ik baar jo hum nay commitment kr li (2)...( STRICTLY INVITES ONLY) - Page 72

Originally posted by: BelleAme

Itna Jaldi magical mechanic Asad Ahmed khan mere DiMaag se nahi jaane walla 😛

Amnaaa mujhe Sacchi Mai update chahiye *desperate much*

Originally posted by: ...KSGmiAmor...

do din baad😊

Part 51

Zoya tried, very hard, to follow his advice as she sat down at the head of the conference table. "Good morning," she said with a bright, artificial smile. "Abbas, do you want to begin? Any problems to report from the security division?"

"One nice big fat one," he said. "Five minutes ago the Calcutta store had a bomb threat. They're clearing the store, and the bomb squad is on its way."

Everyone at the table jerked to attention.

"Why wasn't I notified?" Zoya demanded.

"Both your phone lines were busy, so the store manager followed procedure and called me."

"I have a private direct line too."

"I know. Unfortunately, he panicked and couldn't find the phone number."

At 5:30 that night, after a day of raw tension and helpless waiting, Zoya finally received the phone call she'd been praying for. The Squad had found no trace of explosives and was going to remove the barriers around the store. That was the good news. The bad news was that the store had lost an entire day's sales in the most important season of the year.

Limp with relief and exhaustion, Zoya notified Abbas Jaleel of the news, and then she packed a briefcase full of work and went home. Ayaan hadn't returned her call yet, but she knew he'd call her as soon as he received her message.

In her apartment she dumped her coat, gloves, and briefcase onto the chair, and walked over to the answering machine to check her messages, thinking Ayaan might have called, but the red light was not on. My maid had been there, though, and left a note beside the phone saying she'd done the marketing today instead of Wednesday because she had a doctor's appointment Wednesday morning.

The continued silence from Ayaan was making Zoya increasingly uneasy, and as she walked into the bedroom, she began to imagine him in a Swiss hospital, or, worse, soothing his wounded feelings with some other woman, dancing in some Geneva nightclub... Stop it, just stop it! she warned herself. The mere proximity of Asad Ahmad Khan was causing her to start expecting disaster to befall her at every turn. It was foolish, she knew, but given her past experiences with Asad, not entirely incomprehensible.

She'd taken her shower and was tucking a silk shirt into her slacks when the hard knocking on her door made her turn in surprise. Whoever it was had a pass key to get through the downstairs security door, which meant it had to be the maid, since Ayaan was in Switzerland. "Did you forget something?"" she began as she opened her door, then she froze in surprise at the sight of Ayaan's grim face.

"I was wondering if you forgot something," he said curtly, "like the fact that you have a fianc."

Overwhelmed with remorse that he'd actually flown home, Zoya flung herself into his arms, noting the way he hesitated before putting them around her. "I didn't forget," she said, kissing his rigid cheek. "I'm so sorry!" she said, pulling him into the apartment. She expected him to take off his coat, but all he did was study her with a cool, hesitant look. "What is it you're sorry about, Zoya?" he finally asked.

"For worrying you so much that you thought you needed to leave the conference and fly home! Didn't you get my message at your hotel this morning? I left word for you at ten-thirty our time"

At her answer, the rigidity left his face, but there was a haggard, drawn look about him that she'd never seen before. "No, I didn't. I'd like a drink," he said, shrugging out of his coat. "Anything you have is fine; just make it a stiff one."

Zoya nodded, but she hesitated, worriedly studying the deep lines etched into his handsome face by strain and fatigue. "I can't believe you flew home because you couldn't reach me."

"That is one of two reasons I flew home."

She tipped her head to the side. "What was the other reason?"

"Morton Simonson is going to file Chapter 11 tomorrow. I got the word in Geneva last night."

Zoya wasn't certain why he should feel the need to come home because an industrial paint manufacturer was going to file bankruptcy, and she said so as she turned to fix his drink.

Our bank has loaned them in excess of one hundred million," Ayaan said. "If they go belly-up, we'll lose most of that. Since I also seemed to be on the verge of losing my fiance," he added, "I decided to fly home and see what I could do to salvage one or both."

Despite his attempt at flippancy, Zoya now understood the gravity of the Morton Simonson issue, and she felt even worse for adding to Ayaan's worry. "You were never on the verge of losing me," she said with an ache in her voice.

"Why the hell didn't you return my phone calls? Where were you? What's going on with Khan? Humairah told me what you found out from Khan's father. She said you drove to Pune to see Khan on Friday night so you could tell him the truth and get him to agree to a divorce."

"I did tell him the truth," Zoya said gently, handing him his drink, "and he's agreeable to a divorce. Hamza Ibrahim and I are going to meet with Asad and his lawyers tomorrow."

He nodded, watching her in speculative silence. His next question was one she dreaded"and expected. "Were you with him all weekend?"

"Yes. He"he was too ill to listen to anything Friday night." Belatedly recalling that Ayaan didn't know Asad had bought the Houston property in retaliation for having his rezoning request denied, Zoya told him about it. Next she explained why she'd felt she needed to get Asad to agree to a truce before she told him about her miscarriage. Finished, she stared at her hands, consumed with guilt for what she hadn't told Ayaan, not certain if confessing it was a selfish way of unburdening herself or whether it was the morally and ethically correct thing to do. If the latter were the case, and she still felt that it was, this didn't seem like the right time to tell him"not when he'd already had one major blow with Morton Simonson.

She was still trying to decide, when Ayaan said, "Khan must have been furious on Sunday when he realized your father had duped him about your miscarriage."

"No," Zoya said, thinking about the wrenching sorrow and regret on Asad's face. "He's probably angry with my father now, but he wasn't then. I started to cry when I told him about Kiran's funeral, and I think Asad was trying very hard not to cry. It wasn't a time for anger somehow."

The guilt she felt for what happened after that was in her eyes, and Ayaan saw it.

"No, I suppose it wasn't." He'd been sitting hunched slightly forward, his forearms braced on his legs, holding his glass between his knees, watching her. Now he jerked his gaze from her face and began idly rolling the glass in his palms, his jawline tightening. And in the endless moments of lengthening silence, Zoya knew"she knew he'd guessed that she had gone to bed with Asad.

"Ayaan," she said shakily, ready to confess, "if you're wondering whether Asad and I""

"Don't tell me you went to bed with him, Zoya!" he bit out. "Lie to me if you have to, and then make me believe it, but don't tell me you slept with him. I couldn't stand it."

He'd already judged her and handed her, her penance "and to Zoya, who wanted only to tell the truth and make him understand and someday forgive her, it seemed like a lifelong sentence to purgatory. He waited a minute, evidently to give them both time to put the subject to rest, and then he put the glass down. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he drew her close and tipped her chin up, trying to smile into her shadowed eyes. "From what you told me about your phone call with Hamza this morning, it sounds like Khan's going to be reasonably decent about all this."

"He is," Zoya said, but guilt and misery made her smile wobble.

Ayaan kissed her forehead. "It's almost over, then. Tomorrow night we'll toast your successful divorce negotiations and maybe even the acquisition of that Houston property you want so badly." He sobered then, and what he said made Zoya belatedly realize how deeply concerned he was about matters at the bank. "I may have to look around and find you another lender to finance that store and the land. Morton Simonson is the third large borrower to file Chapter 11 on us in the last six months. If we aren't taking the money in, we can't lend it out unless we borrow it from the fed, and we're already heavily borrowed there."

"I didn't know you'd had two other big loans go bad."

"The economy is scaring the hell out of me. Never mind," he added, standing up and pulling her to her feet, smiling reassuringly. "The bank isn't going to collapse. We're in better shape than most of our competitors. Could you do me a favor though?" he asked half seriously.

"Anything," she stated without hesitation.

He grinned and put his arms around her for a goodnight kiss. "Could you make certain that Siddiqui and Company continues to make all its loan payments to Shaikh Mercantile Trust on time?"

"Absolutely!" Zoya replied, smiling tenderly at him. He kissed her then, a long, tired, gentle kiss that Zoya returned with more fervor than ever before. When he left, she refused to compare that kiss to Asad's demanding, hot, ardent ones. Passion was what Asad's kisses offered. Ayaan's offered love.

Originally posted by: BelleAme

Aich affu tum mujhe Kitne acche tarha se jaanti ho 😆

Originally posted by: riddhi1206

hey najzi di!!

Originally posted by: riddhi1206

me frst!!

yayayayay!!

love uh ammzi di!!

ab jaldi se unressy do!!

Originally posted by: najma123

HI EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!