CHAPTER 196: CHAPTER 196: NO WAY I WILL EVER DO THAT

~Evric’s POV~

I walked closer, my breathing shallow. Zayn must have caught my scent or felt the tension in the air. He slowly raised his head. His eyes widened when they met mine, and his voice came out as a shaken gasp. He didn’t know whether to call me Babe or Evric.

He wanted to speak, to explain, to lie, or perhaps to simply apologize, but I cut him off, my voice dangerously calm. "Should I wait for you, or not?"

Zayn was silent for a full minute, his gaze desperately trying to read my expression, searching for the anger or the heartbreak I was working so hard to conceal.

"I was about to dress up and go and meet my friends," he finally said, his voice regaining a fraction of its composure.

"Okay," I replied, the word flat. "Are you still going there? I can drop you off and come back to pick you up later." I was trying so hard to act like everything was normal, like the woman in his shirt and the early shower meant nothing.

"Evric, can we talk first?" He reached for my hand, attempting to pull me toward his room, a silent plea for privacy and reconciliation.

I didn’t move. I stood stiff, unyielding.

He looked at me, surprised that I didn’t follow his lead, that my body refused his touch.

I gently removed my hand from his grip. "I will wait for you inside the car," I told him, then turned and walked outside without another word.

I went back inside the car and slid into the back seat, my driver a silent witness to the scene. After a few agonizing minutes, the front door opened, and Zayn stepped outside.

I opened the door for him, and Zayn slid in beside me. The moment he entered, he turned to face me, clearly intending to speak, but I kept my face rigidly aimed toward the windshield. My voice was a mechanical drone. "Home or to your friends?"

He quickly answered, "Home."

The driver started the car, the engine purring softly as we drove straight back to my house.

On the way, I didn’t turn to look at him or say a single word. My whole body was a stone wall of denial. In my mind, I prayed with the desperate fervor of a man clinging to the last shred of sanity: None of this should be true. Zayn, please, you can’t have done this.

When we arrived home, I came out of the car first, moving with stiff, unnatural speed. I stepped inside the living room, and my household staff instantly greeted me, sensing the icy atmosphere. Nuala called out, "Hi, bro," but I only gave a curt nod, bypassing everyone and heading straight upstairs to our room.

Zayn followed me without needing to be told.

I stepped inside the room first. The second Zayn crossed the threshold, I spun around to look at him. I intended to speak, to yell, to demand an explanation, but the words caught in my throat. I felt my breath seize, a painful, constricting lock in my chest. I couldn’t talk or move; I was standing, frozen solid.

Panic flashed in Zayn’s eyes as he watched my expressionless face and rigid posture.

"Breathe, Evric. Breathe first, just breathe, please," he urged, his voice tight with distress.

My hands were stiff, my legs felt disconnected, and my throat was sealed shut. Everything in me seemed to have stopped working, time itself seemed arrested in that horrific moment of realization.

He looked at me, terrified. "Babe, please breathe. There’s no way, just no way I will do what you are thinking right now. Please, Babe." He moved closer and gently took my hand, but all I could do was stare through him. He kept murmuring, Breathe, baby. He used his free hand to rub my chest, trying to force me to calm down. "Just no way I will ever do that. Never."

Then, finally, the pressure broke. I sucked in a violent, rattling breath.

The sudden influx of air wasn’t relief; it was adrenaline. I lunged forward, seizing him by the neck, and slammed him back against the door. He didn’t resist; he let me pin him there. I used my other hand to slam the door shut with a deafening crash, trapping us in the room with the silence. His hands were gripping my wrists where I held his neck, but he didn’t pull away.

My voice ripped out of me, loud and ragged with desperate fury. "WHO IS SHE?!"

"She’s my friend," Zayn answered, his voice shaky but steady beneath the pressure.

I repeated his words, the sarcasm biting. "Your friend? You mean just a friend

?"

He swallowed hard. "She’s my ex-girlfriend, and also my friend."

I felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in my chest. I released his neck but kept my body pressed close, leaning into his space. "You call someone in your shirt your friend?" My eyes narrowed, focusing on the betrayal. "Let me ask you this one question: Did you sl—"

He didn’t let me complete the word. "No! No," he shouted, finally finding his own surge of desperation. "There’s no way I would do that!"

I looked at him, the rage draining away and replaced by a devastating disappointment. "I had too high expectations of you, Zayn. I can’t imagine this."

"Evric, I did not sleep with her," he insisted, his voice cracking.

I leaned in, my voice taking on an edge of dangerous clarity. "You didn’t sleep with her, but you let her wear your shirt? Explain that to me. Is that what you do with all your friends? Because it looks like something you do with a partner."

"Babe, trust me, I did not."

"Okay," I said, the word devoid of emotion. "Right now, I think that’s enough."

I stepped back, walking away from the confrontation. I headed straight for the bathroom and took a long, hot shower, washing away the smell of the road and the panic, but not the cold, hard disbelief.

When I emerged, dressed only in a towel, Zayn was sitting stiffly on the edge of the bed. I tossed the towel aside and went straight to bed, pulling the covers up.

"Will you just let me explain myself?" he pleaded.

I didn’t answer.

He sighed, the sound heavy with defeat, then changed quickly into his nightwear and joined me under the duvet.

Since I was lying on my side facing him, he gently moved closer. He settled himself onto my arm, resting his head on my shoulder, before whispering the apology I was waiting for. "I’m sorry," he said. "She has been my friend right before we dated."

I let him speak, not offering any sign of reaction, just keeping my gaze fixed on his face.

"We were good as friends then, but when we started dating, it didn’t work out between us," he continued, keeping his voice soft and earnest. "So, we went back to being friends. That was a long time ago."

I finally spoke, my voice low and strained. "Why is she in your shirt?"