain flickers across his face, and for one treacherous second I remember the man I thought I loved. Then I remember the hotel, the betrayal, the wedding that never happened, and the way he watched my life fall apart without doing a damn thing to stop it.

Whatever tenderness I once felt for him dies all over again.

"I know I handled everything badly," he says. "But things got out of control, and I didn't know how to fix them."

"You could have started by telling the truth."

"I should have."

"You could have ended our engagement before crawling into Arabella's bed."

"I know."

"You could have shown even a fraction of the loyalty you demanded from me."

His mouth tightens. "I know, Zara."

"Stop saying that as though acknowledging your crimes somehow makes you less guilty."

He falls silent, and I watch him carefully. Something about this encounter feels wrong. Victor has always been calculating, but today there is a deliberate patience in the way he speaks, as though he has rehearsed this conversation and is waiting for me to react in precisely the way he expects.

I don't trust it.

"What do you want?" I ask.

"To talk."

"About what? How difficult it was to choose between me and my sister? How terribly you suffered while I was the one left to deal with the humiliation? Or perhaps you'd like to tell me that you still love me, because that seems to be the favourite line of men who have already destroyed everything they touched."

"I do still care about you."

I stare at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.

He doesn't join me.

"You're serious," I say.

"Yes."

"Jesus Christ, Victor. Do you practise this shit in front of a mirror?"

His jaw flexes. "You can mock me all you want, but what we had was real."

"Was it? Because I remember being engaged to a man who promised to love me, respect me, and stand beside me, and then I caught him fucking my sister. I remember that man standing in the middle of my ruined wedding while my family made decisions about my life as though I were a piece of furniture they needed to move out of the way. So forgive me if your little speech about how much I meant to you doesn't bring tears to my eyes."

"I never wanted you to end up in that situation."

"But you let it happen."

"I couldn't change what happened at the hotel."

"You could have told the truth about your affair with Arabella. You could have refused to stand there pretending you were the wronged party. You could have done a thousand things differently, but you didn't. Don't come here now and act as though you were some helpless bystander."

For the first time, his expression loses its carefully cultivated sadness.

"Do you honestly think you were the only one who got hurt?"

I go very still.

There it is.

The sympathy card, followed by the inevitable attempt to make me feel guilty for being the person he betrayed.

"Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me you're the victim?" I ask.

"I'm telling you that things weren't as simple as you think. I had feelings for you, Zara. I cared about you, and then everything fell apart. You slept with Damon, and suddenly I was expected to stand there and accept that the woman I was supposed to marry had ended up in another man's bed."

For a second, I genuinely cannot believe what I am hearing.

Then I slap him.

The crack of my palm against his cheek cuts through the noise of the street. Victor's head turns with the force of it, and he stands motionless, one hand slowly rising to his face.

I don't regret it.

Not for a single fucking second.

"How dare you?" I demand, stepping towards him. "How dare you stand here and accuse me of betraying you when you and Arabella were having an affair long before I ever ended up in Damon's bed?"

He looks back at me, stunned, and I can see the anger gathering behind his eyes.

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, I know exactly what I'm talking about. You were sleeping with my sister while you were still wearing the ring I gave you the right to put on my finger. You were lying to my face while planning a future with her behind my back, and now you have the fucking nerve to tell me that I betrayed you?"

"I didn't say you were innocent."

"You just called me a traitor!"

"Because you were supposed to marry me!"

"And you were supposed to love me!"

My voice cracks on the last word, and I hate that he hears it. I hate that, despite everything, there is still a tiny part of me that remembers what it felt like to believe in him. I refuse to let that part of me speak again.

"You don't get to rewrite history because you don't like how it ended," I continue. "You don't get to make me the villain in your little tragedy just because I didn't spend the rest of my life crying over you."

Victor lowers his hand from his cheek. A red mark is already forming on his skin.

"You married Damon."

"Because I was forced to!"

"You still slept with him."

"And you were already sleeping with Arabella!"

His mouth closes.

I take a breath, forcing myself to steady my voice before I say something I might regret. Not because I care about protecting Victor's feelings, but because I refuse to give him the satisfaction of watching me lose control.

"Listen to me carefully. Whatever happened between Damon and me, it happened after you betrayed me. You and Arabella made your choices long before that wedding day, and neither of you gets to stand there pretending my humiliation somehow absolves you of what you did."

He studies me, and the wounded expression begins to creep back onto his face.

"I came here because I wanted to make things right."

"No, you came here because you want something."

His eyes flicker.

It is a tiny movement, barely noticeable, but I catch it.

I knew it.

Victor may be a talented liar, but he has never been as good at hiding his intentions from me as he believes.

"What are you really doing here?" I ask.

"I'm trying to explain myself."

"Try harder."

He looks away, rubbing his jaw where my hand struck him. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter, almost intimate, as though he believes lowering it will make me forget the last five minutes.

"I miss you, Zara. I miss the way things were before everything became so complicated. I miss talking to you, being around you, knowing that there was someone who understood me."

I stare at him with undisguised contempt.

"You miss having someone who believed your lies."

"That's not fair."

"Neither was what you did to me."

He exhales heavily, and for a moment he looks genuinely exhausted.

"I know you're never going to forgive me for Arabella, but I thought perhaps, with time, we could at least stop hating each other."

"Why would I want that?"

"Because we shared something important."

"We shared an engagement. You turned it into a joke."

"I loved you."

"And yet you couldn't keep your hands off my sister."

His face hardens.

"Arabella and I have a complicated relationship."

I laugh again, though there is nothing amusing about it.

"No, Victor. You have a selfish relationship. You wanted me when I was convenient, and you wanted Arabella when she made you feel something different. Instead of having the courage to choose one of us honestly, you decided you were entitled to both."

"That's not how it happened."

"Then tell me how it happened."

He opens his mouth, but no answer comes.

I nod slowly.

"Exactly."

I turn towards my car, but I am no longer in a hurry to leave. There is something I have wanted to ask him since the day my wedding collapsed, something that has been sitting in the back of my mind beneath all the anger and humiliation.

The night of our wedding rehearsal dinner.

The night everything changed.

I had trusted Victor then. I had trusted my family, too, even though they had spent years making me feel as though I would never measure up to Arabella. I had believed I was walking into a future I had chosen for myself, and by the time the truth came crashing down around me, there had been too many people making decisions on my behalf for me to understand what had really happened.

I still don't understand it.

And I am done accepting convenient explanations from people who have something to hide.

I turn back to Victor.

"Tell me something."

He watches me warily. "What?"

"What really happened that night?"

His expression changes.

It is quick, but I see it. The slight stiffening of his shoulders, the pause before he answers, the way his eyes move away from mine as though he needs a moment to decide which lie will serve him best.

"What are you talking about?"

"The night of our wedding rehearsal dinner. The night Damon and I ended up in that hotel room and everything went to hell the next morning."

Victor's face becomes unreadable.

"You know what happened."

"No, I know what everyone told me happened. There's a difference."

"Zara, you were there."

"I was there for part of it. That doesn't mean I understand everything that happened, and you know damn well that no one ever gave me a straight answer." I step closer. "So I'm going to ask you again. What really happened that night?"

He holds my gaze for several seconds before letting out a slow breath.

"You were upset."

"That's not an answer."

"You'd been drinking, and things were already tense between everyone."

"I know that much."

"Then what else do you want me to say?"

"The truth would be a nice change."

He shakes his head, but I notice that he doesn't look surprised by my questions. If anything, he looks as though he has been waiting for me to ask them.

That unsettles me more than I want to admit.

"Why are you asking about this now?" he says.

"Because I'm tired of people deciding what I should know about my own life. Because you and Arabella betrayed me, my parents forced me into a marriage I never wanted, and everyone expected me to accept it without asking questions. And because every time I try to understand what happened, someone suddenly becomes very interested in telling me to leave the past alone."

His eyes narrow slightly.

"Who told you that?"

"That isn't your concern."

"Was it your mother?"

I say nothing.

He notices.

For the first time, something resembling genuine concern crosses his face, although I am no longer foolish enough to trust what I see there.

"Zara, perhaps there are things you don't need to reopen."

I stare at him.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

"I'm serious."

"You're the last person on earth who gets to tell me what I need to know."

"I am trying to protect you."

The words are so absurd that I actually take a step back.

"Protect me? You couldn't even protect our engagement from your own wandering dick, and now you want to play my fucking bodyguard?"

His expression darkens.

"You don't have to make this ugly."

"You made it ugly when you betrayed me. You made it ugly when you stood by and watched me marry Damon. And you made it ugly when you came here pretending you wanted forgiveness while blaming me for something you had no right to hold against me in the first place."

I open my car door.

"We're done, Victor."

He doesn't move.

"Zara, listen to me. Whatever you think happened that night, you need to be careful about who you accuse."

My hand stills on the door handle.

I turn my head slowly.

"Is that a threat?"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

He hesitates, and that hesitation tells me more than his words have.

"I know things about that night that you don't."

My pulse quickens, but I keep my face expressionless.

"Then tell me."

"I can't."

"Can't, or won't?"

He says nothing.

I let out a cold laugh.

"Of course. You come here, accuse me of betraying you, tell me you still care about me, and then act as though you're doing me a favour by withholding information about the night my life fell apart. You really are a piece of work, Victor."

"I'm trying to help you."

"No. You're trying to control the conversation, just like you always did. You can take your fake remorse, your pathetic excuses, and your sympathy act and shove them somewhere unpleasant."

His jaw tightens.

"I hope you find what you're looking for, Zara."

"Oh, I will."

I get into my car and start the engine, but before I close the door, I look at him one last time.

"And when I find out what really happened that night, I will make sure every person who lied to me regrets it."

Victor's face has gone cold.

For a moment, the man standing beside my car looks nothing like the heartbroken former fiancé who approached me a few minutes ago. The sadness is gone, the vulnerability has disappeared, and what remains is a calculating expression that makes my skin crawl.

Then he steps back, smoothing his jacket as though nothing has happened.

"Take care of yourself, Zara."

I slam the door in his face.

As I pull away from the pavement, my hands tighten around the steering wheel. I am furious with him, furious with myself for letting him get close enough to speak to me, and furious that his visit has left me with more questions than answers.

He didn't come to apologise.

He came to see what I know.

And whatever game Victor Black is playing, I have no intention of becoming one of his pieces.

But one thing is certain.

I will find out what really happened on the night of my wedding rehearsal dinner.

And if Victor is involved in whatever truth everyone has been hiding from me, then he had better hope I find the answers before I find him.