Chapter 50

Clas 

“Zara.” Locke’s voice is low, close, roughened with something that I don’t have the strength to identify. “Oh, baby.” 

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, because humiliation rises faster than reason, because even now some part of me thinks that I should be able to manage this with more dignity than I am. “I don’t want to cry in front of you.” 

“None of that,” he says, getting to his feet. “You’re not the one who should be sorry about a single fucking thing.” 

And then he lifts me, he actually lifts me. Out of my chair, away from the table, away from the papers and the screen and the terrible neatness of all those damning numbers, as though I weigh nothing. 

A broken laugh escapes me through the tears, helpless and mortifying, and then he sits on the leather sofa, with me tucked sideways across his lap. His one hand is rubbing circles on my back, and the other is holding my head against his muscled shoulder while I finally stop trying to keep myself together. I bury my face against his neck and cry like something inside me has split wide open. 

God. The relief of it. The awful, beautiful relief.