Page 62 of Oliver
I moved before I could think, wrapping my hand around Zahra’s waist and yanking her into me. She thawed, her muscles unwinding and her wide eyes blinking as if she came out of a trance.
She wasn’t silent. She was frozen.
He touched her, and her sympathetic nervous system froze as a survival response.
Jesus. Zahra was so scared of Ryan that it triggered her fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response.
It was the last time I let it happen.
"Watching you work, Lumina, it’s amazing." My voice was light, but my grip was iron. My free hand lifted to her face, thumb caressing her chin, and her breath hitched. “I can’t take my eyes off you.”
Ryan’s jaw hardened, his eye ticking.
He’d heard the warning.
Good.
Zahra’s fingers curled into my shirt, trembling. A sharp inhale. The same fucking sound she made last night when she came around me, desperate and ruined and?—
My fingers flexed against her hip. Hard. I needed to get her alone.
"We don't have all day, babe," Ryan called out, trying to sound lighthearted, but his voice was tense, angry.
The moment shattered. Zahra slipped back into her shield of professionalism, though whether she was protecting herself from Ryan or from me, I couldn't tell. I searched her face for signs of distress.
"I'm okay," she assured me, patting my chest awkwardly, and I reluctantly released my hold.
Once the group session was done, Zahra circled back to me, tucking herself against my side, and before I could overthink it, she kissed me. A soft, casual brush of lips.
For the cameras. For everyone else.
But it left me wrecked.
"Thank you," she murmured. "For being here."
I nodded, because what the fuck was I supposed to say?
I wasn’t here for the act anymore. I wasn’t here for the mission.
I was here for her.
And I was going to lose her all over again, because I knew how this story ended.
I was the boy who let her bleed me dry.
The boy she’d never chosen.
The boy she walked away from and never looked back.
And in ten days, she was going to rip my heart out all over again.
Nineteen
ZAHRA
The final shot—astaged candid of the bridesmaids laughing around Parisa—was finally done. I sighed with relief as Elena announced she had what she needed, letting my professional smile slip for just a moment.
Emotions were attacking me from every direction—fear, desire, longing, panic, determination—like I was standing in a crossfire of my own creation.
