❖ ════ ❃•❃ ════ ❖

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓙𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓷𝓮𝔂 𝓨𝓸𝓾 𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓘𝓷,

𝓐𝓶 𝓘 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓓𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷?

Asfandyaar walked inside the large room. He threw his coat in the couch loosening his tie. The clock ticked at 5 in the evening. He sat in the sit, frustrated. He called his secretary from the intercom.

"Yes sir?" He rushed inside. Looking at his furious eyes. The secretary, Amit questioned, "Is everything alright, Sir?"

"I want every detail about that doctor." He glared at him. Amit, who was unaware of anything that was happening stood confused.

"Sir, she had already resigned from her job."

"Did I asked you that?" Asfandyaar shot him a glare. Amit gazed down at the floor. His tie suffocating him with the blaze of his gaze.

"Get me the details by the evening."

Amit went out and Asfandyaar started working on his projects. He was the CEO of Shah Industries. Living a subtle life, without a shelter of warmness, he grew up to be cold and arrogant. There was no one in his life whom he could love or they could love him. Only Lily Martinez, his nanny was special to him.

After completing the bunch of work and meetings by the evening at 6, he went out of the office and sat in his car. He threw the tuxedo that he barely wore in the day. All day only Zubab was in his mind. For the first time in hai life, he was having a bad feeling for getting her out of the job. He had fired many employees of his corporation but something was striking him the entire evening for losing her as an employee. Starting the engine, he settled comfortably and started driving.

The discomfort was killing him, he drove towards the lake, he often used to visit as a child with her mother. It was his comfort place, a place where fresh strokes of winds reminds him of the warmth that his mother had. The sufferings were too oppressed for her live with his father. He came out of the car, after removing the tie, wearing the tux because of the wind, opening up the first buttons of his shirt and went towards the end of the lake.

The walk towards the edge was therapeutic as the suffocation started to drew away. For his dismay, there was someone sitting on the edged stone as well. It was his spot. He sight in irritation. "Cheers to the bad day," he murmured in his breath gazing at the woman sitting there with her back facing him.

She turned to look at him because of the sound of his sigh. She realised that someone was standing behind her.

A sigh left her lips looking at the person. It was her this time, it was Zubab sitting there. "This day couldn't get much worse." He said slowly under his breath walking towards her and sitting besides.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for a woman to sit all alone by herself in the end and the edge of a abandoned lake?"

She rolled her eyes at his words and gazed at the water, soothing her mind to calmness. "It's better than animals living inside a huge thirty floor building." She clearly hinted the Shah Industries headquarters. She had expected him get angry and throw a fit but to her surprise, he laughed. The sound of his laugh sounded so foreign to her that she started to stare at him for a while in astonishment.

"What?"

"I have never seen someone having such an audacity to talk with me this way."

She ignored his words and glanced back at the lake. "Who cares? You already ate my job."

"It was you who resigned." He pointed out, throwing a small stone in the water. "I wouldn't have resigned if you did not asked me to stand in that double edged sword."

"I am loving your attitude." He praised her words, his brows stretched up and a smirk decorating his perfect face. She glared at him and started looking at her nails soon after as he began, "Let's keep it this way to soothe your anger. Imagine I am not Asfandyaar Shah that you know."

She knitted her brows and looked at him with curiosity. "I am just a stranger you know. I am Asfand. Curse that man who forced you in that double edged sword to resign the job that loved to do. Yell his name in this lake and curse him about the worst thing you'd ever want to happen to him."

She rolled her eyes, "I know you are trying your ways to anger me more before you cancel my doctorate license."

"Come on! I am not lying. Look around, there's no one here that I can order around to remove your licence. I am not in the mood to fire someone now."

She kept thinking. Indulging herself in deep questions like why would he do that? May be guilt? No ways! Asfandyaar Shah never regrets anything he does.

"It's your chance. It's a once in a life time moment to curse your boss."

He encouraged, smirking. "Your smirk says something else," she said with a look of hope in her eyes. "You are spoiling the vibe. I am telling as a stranger, Ms. Zaheer."

"You will cancel my license as a CEO Mr. Shah!" She snapped back looking at the water.

"I'll give you ten seconds. If you don't do that now. I will do what I need to as a CEO."

She shot him a glare before actually thinking about his words. He was actually right. It was a do or die thing. She stared at him again as he started counting.

"10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2"

"ASFANDYAAR SHAH! YOU NUTHEAD! I CURSE YOU FOR SNATCHING MY JOB FROM ME THAT I LOVE WITH MY WHOLE HEART. I CURSE YOU THAT YOU'LL CRY FOR SOMETHING YOU'LL LOSE THAT YOU LOVE MORE THAN YOUR LIFE JUST LIKE I LOST MY JOB!"

Zubab screamed gazing at the sky and looked back at Asfandyaar who clapped laughing. Their eyes darted towards each other. A satisfactory warmness that blanketed them. Zubab glanced back at the sky to see that a star cross.

"Look! A star crossed," she exclaimed happily. "They say, anything you say during the star cross. It comes true and I said that you'll..."

"I don't have anything that I love."

They couldn't help but stare at each other. More than her, it was him. Her big, doe eyes were too beautiful to stare at. He never felt that way for any girl he met.

"That was good, wasn't it?" She chided. He smirked, "That was good?" His eye brows wiggling making her laugh as he imitated her voice. "You did well," he praised genuinely, nodding his head and leaning back at the stone.

"Do you come here often?" He asked.

"Once in a while with my mother and alone too."

"I never saw you here," he stated. "May be because I barely come here anymore." She answered. He questioned again, "What about your father?"

"My parents parted ways when I was seven." She answered in a daze, holding the strap of her bag tighter as she spoke. It was a tender part of her life.

"I am sorry."

Sympathies. She simple loathed.

"You don't need to be. Why do you come here?"

"My mother used to take me here as well."

"I guess our mothers love this place."

He laughed at her words. She stroked her hands as the coolness was too much for her to handle. The tides were stronger as well. He noticed it that she was growing uncomfortable because of the wind and hence removed his coat.

He blanketed it around her shoulders. She sat still when the warmness enveloped her body. She peered at him, shook by his warm actions.

He was cold. What was this?

"It's alright. I am fine. I need to leave." She was about to remove the coat when he said, "It's fine. Your hands are turning cool and red."

She stood up and turned around to leave. She couldn't comprehend the sudden affection she felt between each other. "I'll lend it back to you soon."

"I'll drop you, " he said. He didn't gave a shit about that coat. All that mattered at that time was her.

"I'll book a cab. It's fine." She said climbing up in the straight foot path beside the lake. He came behind her. "He is a stranger."

"So are you..."

He smirked, "Not you giving me the medicine of my handmade disease."

Their bond was growing closer and stronger which he liked. She laughed, "It's a fact. Weren't you the one telling that how strangers are dangerous?"

"Glad you took my words seriously. But don't you think..."

He stopped focusing on her face under the street light as they stopped walking and he could see how pretty she looked under the moon and the light of the street. For the first time in his life he felt good looking at a girl, felt tingling feeling of affection towards her.

But under the light, he saw a scar near her hair. She had her hair in a ponytail. He knitted his brows and asked, "Where did you hit your head so bad?"

She quickly hides it saying that it was probably some wounds she didn't knew she had.

But Asfandyaar knew it wasn't normal.

"Don't you think I am not a stranger anymore. I am Asfand, that person who encourage you to curse your boss. Can't I be your friend?"

"Thanks for being kind, Asfand. I am Zubab! That cursing idea was actually helpful that I could finally move from the place."

"You're welcome, your majesty!" He joked walking towards his car. "I'll drop you."

"No, I am booking a cab-"

"I insist, Zubab."

She seemed lost in his words. He seems to be genuinely caring man but the only thing was that he wasn't given enough things to care to. The drive to Zubab's home was awkwardly silent. None of them spoke expect the fact she told him the address.

"Thank you the ride."

"You're welcome," he said coming out of the car and when he looked at the villa. He surely knew this villa, he remembers that he used to visit it in the times of his childhood with his mother but he didn't know whose house this was.

"You sure you live here?" He queried confused.

"Yes! Been living here since my childhood."

"I have visited this villa in my childhood." He stated making her grow curious. She was interested now. He stood infront of her, leaning in the car as he kept thinking about the lady his mother used to visit.

"What's your mother's name? Is it by chance Zar..." He kept thinking and said when it finally striked him, "Zarmain Ishtiyaq?"

"Yes it is. How do you know?" She answered.

"Congratulations! You are my late mother's best friends daughter."

She laughed. "What's there to congratulate in this?"

"We have a relation, a bond in between. Our mothers were best friends. We are not complete strangers!"

•

Thoughts on the second chapter?

Target Votes 110

Target comments