Chapter 43

Layla Al-Farsi stood frozen as Tariq walked toward her. A strange, involuntary tremor passed through her limbs—a sensation she couldn't immediately reconcile with the cold superiority she usually maintained in his presence. For three years, she had viewed him as a shadow, a persistent but unremarkable fixture of her domestic life. Yet now, the sight of him made her heart hammer against her ribs in a way that felt dangerously like relief. She realized, with a flicker of confusion, that she had...