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"Know that God intervenes between man and [the desires of] his heart." —Qur'an (8:24)

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Desire.

To think that this simple word has so many innuendos. So many insinuations.

Yet it is simply the act of wanting. A greater power of wanting. Wanting something so badly that it makes every breath an ache, every blink of the eye arduous, every footstep misplaced.

It makes every heartbeat quicker.

Zoya has never felt such an intense desire in her life, such an ache to want something so badly before. Zoya has always wanted more, but has never desired more. She wants every single day, more and more than she had the last day, and she makes sure she can do whatever is in her power to gain what she wants. And she is Zoya Zameer, CEO of Zameer Co., one of the most notorious women in the country — of course she can attain whatever she wants. She wants it, she makes it happen, and poof, it's there. So wanting something and not being able to have it? That is outside the scope of Zoya's sphere — damn, that is outside the scope of Zoya's entire galaxy.

To her, the word desire has always held such negative connotations. It has always meant lust. And she has known no other definitions of the word, no other side of the coin. Life has shown her nothing but the ugly side of desire, the unnatural and unlawful side, the sickness.

The penetrating, the trespassing of property, the violation of privacy, the thieving of dignity, the coercion. This is the only thing desire has shown her. No less.

So when she finds herself quietly observing Haroun and Sumaiya — the way they only speak if it's absolutely necessary, still knowing their limits despite heading for marriage — the way he keeps his eyes lowered around her as well — as he does with Zoya and every other woman — the way he carries himself and speaks to others, the word desire is given a new meaning. She doesn't want Haroun Suleiman, she desires him.

And not in the connotative sense of the word, the sense that the world has given it. But in the sense that a strange thumping and squeezing sensation overrides her heart when she thinks of him promising himself in marriage to someone else. Something sick stirs within her, something aching. Something she hasn't felt in a long, long time.

She desires for this strange organ in her body that continues to somehow beat to be in line with his. She desires to place her head over his heart and hear the rhythmic beating, hear the proof that goodness like him exists and breathes in this cruel and corrupted world. She desires for him to continue to say things to her that make her breath hitch and cause her brain's gears to stutter, that make her reconsider every thought she has ever had. She desires to hear his voice, see his smile and the creased dimple, be allowed to stroke his cheek every time he blushes in an uncomfortable situation.

She desires to place her fingers over his dark eye bags, to ask him why he is so tired all the time. Her heart aches to pour out all of her life's worries to him, to lay down her trials and tribulations into his caring, protective hands. To hear him give her reassurances that she will eventually begin to believe.

And none of this she can accomplish while he is engaged to someone else.

She has to be the one. She has to be the one whose hand he holds every night, whose hair he brushes back from her face every night, whose tremors he stops every time she flies awake from a nightmare, rapidly breathing with her eyes wide in terror. She has to be the one he provides comfort to during times of stress, the kind of comfort she has only felt in her father's presence and now his presence.

Ironically, both times she is the one pining after the man. First her father, now Haroun Suleiman.

Regardless, it cannot be anybody else but her. She needs to be the one who attains this valuable jewel in a world of stones.

It has to be her.

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