Hi everyone... Here is your part 7 ... hope u like it ...
Part 7
"Mr. Khan ," she asked as casually as Zoya could, "would you like something to drink?"
He turned in surprise, hesitated a moment, then he nodded. "Scotch and water."
Zoya signaled a waiter who hurried to her side, "Jimmy, Mr. Khan would like a Scotch and water."
When she turned back, she found Asad Ahmad Khan studying her with a slight frown, his gaze drifting over her face, her waist, then lifting again to her eyes, as if he were suspicious of her overture and trying to figure out why she'd bothered making it. "Who was the man who told you to get rid of me?" he asked abruptly.
She hated to alarm him with the truth. "My father."
"You have my deepest and most sincere sympathy," he mocked gravely, and Zoya burst out laughing because no one had ever dared criticize her father, even indirectly, and because she suddenly sensed that Asad Ahmad Khan was a "rebel," just as she'd decided to be. That made him a kindred spirit, and instead of pitying him or being repelled by him. She decided to rescue him. "Would you like to dance?" she asked, smiling at him as if he were an old friend.
He gave her an amused look. "What makes you think a steelworker from Pune, knows how to dance, princess?"
"Do you?"
"I think I can manage."
Zoya decided a few minutes later as they danced outside on the terrace to the slow tune the little band was playing that he was actually quite competent, but he wasn't very relaxed and his style was conservative.
"How am I doing?"
Blissfully unaware of the double meaning that could be read into her lighthearted evaluation, she said, "So far, all I've been able to tell is that you have good rhythm and you move well. That's all that really matters anyway." Smiling into his eyes to take away any taint of criticism he might mistakenly read into her next words, she confided, "All you actually need is some practice."
"How much practice do you recommend?"
"Not much. One night would be enough to learn some new moves."
"I didn't know there are any 'new' moves."
"There are," Zoya said, "but you have to learn to relax first."
"First?" he repeated. "All this time, I've been under the impression that you were supposed to relax afterward."
It hit her suddenly, what he was thinking and saying. Giving him a level look, she said, "Are we talking about dancing, Mr. Khan?"
There was an unmistakable reprimand in her voice, and it registered on him. For a moment he studied her with heightened interest, reassessing, reevaluating. His eyes weren't grey as she'd originally thought, but soulful chocolate brown eyes and his hair was dark brown, not black. When he spoke, his quiet voice had an apology in it. "We are now."
Zoya laughed at the joke and felt her own worries begin to fade into the background. They stayed outside for another dance, talking about nothing more meaningful than the bad music and the good weather. When they returned to the lounge, Jimmy brought their drinks. Goaded by mischief and resentment for Mubashir, Zoys said, "Please charge these drinks to Mubashir Hussain, Jimmy." She glanced at Asad and saw the surprise on his face.
"Aren't you a member here?"
"Yes," Zoya said with a rueful smile. "That was petty revenge on my part."
"For what?"
"For__" Belatedly realizing that anything she said now would sound like pity or embarrass him, she shrugged. "I don't like Muubashir very much."
He looked at her oddly, picked up his drink, and tossed down part of it. "You must be hungry. I'll let you go and join your friends."
It was a polite gesture intended to excuse her, but Zoya had no desire to join Mub's group now, and as she looked around the room, it was obvious that if she did leave Asad there, no one else was going to make the slightest effort to befriend him. In fact, everyone in the lounge was giving both of them a wide berth. "Actually," she said, "the food here isn't all that wonderful."
He glanced at the occupants of the lounge and put his glass down with a finality that told her he intended to leave. "Neither are the people."
"They aren't staying away out of meanness or arrogance," she assured him. "Not really."
Slanting a dubious, disinterested look, he said, "Why do you think they're doing it?"
Zoya saw several middle-aged couples who were friends of her father's"nice people, all of them. "Well, for one thing, they're embarrassed about the way Mubahir acted. And because of what they know about you"where you live and what you do for a living, I mean"most of them simply concluded that they don't have anything in common with you."
He obviously thought she was patronizing him because he smiled politely and said, "It's time for me to go."
Suddenly the idea of having him leave with nothing but humiliation to remember the evening didn't seem fair at all. In fact, it seemed unnecessary and .. . and unthinkable! "You can't leave yet," she announced with a determined smile. "Come with me, and bring your drink."
His eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because," Zoya declared with stubborn mischief, "it helps to have a drink in your hand to do this."
"Do what?" he persisted.
"Mingle," she declared. "We are going to mingle!"
"Absolutely not!", Asad caught her wrist to draw her back, but it was too late. Zoya was suddenly bent on ramming him down everyone's throat and making them like it.
"Please humor me," she said softly, her gaze beseeching.
A reluctant grin tugged at his lips. "You have the most amazing eyes""
"Actually, I'm terribly nearsighted," she teased with her most melting smile. "I've been known to walk into walls. It's a pitiful thing to watch. Why don't you give me your arm and guide me out into the hall so I don't stumble?"
He wasn't proof against her humor or that smile. "You are also very single-minded," he replied, but he chuckled and reluctantly offered her his arm.
A few steps down the hall Zoya saw an elderly couple she knew. "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Shahrukh." She greeted them cheerfully as they started to stroll past without seeing her.
They stopped at once. "Why, hello, Zoya," Mrs. Shahrukh said, then she and her husband smiled at Asad with polite inquiry.
"I'd like you to meet a friend of my father's," Zoya announced, swallowing her laughter at Asad's incredulous glance. "This is Asad Ahmad Khan. Asad is from Pune, and he's in the steel business."
"A pleasure," Mr. Shahrukh said genially, shaking Asad's hand. "I know Zoya and her father don't play golf, but I hope they told you we have two championship courses here at Palms. Are you going to be here long enough to play a few rounds?"
"I'm not certain I'm going to be here long enough to finish this drink," Asad said, obviously expecting to be forcibly evicted when Zoya's father discovered she was introducing him as his friend.
Mr. Shahrukh nodded in complete misunderstanding. "Business always seems to get in the way of pleasure. But at least you'll see the fireworks tonight"we have the best show in town."
But Asad didn't answer and Zoya couldn't, because his gaze had fixed on her smiling lips, and when his choclate eyes lifted to hers, there was something different in their depths.
"Come along, dear," Mrs. Shahrukh said, observing the distracted expressions on Asad and Zoya's faces. "These young people don't want to spend their evening discussing golf." Belatedly recovering her composure, Zoya told herself sternly she'd had too much champagne, then she tucked her hand through the crook of Asad's arm. "Come with me," she said, already walking down the staircase to the banquet room where the orchestra was playing.
For nearly an hour she guided him from one group to another, her eyes twinkling at Asad with shared laughter while she smoothly told outrageous half-truths about who he was and what he did for a living. And Asad stood beside her, not actively helping her, but observing her ingenuity with frank amusement.
"There, you see," she announced gaily as they finally left the noise and music behind and walked out the front doors, strolling across the lawn. "It isn't what you say that counts; it's what you don't say."
"That's an interesting theory," he teased. "Do you have any more of them?"
Zoya shook her head, distracted by something she'd subconsciously noted all evening. "You don't talk at all like a man who works in a steel mill."
"How many of them do you know?"
"Just one," she admitted.
His tone abruptly shifted to a serious one. "Do you come here often?"
They'd spent the first part of the evening playing a kind of silly game, but she sensed that he didn't want any more games. Neither did she, and that moment marked a distinct change in the atmosphere between them.
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