Page 56 of Beauty and the Billionaire

“Son, it can’t be all that bad,” Father said, firmness coming back to his tone. He was looking for some solid ground to stand on. “When have you ever lied to us?”

“All the time,” I breathed. “Since I was twelve. Since middle school. And I thought it would go away so I wouldn’t shame you. I thought if I just ignored it, it would pass. But it didn’t. So I decided I would just pretend, but I couldn’t. Dominic…he’s so…I just couldn’t pretend anymore, so I lied more and…and you’ll hate me if I tell you, but I’ll hate myself if I don’t.”

“Tell me what, Zain?” Father asked.

My heart sank to the deepest pit of my stomach. “Don’t you know?” I asked, realizing that I was begging him for that small mercy.Please, tell me you have known the truth all along, and tell it would all be fine, but Father only looked at me. “Do you really not know?” I whispered.

Father’s brow creased deeply as he lifted his eyebrows, his lower lip quivering before he forced it to be calm. “Why is it so hard for you to say it, Zain?”

I couldn’t read the emotion in his voice. “Because…”

“Because you’re ashamed?” Father demanded, losing some of the control over his tone. “Is that it?”

But I couldn’t reply. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I clamped my mouth shut.

“Is that how I raised you?” Father asked, putting a hand on his heart as his voice cracked with devastated sorrow.

“Please…” I heard myself say, although I wasn’t sure what I was begging him for. To stop? To renounce a lifetime of tradition for the sake of his son?

“To be ashamed?” Father insisted, leaning closer and with more urgency.

I jerked as if the words had struck me squarely in the head.

“Did I not raise you to be proud, Zain?” Father asked, his eyes glimmering with thick tears. “To stand up for yourself and be just and be honest?”

I nodded. It was a short, jerky gesture, and it was the most I could do.

Father’s hands reached over and grabbed mine as if he were losing me to a sweeping tide of the ocean. “Since you were a little boy, Zain, I taught you to wear your true colors with pride. You kids are different than all the others. You are, even if you don’t want to be. Your skin is darker, your name is more distant, and your holidays are different. But we raised you as best as we could never to be ashamed of it. And if I somehow taught you that owning your background meant you had to hide who you were, then I failed you.” His voice snapped in desperation.

My face was twisted with too many emotions to count. I could feel the dragging corners of my mouth and the frown that was giving me a pulse of headache. “Aren’t you…disappointed?”

“Disappointed?” Father asked in disbelief. “If I were, I should be disappointed with myself, Zain.” His hands moved away from mine and came to my shoulders. He descended to one knee by my chair and pulled me into a hug that severed the last threads of control I had over myself. My tears rolled freely, and I held on to my father as if I would fall down without him. “I’ve never been good with words, Zain, not like you or your mother. But you need to believe me when I say in the simple, honest words of a simple, honest man, I love you, son.”

A sob broke out of me in reply.

Father rubbed my back. “Hey. Easy, son. It’s not all so gloomy, is it?”

“I didn’t know…that you’d love me…”

“I’m sorry, Zain,” he said quietly, close to my ear. “I’m sorry for that.”

After we parted, Father sat back in his chair and took a sip of his coffee while I drank my chamomile tea to soothe me. There was a pit of longing that was open wide in me, but I didn’t dare face it yet. I didn’t dare admit to myself how badly I missed those sweet, warm moments of uncompromising desire and affection and how much sweeter they would be after tonight.

“I should have told you sooner,” I said, my voice under control again.

Father didn’t disagree, but he said, “All things have their time.”

“And Dominic,” I said softly. “He opened my eyes in a way, but that…it didn’t go well in the end.”

“You’re too young to speak of the way things ended,” Father said.

I was silent for a long while. “I knew you loved me before,” I said, speaking my mind freely, although the words were somehow hard to say. “But I thought it would change. You adapted here, but not…”

“Not entirely,” Father cut in. “Son, I came here as an adult. It was too late for me to learn everything from the beginning. There were others like me, so I joined them, and so I wouldn’t miss my home as much.” He shook his head slowly. “I know. There are as many human natures as there are human beings. Not all of us are the same. But you need to know where you come from. Beirut, what still stands of it, has been better to gay men than most places there. The laws against it aren’t enforced, Zain, even if they should never have been put in place. And places in the capital have bars like the one you stick around every morning.” There was a small, knowing smile on my father’s lips when he admitted that he knew where I lagged with my deliveries. “Mar Mikhael,” he continued softly, “is like the city herself—beautiful, broken, a little reckless. The alleyways there don’t just hold bars or cafés; they hold stories. People like you,people who don’t always fit. The walls are cracked, yes, but there’s laughter beneath the cracks, there’s life.” He paused, watching my face as if weighing the next words carefully. “It’s a place where boys like you can breathe. The ground is uneven, yes, and it won’t catch you if you fall, but we don’t come from a place of singular hatred. And we didn’t come to a place of singular love. Struggle, Zain, exists anywhere for somebody, but no place is wholly good or wholly bad.”

I hadn’t even known that. Part of me had been willfully ignorant because I’d assumed my true self would never be accepted in this way. But of course, wherever there were people, there were differences and shades of vibrant colors. Where there were people, there was love.

“Go to your friends, son,” Father said. “God knows they never leave that lady down the street. And I know you long to be there.”

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