NOTE: I am updating this surprise chapter for all my sweet reader's who are in love with this story. 😳 And don't worry this just a bonus, I'll updated another one in the evening at same time. Ths chapter is an awesome one 😃 Guys, I have already maxed out my number of posts for today, so I will reply when I am allowed to. Love you all 🤗 Ch 13Feeling better?" Samar asked the next morning. Dryly, he added, "Mary said she was talking about Dilshad Siddiqui, and it made you ill."
Zoya's face was pale but composed as she closed his office door and handed him the sheet of paper she'd just rolled out of her typewriter.
He unfolded it and scanned the four simple lines. "You're resigning for personal reasons"what the hell does that mean? What personal reasons?"
"Abbas Siddiqui is a distant relative of mine. I didn't know until yesterday that Dilshad Siddiqui is Asad's mother."
Shock jerked him erect in his chair. He stared at her in angry confusion, then he said, "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you asked why I was resigning."
He watched her silently, the rigidity slowly fading from his features. "So you're related to his mother's second husband," he said finally. "So what?"
Zoya hadn't expected an argument. Exhausted, she sank into a chair. "Samar, when is it going to occur to you that as Abbas Siddiqui's relative, I could be spying on you for him?"
Samar's eyes turned sharp and piercing. "Are you, Zoya?"
"No."
"Has Siddiqui asked you to?"
"Yes."
"And you agreed?" he snapped.
Zoya 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, she told him how she had met Asad that evening. "And the next day you interviewed me and offered me a job."
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "I wanted to be near Asad. I knew that he worked in this building, so I accepted your offer. But I have never relayed one bit of information to Abbas."
"I can't believe this," Samar said shortly, rubbing his fingers over his forehead as if he was getting a splitting headache. The moments ticked away in silence. Zoya was too desolate to notice or to care. She simply sat there, waiting for him to pronounce sentence on her. "It doesn't matter," he said finally. "You aren't quitting. I won't let you."
Zoya gaped at him. "What are you talking about? Don't you care that I could be telling Abbas everything I know?"
"You aren't."
"How can you be sure?" she challenged.
"Common sense. If you were going to spy on us, you wouldn't walk in here to resign and tell me you're related to Siddiqui. Besides, you're in love with Asad, and I think he's in love with you."
"I don't think he is," Zoya said with quiet dignity. "And even if he is, the minute he discovers who I am related to, he won't want anything to do with me. He'll insist on knowing why I happened to apply for a job at AAK Corp, and he'll never believe it was coincidence, even if I was willing to lie to him, which I'm not... "
"Zoya, a woman can confess almost anything to a man if she chooses the right time to do it. Wait until Asad comes back, and then""
When Zoya refused with a firm shake of her head, he threatened, "If you resign without notice like this, I won't give you a good reference."
"I don't expect one."
Samar watched her leave his office. For several minutes he was very still, his brows drawn together in a thoughtful frown. Then he slowly reached out and picked up the telephone.
Mr. Khan." The secretary bent down beside Asad, her voice lowered to avoid disturbing the seven other major Global industrialists seated around the conference table discussing an international trade agreement. "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but there's a Mr. Samar Malik on the phone for you..."
Asad nodded, already sliding his chair back, his face betraying none of the alarm he felt over this emergency interruption. He couldn't imagine what disaster could have arisen that would warrant Mary's having Samar call him here. The secretary showed him to a private room, and Asad snatched up the telephone. "Samar, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, I just needed some guidance."
"Guidance?" Asad repeated in angry disbelief. "I'm in the middle of an international trade meeting and""
"I know, so I'll be quick. The new sales manager I hired can come to work for us three weeks from now, on November fifteenth."
Asad swore in irritation. "So what?" he snapped.
"Well, the reason I'm calling is because I wanted to know if it would be all right if he reports for work in November, or if you'd rather have him wait and start in January as we originally discussed. I""
"I can't believe this!" Asad interrupted furiously. "I don't give a damn when he starts, and you know it. November fifteenth is fine. What else?"
"That's about all," Samar replied imperturbably. "How's Malaysia?"
"Windy!" Asad snarled. "So help me, if you've gotten me out of this meeting just to ask me that""
"Okay, I'm sorry. I'll let you go. Oh, by the way, Zoya resigned this morning."
The announcement hit Asad like a slap in the face. "I'll talk to her on Monday when I get back."
"You won't be able to"her resignation's effective immediately. I think she plans to leave for Shimla tomorrow."
"You must be losing your touch," Asad gritted sarcastically. "Usually they fall in love with you, and you have to transfer them to another division to get them out of your hair. Zoya saved you the trouble."
"She's not in love with me."
"That's your problem, not mine."
"The hell it is! You wanted to play bedtime games with her, and when she wouldn't, you worked her until she was pale and exhausted. She's in love with you, and you've made her take messages from other women, made her""
"Zoya doesn't give a damn about me!" Asad snapped furiously, "and I haven't got time to discuss her with you."
He slammed the phone into the cradle and stalked back into the conference room. Seven men glanced up at him with a mixture of polite concern and accusation. By mutual agreement, none of them was taking calls except in extreme emergency. Asad sat down in his chair and curtly said, "I apologize for the interruption. My secretary overestimated the importance of a problem and had the call forwarded here."
Asad tried to concentrate on the business at hand and nothing else, but visions of Zoya kept floating through his mind. In the middle of a heated discussion over marketing rights, he saw Zoya laughing, her face turned up to the sun, her hair blowing around her shoulders.
He remembered looking up into her enchanting face.
"What happens to me if this slipper fits?"
"I turn you into a handsome frog. "Instead she'd turned him into a raving maniac! Jealousy had been driving him insane for two weeks. Every time her phone rang, he wondered which lover was calling her. Every time a man looked at her in the office, he had a wild urge to smash the man's teeth down his throat.
Tomorrow she'd be gone. On Monday he wouldn't see her. It was best for both of them. It was best for the whole goddamned corporation; his own executives were sliding out of the way when they saw him coming!
The meeting adjourned at seven o'clock, and when dinner was over, Asad excused himself to go up to his suite. As he walked down the main corridor of the fashionable hotel toward the elevators, he passed the window of an exclusive jewelry shop. A magnificent ruby pendant surrounded by glittering diamonds caught his eye and he paused. He looked at the matching earrings. Perhaps if he bought Zoya the pendant... Suddenly he felt like a small boy again, standing beside Mary, buying a little enameled pillbox.
He turned away and stalked down the corridor. Bribery, he reminded himself savagely, was the lowest form of begging. He would not beg Zoya to change her mind. He would not beg anyone for anything.
He spent an hour and a half on the phone in his suite, returning calls and dealing with business matters that had arisen in his absence. When he hung up, it was nearly eleven. He walked over to the windows and gazed out at the twinkling skyline.
Zoya was leaving. Samar said she was pale and exhausted. What if she was ill? What if she was pregnant? Hell, what if she was? He couldn't even be certain if it was his child or someone else's.
Once he could have been certain. Once he had been the only man she'd ever known. Now she could probably teach him things, he thought bitterly.
He thought of the Sunday afternoon he'd gone to her apartment to give her the earrings. When he'd tried to get her into bed, she'd exploded at him. Most women would have been satisfied with what he was offering, but not Zoya. She had wanted him to care, to be involved emotionally with her. She had wanted some sort of commitment from him.
Asad stretched out on the bed. It was just as well that she was leaving, he decided furiously. She should go back home and find some small-town jerk who'd grovel at her feet, tell her he loved her and make any commitment she wanted.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The meeting started at precisely ten o'clock the following morning. Because all the men present were industrial giants whose time was extremely valuable, everyone was punctual. The chairman of the committee looked at the six men seated around the conference table and said, "Asad Ahmad Khan will not be here today. He asked me to explain that he was called back to Mumbai this morning on an urgent matter."
"We all have urgent matters pending," one of the members growled. "What the hell is Asad's problem that he can't be here?"
"He said it's a labor relations problem."
"That's no excuse!" another member exploded.
"We all have labor relations problems."
"I reminded Asad of that," the chairman replied.
"What did he say?"
"He said that nobody has a labor relations problem like his."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Zoya carried another armload of her belongings out to her car, then she paused to look up at the overcast October sky. It was going to rain, she thought dismally.
She walked back into the apartment, leaving the door slightly ajar so that she could nudge it open with her foot when she carried out the next load of her things. Her feet were damp from splashing through the little puddles on the sidewalk, and she mechanically bent down and took off her canvas sneakers. She was planning to wear them when she left for home, so she'd have to dry them quickly. She carried them to the kitchen, put them in the oven and turned it on to Warm, leaving the oven door open.
Upstairs she put on another pair of shoes and closed the last suitcase. All she had to do now was write a note to Abbas Siddiqui, then she could leave. Tears burned her eyes, and she brushed them away with impatient fingertips. Picking up her suitcase, she carried it downstairs.
Halfway across the living room she heard footsteps coming from the kitchen behind her. She swung around in surprise, then froze as Asad stalked out of the kitchen. She saw the reckless glitter in his eyes as he came toward her, and her mind screamed a warning; he knew about Abbas Siddiqui.
Asad, she dropped the suitcase and started edging away. In her haste she caught the backs of her knees on the arm of the sofa, lost her balance and landed flat on her back on the cushions.
His eyes gleaming with amusement, Asad looked at the delectable beauty sprawled invitingly across the sofa. "I'm flattered, sweetheart, but I'd like something to eat first. What are you serving"besides baked shoes?"
Warily Zoya scrambled to her feet. Despite his humorous tone, there was an iron grimness in the set of his jaw, and every powerful muscle of his body was tensed. She took a cautious step out of his reach.
"Stand still," he ordered softly.
Zoya froze again. "Why... why aren't you at the international trade meeting?"
"As a matter of fact," he drawled, "I've asked myself that same question several times this morning. I asked myself that question when I walked out on seven men who require my vote on vitally important issues. I asked myself that question on the way here, when the woman in the seat beside me on the plane threw up in a bag."
Zoya choked back a nervous giggle. He was tense, he was angry, but he wasn't furious. Therefore he didn't know about Abbas.
I asked myself that question," he continued, advancing a step, "when I practically jerked an old man out of the back seat of a taxi and took it myself, because I was afraid I'd get here too late."
Zoya tried desperately to decipher his mood and couldn't. "Now that you're here," she said shakily, "what do you want?"
"I want you."
"I told you""
"I know what you told me," Asad interrupted impatiently. "You told me I'm too old and too cynical for you. Right?"
She nodded.
"Zoya, I am only two months older than I was in Alibaug. Even though I feel a hell of a lot older than I did then. But the fact is you didn't think I was too old for you then, and you don't really think so today. Now, I'll unload your car and you can start unpacking your things."
"I'm going home, Asad," Zoya said with quiet determination.
"No, you're not," he said implacably, "You belong to me, and if you force me to, I'll carry you up to bed and make you admit it there."
Zoya knew he could do exactly that. She backed away another step. "All you would prove is that you can physically overpower me. Nothing I admitted there would count. What does matter is that I don't want to belong to you in any way!"
Asad smiled somberly. "I want to belong to you... in every way."
Zoya's heart flung itself against her ribs. What did he mean, belong? She knew instinctively he wasn't offering marriage, but at least he was offering himself. What would happen if she told him now about Abbas Siddiqui?
Asad spoke, his coaxing voice tinged with desperation. "Consider what an immoral, unprincipled cynic I am"think of all the improvements you could make to my character."
The simultaneous urge to laugh and weep snapped Zoya's control. Her hair tumbled forward in a heavy curtain as she bent her head and fought back tears. She was going to do it; she was going to let herself become that sordid clich"the secretary in love with her boss, having a secret affair with him. She was going to gamble her pride and self-respect on the chance that she could make him love her. She was going to risk having him hate her when she eventually told him about Abbas.
"Zoya," Asad said hoarsely, "I love you."
Her head shot up. Unable to believe her ears, she stared at him through tear-glazed eyes.
Asad saw her tears and his heart sank with bitter defeat. "Don't you dare cry," he warned tersely, "I have never said that to a woman before, and I..."
His words trailed off as Zoya unexpectedly flung herself into his arms, her shoulders shaking. Uncertainly, he tipped her chin up and gazed at her face. Her thick lashes were spiky with tears, and her blue eyes were drenched with them. She tried to speak and Asad tensed, braced for the rejection he had dreaded all the way from Malaysia.
"I think you are so handsome," she whispered brokenly. "I think you are the most handsome""
A low groan tore from Asad's chest, and he smothered her mouth with his. Devouring her lips with the insatiable hunger that had been torturing him for weeks, he crushed her melting, pliant body to the rigid, starved contours of his own. He kissed her fiercely, tempestuously, tenderly, and still he could not get enough of her. At last he dragged his mouth from hers, fighting down the rampaging demands of his body, and held her in his arms, pressed against his pounding heart.
When he didn't move for several minutes, Zoya leaned back in his arms and raised her face to his. He saw the question in her eyes and the willing acceptance of his decision. She would lie beside him here, or anywhere else he chose.
No," he murmured tenderly. "Not like this. I'm not going to walk in here and rush you into bed. I did something like that in Alibaug."
The impudent beauty in his arms smiled one of her bewitching smiles. "Are you really hungry? I could fix you some sauted socks to go with the shoes. Or would you prefer something more conventional, like an omelette?"
Asad chuckled and brushed a kiss over her smooth forehead. "I'll have my housekeeper fix something for me while I shower. Then I'm going to get some sleep. I didn't get any last night," he added meaningfully.
Zoya gave him a look of sham sympathy, which earned her another kiss.
"I suggest you sleep too, because when we come back from the party tonight, I intend to keep you awake until morning."
In fifteen minutes he had unloaded her car. "I'll pick you up at nine," he said when he was ready to leave. "It's black tie; do you have something formal to wear?"
Zoya hated to wear the clothes that had belonged to Abbas Siddiqui's mistress, but for tonight she didn't have any choice. "Where are we going?"
"To the Children's Hospital Benefit Ball at the Westin Hotel. I'm one of the sponsors, so I have tickets every year."
"That doesn't sound very discreet," Zoya said uneasily. "Someone may see us together there."
"Everyone will see us together. It's one of the social highlights of the year, which is why I want to take you. What's wrong with that?"
If the benefit ball was an elaborate society function, none of the other employees at Global were likely to be there, which explained to Zoya why Asad wasn't worried about causing office gossip. "Nothing's wrong with it. I'd love to go," she said, raising on tiptoe to kiss him goodbye. "I'd go anywhere with you."
Edited by iluvasya - 9 years ago
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