Hera was in awe as she stared up at the Qal'at al-Bahrain. The historical significance intrigued her and it was fascinating to hear about the Dilmun civilisation. The Portuguese had built the archaeological site as a trading port amongst other purposes. Hera had always been a bit of a history buff. It was her favourite subject and she loved to dwell long and hard with the facts.

Daniyal had walked up beside her with his face morphed into a scowl. He looked at the fort in distaste whereas Hera was too busy clicking pictures on her phone.

"This is so boring." He grumbled and looked ahead at the others who were all in small groups. "It's just brown stone and dust. How is this fun? I should have stayed with Hakeem and gone to the water park."

A group of men on the opposite end burst into a fit of laughter as they conversed with the tour guide. Hera's attention was drawn to the man in the middle who was wearing a short-sleeve white linen shirt with a pair of blue shorts and white sneakers. The duke looked irresistible, especially with the shades he had on. It was only now that Hera had made out his hair to be quite curly as it fell on his forehead. Looking at his beard made her melt. She surely loved how it suited him.

Hera's attention went back to her brother and her lips tilted at him. Perhaps he was too young to understand the significance of such a historical figure. "It may not be much to look at, but it's the past that makes it interesting."

Daniyal listened to Hera but then shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah I wasn't listening to the tour guide."

At that Hera bent down a little to reach her brother's height and showed him the previous pictures she had taken, "Do you see this bit? It's the ancient sea tower. These could be classified as lighthouse back then and compare it to today's lighthouses, look at how far we've come."

Hera continued explaining each picture to her brother trying to help him understand that it wasn't simply all stone and hardened mud. The past significance is what gave it value and showed how much the world has evolved since then.

A perky Bahraini girl who was the guide's assistant came up to Hera and Daniyal with two bottles in her hand. "This is fresh laban. A buttermilk of a sort. It's drunk here in Bahrain during the heated season and during the holy month of Ramadan. Try it, courtesy of the tour."

Daniyal wasted no time in gulping down the drink and running off and Hera liked it as she savored the first mouthful. It was like the lassi her childhood home cook, Mr. Patel, had made for her once.

The tour continued until it was time for lunch. All the Uzayr siblings, their significant others and some other selected guests made their way back to the two airconditioned coaches breathing a sigh of relief when the cool air hit them. Hera was quick to go back to her seat and gulp down the complimentary bottle of water to cool her body.

On the way to the fort she hadn't sat next to the Duke since he was on the other coach but Hera was fine with that as she chatted to Tina via text throughout the journey.

Tina Makumbe was a strong and stellar woman of Zimbabwean heritage. Hera had known her since high school and they clicked in their business studies class. Ever since that chance encounter, Tina had been the support Hera needed but the distance between the two friends left a lot to be desired. Tina was thriving in the corporate world, making a big name for herself and enjoying her life whereas Hera was still figuring the basis of her life.

Why was she so late for everything? Why did life take so long to fall into place for her? Hera wanted to scream out at the universe for being a bitch.

Tina had expressed her uneasiness for her friend, offering to send her some money for the time being and whenever Hera was ready, she could pay her back. But Tina knew that her friend had her head stuck up in her ass at times. Hera was determined to make it by herself. Help wasn't something that accepted easily, but Tina had to admire the girl for her determination to push through.

"If you'd waited for me outside the hotel reception then we could have sat together," said the duke as he stood in the aisle looking at Hera. "Scoot up now."

Begrudgingly Hera moved up to the window and made place for Daman to take seat. She actually enjoyed her solo time.

"Now, care to share why you look so forlorn?"

Hera gnawed at the inside of her cheek and contemplated letting the duke know her business. Was she to tell him that she was actually considering taking the money from Tina? Hera had officially hit below rock bottom.

Her phoned signaled a message once again and thinking it was Tina, Hera eagerly tapped opened the WhatsApp icon but groaned loudly at the message from the unknown number.

Mikael was a bigger inconvenience in her life than she had thought. The man's side chick was constantly harassing her by sending awful text messages every once in a while. Jane Willards was a very insecure woman who had a lot of blame cast upon Hera. Mikael was the problem though but since Jane was so deluded, she pinned the entire blame of the infidelity on Hera.

'You're still talking to him right? I see how you both come online and offline at the same time. You're stupid just like him. You're a fucking loser for still wanting him. Such a hoe you are.'

Hera had blocked countless unknown numbers with the sender being Jane on every occasion.

Out of the corner of her eyes she could see that Daman was reading the text message. Now Hera was worried that his opinion of her would further be influenced by this text. Crap! She just couldn't catch a break. Maybe she should explain so that his opinion of her would not steer even more and be in the bad light considering the amount of lies she's said in the past 12 hours.

Hera quickly blocked the contact and deleted the message. "Uh, sorry you had to see that."

"You've certainly left an impression on whoever that may have been." Daman treaded carefully wanting to know what that was about but didn't want to directly ask her about it.

Hera got the hint and buckled her seatbelt in as the coach started driving to their lunch destination.

"My ex, well if you can call him that - wait. Do you really want me to tell you all of this?" Hera wanted to make sure that she wouldn't bore him to death with her sorrowful love life story. It was also a sore topic for her.

Daman settled his arm over the back of Hera's seat getting comfortable. Oh how he was dying to know about this. He flashed Hera a dashing smile, gesturing for her to continue.

"I'll paraphrase but Mikael and I met by chance and we sort of had a thing going on. We didn't define our relationship per say but me being the hopeless idiot that I am, thought it was a proper romantic relationship between us." Hera had wanted to kick herself whenever she thought about how pathetic she was and for her to be so naïve was punch in the gut.

"We went out for over a year, and then just when I thought he was going to take the next step further and ask for commitment, I get a message on Instagram from this Jane girl and everything blew up into shreds."

Daman was attentively listening to the gorgeous woman next to him and he couldn't help but wonder if she slept with this man. He didn't particular know why his train of thoughts led him there but he was curious. However he knew better than to ask a woman that.

"Well, long story short, turns out Mikael was a lying bastard in every sense. He had a girlfriend of 6 years all along, her name is Sonya and on top of that, he had a side chick - Jane who is harassing me. Then add me into that mix and everything is certainly a disaster."

Hera had regret and sorrow laced in her voice which didn't go unnoticed by Daman. His beauty had been hurt. She had been hurt badly.

"The women and I had talked it out, but you know how those things go. It's all nice on the top but deep down they just wanted to kill me. Mikael had also introduced both woman to his family on separate occasions but not me. But do you know what the best part is?" Hera looked at Daman with eyes blazing and he was sure that if she could, she'd be shooting out lasers with the way her eyes were squinted in bitterness.

"And what might be the best part?" Daman said with a hint of enjoyment watching Hera turn into a firecracker.

"Sonya was pregnant! She was 6 weeks pregnant when that intervention happened. Mikael and I had continued to go out and he never told me. She was 6 weeks pregnant, and he never muttered a word."

Daman licked his lips as he took in all that she had said. He assumed Hera was tossed aside ruthlessly after that hence her apprehension when he had first met her in the banquet hall.

"What happened afterwards?"

Hera scoffed in bitterness. "What else could happen? He's with Sonya who has forgiven him. They're still together. They're probably parents by now."

Daman was intrigued as to who this man was. Who dared to hurt Hera like this? He felt an overprotective stance wash over him but perhaps this was what lust does to a person. However he couldn't justify his feelings on lust. He'd felt lust for plenty of women, then what was so special about Hera? Why did she draw him in?

"What does this Mikael guy do?"

Hera stared out the window trying to compose herself, therefore she didn't really think when she answered all of Daman's questions.

"Engineer..."

Daman thought carefully for his next words. "And his surname?"

"Roman." Hera once again answered with her hands crossed over her chest as she continued to look out the window.

Also known as the Bahrain Fort or Portuguese Fort, is an archaeological site located in Bahrain.

A watered down yogurt drink that is flavored with salt.

A blended yogurt drink that is very popular in the Northern Parts of India.