FF: Asya - Written in the Skies (Part 19/pg.80) - Page 13

Originally posted by: Linsie

Thanks for the pm..

i love this story😃 when are you gonna update next?😳 update soon please😳

Originally posted by: rosamale

i love this story😃 when are you gonna update next?😳 update soon please😳

Originally posted by: Gurmeet4Drashti

Hey ...
Fantastic update !!!

Thank u KSGsmiiten, Pinkyyy, Lindsie,akaswan, rosamale

Part 9

Dozens of couples were strolling out of the club to watch the fireworks"and well ahead of them was her father who was stalking toward her with rage in every long, ground-covering stride. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "Asad, you have to leave. Turn around and walk away! Now."

"No."

"Please!" she almost cried. "I'll be fine, he won't say anything to me here, and he'll wait until we're alone, but I don't know what he'll do to you."

A moment later Zoya knew the answer to that.

"There are two men on their way out here to escort you off the grounds, Khan," her father hissed, his face contorted with fury. He turned on Zoya and caught her arm in a viselike grip. "You're coming with me." Two of the club's waiters were already walking across the driveway. As her father gave her arm a jerk, Zoya appealed once more to Asad over her shoulder. "Please, please go"don't make a scene."

Her father pulled her two steps forward, and Zoya, who had no choice but to walk or be dragged, was relieved almost to tears when both waiters who had been coming toward Asad slowed and then stopped. Asad had apparently started walking toward the road, Zoya realized with relief. Her father evidently reached the same conclusion, for when the waiters looked uncertainly to him for further instructions, he said, "Let the bas***d go, but call the gate and make sure he doesn't come back."

As they approached the front doors, he turned to Zoya, his expression livid. "Your mother made herself the talk of this club, and I'll be damned if you're going to do it too. Do you hear me!" He flung her arm down as if her skin was contaminated by Asad's touch, but he kept his voice low. Because a Siddiqui, no matter how great the provocation, never aired family grievances in public. "Go home and stay there. It will take you twenty minutes to get to the house; in twenty-five minutes I'm going to call you and God help you if you aren't there!"

With that he turned on his heel and walked inside the club. In a state of sick humiliation, Zoya watched him go, and then she went inside and got her purse. On the way to the parking lot, she saw three couples standing out in the shadows of the trees, all of them kissing.

Her vision blurred by tears of futile rage, Zoya had already driven past the solitary figure who was walking with a tuxedo jacket hooked over his right shoulder before she realized it was Asad. She braked to a stop, so consumed with guilt for the humiliation she'd caused him that she couldn't immediately look at him.

He walked up to her side of the car and bent slightly, looking at her through the open window. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." With a halfhearted attempt at flippancy, she glanced at him. "My father is a Siddiqui, and the Siddiqui never quarrel in public."

He saw the unshed tears shimmering in her eyes. Reaching through the open window, he laid his callused fingertips against her smooth cheek. "And they don't cry in front of other people either, do they?"

"Nope," Zoya admitted, trying to absorb some of his wonderful indifference to her father. "I"I'm going home now. Can I drop you somewhere on the way?"

His gaze shifted from her face to the death grip she had on the steering wheel. "Yes, but only if you'll let me drive this thing." He spoke as if he merely wanted a chance to drive her car, but his next words made it obvious he was concerned about her ability to drive in her state of mind. "Why don't I drive you home, and I'll call a cab from there."

"Be my guest," Zoya said brightly, determined to salvage what little pride she had left. She got out and walked around to the passenger side.

Asad had no trouble mastering the gearshift, and a minute later the car glided smoothly out of the country club drive and shot out onto the main road. Headlights flew past in the dark and the breeze blew through the windows as they drove in silence. Far off to the left some other fireworks display came to a grand finale in a spectacular cascade of red, white, and blue. Zoya watched the brilliant sparks glitter and then slowly fade as they drifted downward. Belatedly recalling her manners, she said, "I want to apologize for what happened tonight"for my father, I mean."

Asad shot her an amused sideways look. "He's the one who should apologize. It hurt my pride when he sent those two flabby, middle-aged waiters to throw me out. At least he could have sent four of them"just to spare my ego."

Zoya gaped at him, amazed because he obviously wasn't the least bit intimidated by her father's wrath, and then she smiled, because it felt wonderful to be with someone who wasn't. With a jaunty look at his powerful shoulders, she said, "If he really wanted to get you out of there against your will, he'd have been wiser to send six."

"My ego and I both thank you," he said with a lazy grin, and ZOya, who would have sworn a few minutes ago that she'd never smile again, burst out laughing.

"You have a wonderful laugh," he said quietly.

"Thank you," she said, startled and pleased beyond proportion to the compliment. In the pale light from the dashboard she studied his shadowy profile, watching the wind ruffle his hair, wondering what it was about him that could make a few simple, quiet words seem like a physical caress. Sara's words floated through her mind, providing the probable answer... "pure, undiluted sex appeal." A few hours earlier she hadn't thought Asad was extraordinarily attractive. She did now. In fact, she was certain women drooled over him. No doubt they were also the reason he knew how to kiss as well as he did. He had sex appeal all right"and a whole lot of experience kissing. "Turn in here," she said a quarter of an hour later when they approached a pair of huge wrought-iron gates. Reaching forward, she pressed a button on the dashboard and the gates swung open into her driveway.

"This is home," Zoya said as he pulled to a stop in front of the house.

He looked up at the imposing stone structure with its leaded glass windows while Zoya unlocked the front door. "It looks like a museum."

"At least you didn't say mausoleum," she said, smiling over her shoulder.

"No, but I thought it."

Zoya was still smiling at his blunt quip as she showed him into the darkened library at the back of the house and turned on a lamp, but when he went directly to the phone on the desk and picked it up, her heart sank. She wanted him to stay, she wanted to talk, she wanted to do anything to fend off the despair that she knew would overwhelm her again when she was alone. "There's no reason for you to leave so soon. My father will play cards until the club closes at two a.m."

He turned at the note of desperation in her voice. "Zoya, I'm not a bit worried about your father for my own sake, but you have to live with him. If he comes home and finds me here""

"He won't," Zoya promised. "My father wouldn't let death interrupt his card games; he's an obsessive cardplayer."

"He's damned obsessive about you too," Asad said flatly, and Zoya held her breath while he hesitated before finally hanging up the phone. This was probably going to be the last pleasant evening she would have for months, and she was determined to make it last. "Would you like a brandy? I'm afraid I can't offer you anything to eat because the servants are already in bed."

"Brandy will be fine."

Zoya went over to the liquor cabinet and took out the brandy decanter. Behind her, he said, "Do the servants lock the refrigerator at night?" She paused, a brandy snifter in her hand. "Something like that," she evaded.

But Asad wasn't fooled"she realized it the moment she brought his glass over to the sofa and saw the amusement gleaming in his eyes. "You can't cook, can you, princess?"

"I'm sure I could," she joked, "if someone showed me where the kitchen is, and then pointed out the stove and refrigerator."

The corners of his mouth deepened into an answering smile, but he leaned forward and purposefully put his glass on the table. She knew exactly what he intended to do even before he caught her wrists and firmly pulled her toward him. "I know you can cook," he said, tipping her chin up.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because," he whispered, "less than an hour ago you set me on fire."

His mouth was a fraction of an inch from hers when the shrill ring of the telephone made her lurch out of his arms. When she answered it, her father's voice was like an arctic blast. "I'm glad to see that you had sense enough to do as I told you. And Zoya," he added, "I was on the verge of permitting you to go to Delhi, but you can forget about that now. Your behavior tonight is living proof that you can't be trusted." He hung up on her.

With shaking fingers, Zoya replaced the receiver. Her arms began to tremble and then her knees, until her whole body was quaking with futility and rage, and she braced her palms on the desk to steady herself.

Asad came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Zoya?" he said, his voice deep with concern. "Who was that? Is anything wrong?"

Even her voice shook. "That was my father checking to make certain that I came home as ordered."

He was silent for a moment, and then he said quietly, "What have you done to make him distrust you like this?"

Asad's thinly veiled accusation tore at her heart, hacking away at her rapidly disintegrating control. "What have I done?" she repeated, her voice rising with hysteria. "What have I done?"

"You must have given him some reason to think he has to guard you like this."

Savage resentment boiled up inside of Zoya, erupting into a mass of churning rage. Her eyes bright with tears and some half-formed purpose, she swung around on him and slid her hands up his hard chest "My mother was promiscuous. She couldn't keep her hands off other men. My father guards me because he knows I'm like her."

Asad's eyes narrowed as she wrapped her arms fiercely around his neck. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"You know what I'm doing," she whispered, and before he could answer, she pressed herself against his full length and kissed him.

...

thanks for the pm...

you know what, i am becoming addicted to this ff after each chapter. i can say that this is unique and different from all the stories i have read .