This isn’t real. It’ll pass. I don’t need you.
Zain took a swig from his bottle of Scotch, staring unseeingly at the brightly illuminated city. It was nearly dawn already.
He felt bone-tired, but he knew that going to bed would be useless. He couldn’t sleep, and the demon of a cat wasn’t even the reason.
The hour was too early to be drinking. To be fair, there was no hour appropriate for drinking for any decent Muslim.
But then again, he wasn’t a decent Muslim, hadn’t been for years. In decades. There was already a place reserved for him in hell; Zain had made peace with it a long time ago. A decent Muslim wouldn’t spend a year in a sordid relationship with another man—or at least would feel guiltier about it. A decent Muslim would touch his own wife. A decent Muslim would be performing a dawn prayer right now instead of getting drunk.
A plaintive meow snapped him out of his grim thoughts. He glared at the cat rubbing against his ankle.
“Go away,” Zain bit off in English. He shouldn’t even be still using English for its sake. He should have thrown the cat out instead of bringing it with him when he had relocated to the city.
The cat didn’t obey, of course. It was Aiden’s fault. He’d spoiled it rotten, conditioning it to his constant touch and warmth. Of course it was now miserable.
Zain glared at the cat’s hazel eyes. “Go. Away. Or I’ll kick you.”
The cat rubbed against his ankle again, meowing.
“Stop being pathetic,” he told it harshly. “If he wanted you, he would have taken you with him when he left.”
He still remembered finding the blasted cat by a puddle of blood when he’d entered the house. His heart had about stopped before he registered that the blood—and the body—wasn’t Aiden’s. He remembered feeling profound relief, as if it was totally fine that all of his staff had been murdered as long as Aiden wasn’t one of the victims. It had been hard to care about his employees’ deaths compared to Aiden missing. The latter should have been trivial compared to the former, but it was the other way around for him.
Did that make him a monster? Probably.
Zain had no delusions about his morals. He’d done some things that didn’t skirt the boundaries of ethical conduct so much as trample all over them. But he’d never considered himself a bad man, either. Just a regular flawed human being. A regular kind of asshole, as Aiden would say, smiling at him fondly.
The toxic longing that twisted up his insides at the mere memory of Aiden’s warm smile made Zain grimace and bring the bottle back to his lips.
Damn it. It seemed he wasn’t drunk enough yet for the alcohol to dull this bullshit, this idiotic yearning he didn’t seem able to eradicate, no matter how many months it had been.
This isn’t real. It’ll pass. I don’t need you.
Zain threw the bottle away in disgust.
He watched dispassionately as the bottle fell until he could no longer see it from the penthouse. Hopefully he hadn’t killed someone with it. It would be funny—and somewhat ironic—if he ended up in jail for that, after behaving like a sodomite for a year.
Running a hand over his unshaven jaw, Zain stared blankly at the Dubai skyline.
This was useless.
Utterly useless.
This pathetic behavior wasn’t him. In fact, it was everything he despised. He was behaving little better than his father had around his mother’s death: he drank too much, he neglected his business, he obsessed over the loss of one person and neglected all the others in his life. Had he paid any attention to his family, Gadiel wouldn’t have run off with the fucking bodyguard Zain had hired to keep him in line. The only sins Zain hadn’t committed compared to his father were beating his sons and sleeping around. The former was impossible for lack of any sons. As for the latter, he couldn’t summon a flicker of interest in fucking someone who wasn’t Aiden, his own wife included. He didn’t want anyone other than Aiden.
Zain pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
Enough.
He’d tried waiting it out. But it had been four months since Aiden had been stolen—taken away from him. A month since he’d last seen him.
If this thing was ever going to pass, it would have passed by now. He shouldn’t have still been avoiding his own house, hating it for the Aiden-shaped hole in every room, hating it for seeming empty and dark without Aiden’s light and laughter, hating it for not even feeling like home anymore. He shouldn’t have forbidden his lawful wife from entering the house he considered theirs—his and Aiden’s. Farah didn’t take issue with it—she was a quiet girl who seemed scared shitless of him. She seemed content to live by herself in one of Zain’s numerous apartments, ignored by her husband.
He had no idea what she even looked like. He hadn’t even seen her without her niqāb. He had no desire to. The only person he wanted was the one he wasn’t allowed to want.
This isn’t real. It’ll pass. I don’t need you. Stop ruining my life.
Zain closed his eyes. He’d tried to be the better man. He had. He’d given Aiden space when Aiden’s mafioso of a brother-in-law had sent his people to tell him that Aiden was with his family and never wanted to be bothered again. It helped that at the time Zain had still had some hope that this was a passing fancy and he’d forget the boy and eradicate his unwelcome feelings. He’d even married Al Sharabi’s daughter to give himself an extra incentive to stay away from Aiden. Back then, he had still thought he could go back to his old life pre-Aiden.
His self-delusion had lasted until Aiden’s call. Just hearing his sweet, familiar voice had shattered his self-control. Seeing Aiden again, seeing his tears, had destroyed what was left of it. Had they not been interrupted by Aiden’s parents, Zain knew he would have kissed Aiden right there in broad daylight, in a public place, Aiden’s bodyguards be damned. He had been this close to grabbing Aiden and taking him with him—until Aiden’s words had sobered him up.
This isn’t real. It’ll pass. I don’t need you. Stop ruining my life.
It had felt like Aiden had reached inside his chest and squeezed his heart hard. He’d felt crushed—and like he’d been transported back in time. He was suddenly eight again, a needy, pathetic boy whose affections weren’t welcome. Weren’t wanted.
Go away. I have no son.
Zain grimaced, pushing the memory back. He hadn’t thought of it in years. He hadn’t been that boy in decades. A boy desperate for his mother’s love. A boy who’d grown to hate that need, who’d learned to lock it away when his mother stopped even recognizing him and looked at him with distrust and suspicion.
As an adult, he knew his mother couldn’t help it. It was the dementia. But a child wouldn’t understand it. A child would feel crushed by the constant rejection of his affections by his favorite person in the world. A child would learn to stop carrying his heart on his sleeve. To stop caring. To stop needing.
He wasn’t that child anymore. But Aiden’s rejection had brought it all back.
So he had left. If it wasn’t real for Aiden, it could be not real for him as well.
Zain smiled humorlessly. They both had been full of shit. Looking back, he was pretty sure Aiden had lied. Had lied for his sake. The selfless idiot had probably thought he was protecting Zain from his father and Al Sharabi. And rationally, turning Zain away was the smart thing to do. The helpful thing. The path of least resistance.
But Zain had never been one to choose the easy way out when he wanted something.
And he did want something. More than anything he’d ever wanted in his life.
The humiliating, humbling truth was, he needed Aiden back—snuggled up in his lap, under him, around him, in his home. Fucking attached at the hip, so he’d never be stolen away again. He needed him, with a ferocity that frightened him. He hadn’t needed anyone in years. In two decades.
But he wasn’t a child anymore. His mother was dead. Aiden was alive. And Aiden wanted him. Aiden belonged to him. He knew this as well as he knew his own name. Aiden belonged to him, and Zain would get him back.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy. Their situation was nearly unfixable. But Aiden needed him to fix it—Zain had seen it, had felt it when Aiden had clung to him, his face wet with tears.
Aiden needed him.
The thought was dizzying, intoxicating in a way that couldn’t possibly be healthy or normal. But fuck it. He didn’t care if it wasn’t healthy or normal. He was done hoping that these feelings would go away if he waited long enough. They weren’t going away. It was impossible to remain in denial when he’d been drinking like an alcoholic ever since his return from the US.
Enough.
He was done doing the smart thing. The cowardly thing.
It was time to be the selfish asshole he was, no matter how difficult things were going to be.
And they would be difficult. It would likely take months before he could untangle his family’s assets from Al Sharabi’s and divorce Farah without her father creating a shitstorm of problems for his family. Zain’s own father would be a major obstacle too. At least Gadiel was now safe from their wrath—Zain would be the target of it now.
There was also the problem of Aiden being a man. He would never be able to claim Aiden as his while they lived here. They could never be open about their relationship without giving Al Sharabi an excuse to arrest him and sentence him to a life in prison. That meant he needed to start moving his assets—and his business—to another country.
So much to do… so many obstacles to overcome… But for a determined man, they were just obstacles. Nothing impossible. If he could fight and claw his way up after being disowned by his father when he was seventeen, he could outmaneuver two old, stubborn men when he was thirty-three.
Zain pulled his phone out of his pocket and called his assistant. The hour was too early, but his PA was paid a small fortune for a reason.
“Tell my lawyers to come to my office in an hour.”
Ignoring his assistant’s spluttering, Zain hung up, his expression settling into one of grim resolve.
He would get him back.
Whatever it took.
However long it took.
