The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 106

Chapter 66-1

The seating area at the far end of the bar is almost empty. A couple of guys are playing pool at the other end of the room, the occasional crack of the balls carrying through the low hum of conversation. Nobody pays us any attention.

For a long moment, neither of us says anything, then Locke looks at me. “I’m sorry.”

No hesitation, no excuses. Just the words.

I study him for a moment. “I know you are.”

He blinks. “You do?”

“I knew you would be.”

He lets out a quiet breath, almost a laugh, then he folds his hands together on the table.

“I handled everything badly,” he tells me.

“You really did.”

“I thought I was helping, but I wasn’t.”

“Nope.”

“I should’ve listened. I should’ve asked what you wanted,”

I turn my Coke bottle slowly between my hands, and eventually I ask the question that’s been sitting between us for days:

“Why?”

He looks up. “Why what?”

“Why did you decide for me?” My voice stays calm, but only just. “You never asked what I wanted. You never asked what I was prepared to do. You just…” I shake my head. “You just took over.”

I pause to take a breath and collect my thoughts, and he doesn’t interrupt. He lets me think, and then finish.

“I know you were trying to protect me,” I continue. “I do know that, but you made me feel like I stopped being a person. You were all talking about me, and nobody asked me a single thing.”

He closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them again, they’re full of regret. “I know.”

“No.” I lean forward. “I don’t think you do, because if you had, you would’ve realized how frightened about Knox I already was.”

“I do know, Zara.” His words are barely above a whisper. “I know because I made it worse. I’ve replayed that conversation a hundred times. I’ve lost count of the number of things I should’ve done differently.” A tiny, humorless smile touches his mouth. “In my head, I’m much better at apologizing.”

Despite everything, I almost smile back. “What changed?”

1/2

Fran out of excuses for my asshole behavior.”

The honesty catches me off guard, and I look down at the table. “So,” I say. “Why then?”

For a few seconds don’t think he’s going to answer. When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter than I’ve ever heard it:

“I lost someone. To a stalker. She was someone really important to me.”

“Who was it?” I ask, horrified.

“I can’t I don’t talk about her. Not ever.” Locke shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Zara, and I promise to tell you one day, but not today, okay? Please?”

“Okay,” I agree quietly. “Not today.”

“All I can say is that it escalated quickly with him,” he says. “So quickly that everyone kept believing there’d be another chance to stop it. There wasn’t.”

Something twists painfully inside my chest. “I’m so sorry.”

He gives the smallest shake of his head. “I didn’t tell you that so you’d feel sorry for me. I told you because …” He struggles for the words. “Because when Knox started showing up, I stopped seeing your situation. Al

I saw was history repeating itself.”

I don’t say anything, because suddenly, I completely understand what he was thinking and feeling and reacting to.

“I wasn’t trying to control you.” Locke gives a hollow laugh. “Although I can see why it felt exactly like that. I was trying to stop something I’d already lived through once. Basically, I panicked, and when I panic, apparently I become an overbearing, sexist fucking idiot.”

That earns the smallest laugh from me. “The world’s most overbearing, sexist fucking idiot.”

“I was aiming for the top of the pile.”

“You succeeded.”

“I know.”

For the first time in days, it feels as though we’re having the same conversation instead of two different ones. We sit in silence for a moment, then I reach across the table and rest my hand over his. He looks down at it as though he isn’t quite sure it’s real.

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