The door had barely shut when Malik leaned against it, eyes closed, breath shallow.
His parents were gone. The visit was over.
And Mara... was still his.
He pulled his tie loose with one hand, the other running down his jaw like he could scrub the nerves away.
He'd brought his mother; his icy, elegant, always-calculating mother; into Mara's space. And she hadn't flinched.
Not once.
Instead, she served them tea with shaking hands and a soft smile, eyes darting to his every so often like he was the only lifeline she had. Like she was fighting the urge to bolt. But she stayed.
God, she stayed.
Malik crossed the living room in two strides and dropped onto the edge of his bed. For a man who'd signed billion-dollar deals in boardrooms across the globe, he'd never felt more tense than watching his parents analyze the woman he was going to marry.
He could still hear his father's words echoing in the hallway as they left:
"She's not afraid of you. That's good. You need someone who grounds you, Zayn."
Zayn.
He hadn't called him that since his early twenties. Not since he'd buried softness under Armani and numbers.
But Mara had unearthed it all. The past. The future. The boy he was. The man he was terrified to be.
She looked at him like he was more than a surname.
And that terrified him.
Malik pulled open the drawer beside his bed and took out the velvet box. His fingers hovered over it before flipping it open.
The ring caught the light like it knew what was coming.
He let out a soft, breathless laugh.
"You better say yes, Mara Daniels."