Double Standards // ziam

Chapter 16

Zayn took a cab back Home. The shock had faded slightly, leaving in its place a cold numbness. As he was on his way to the apartment he called Mary.

"Mary?" he said when the woman answered. "I'm not feeling well-I'm going home."

Wrapped in his blanket that night, he sat staring into the empty fireplace in his apartment. He pulled the blanket to his shoulders, trying to ward off the chill, but it was inside him. It shuddered through him every time he thought of his last visit to the Sinclairs: Georges Sinclair serenely presiding over an intimate little gathering where three people were plotting against his own son. His son. His handsome magnificent son. Oh God, how could he do that to him!

Zayn shivered with impotent fury, he wished he could slap him on the face.

If there was any spying being done, Zayn felt sure it was Sophia, not Liam, who was doing it. But if it was Liam, if he really was paying someone to leak information on the Sinclair Enterprises bids, he wouldn't blame him. If it had been within his power at that moment, he would have brought Sinclair Enterprises crashing down around Sophia's ears.

Liam might love him; Mary thought he did. But Zayn would never know. The moment Liam discovered he was related to the Sinclairs, he would kill whatever feelings he had for him, exactly as he had killed his feelings for his father. He would want to know why he had applied for a job at Pay-co, and he would never believe it was coincidence, even if he lied to him.

Zayn cast a bitter, contemptuous glance around the silken love nest where he was ensconced. He'd been living like Sophia Sinclair's pampered boy toy. But no longer. He was going home. If he had to, he would get two jobs and teach piano too, to make up for the difference in salary. But he couldn't stay in Detroit. He'd go insane watching for a glimpse of Liam everywhere he went, wondering if he ever thought of him.

***

"Feeling better?" Harry asked the next morning. Dryly, he added, "Mary said she was talking about Georges Sinclair, and it made you ill."

Zayn's face was pale but composed as he closed his office door and handed him the sheet of paper he'd just printed out.

He unfolded it and scanned the four simple lines. "You're resigning for personal reasons-what the hell does that mean? What personal reasons?"

"Sophia Sinclair is a distant relative of mine. I didn't know until yesterday that George Sinclair is Liam's father."

Shock jerked Harry erect in his chair. He stared at him in angry confusion then he said, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you asked why I was resigning."

He watched him silently, the rigidity slowly fading from his features. "So you're related to his father's wife," he said finally. "So what?"

Zayn hadn't expected an argument. Exhausted, he sank into a chair. "Harry, when is it going to occur to you that as Sophia Sinclair's relative, I could be spying on you for her?"

Harry's green eyes turned sharp and piercing. "Are you, Zayn?"

"No."

"Has Mrs. Sinclair asked you to?"

"Yes."

"And you agreed?" he snapped.

Zayn didn't know it was possible to feel this miserable. "I thought about it, but on my way to be interviewed here, I decided I couldn't do it. I never expected to be hired, and I wouldn't have been..." Briefly, he told him how he had met Liam that evening. "And the next day you interviewed me and offered me a job."