Zayn didn’t sleep that night.
In fact, he didn’t even make an honest attempt at it.
After Lena fled down the hallway, tears streaking down her face, her shoulders trembling with a mixture of fury, fear, and humiliation, he remained standing exactly where she left him — rooted to the polished floor like someone had driven iron stakes through his bones.
He couldn’t recall the last time a single person, let alone a woman he should have viewed merely as a threat, had thrown him so violently off balance.
A strange tightness pressed against his ribs, something he refused to dignify with a name, though the word hovered in the back of his mind like an unwanted ghost: guilt.
It was ridiculous, he told himself; guilt was a luxury he eliminated long ago, a weak, cumbersome emotion he’d excised
