Chapter 14

Italiano's was a fabulous restaurant. The decor was unpretentious and rather Spartan-brown tablecloths, cream walls, thickly dressed windows to keep the atmosphere warm.

I and Aahil were welcomed at the door and escorted to the only vacant table in one of the rooms which looked even more elegant. The waiters were friendly and caring, the service very good, the ambience excellent and food superb.

It was a pleasant place to be and It was surprising to appreciate just how much I was enjoying myself. I even recognised two or three famous faces amongst the diners and I learnt that the place was mostly occupied by the high profile and few foreigners.

There was a break in the buzz of conversation as we walked across to our table. Aahil was well-known here and people thought of him as some kind of celebrity.

I felt a lot of women steal glances at him and it somehow made me feel insecure and yet amazingly he was giving me his undivided attention.

As far as he was concerned, I was the only woman in the restaurant. He sat opposite to me and apart from discussing our meal order with the waiter, he was giving me all his attention.

His whole expression was one of warm pleasure in being with me. I could not help my face glowing with the happiness inside me.

Every meal was delicately prepared and delicious. To my surprise, I found that I had a hearty appetite. It had been a long time since lunch and with the churning emotions, I hadn't felt like eating and only now did I realise that my body was crying out for sustenance.

"You are very quiet," Aahil murmured.

It took a terrifying amount of will power to drag my disobedient gaze from him. It always did!

"Aleena, what are you thinking," The honey-dark drawl made my stupid heart skip a beat. It always did!

It shook my head vigorously, "It's nothing."

"I wish to know you with a clear mind without my opinions clouding my judgement," Aahil invited.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything," He replied with passion.

"I don't know how to begin. I feel at a total loss of words."

"We will start with basic things and I'll answer your questions also."

A huge smile erupted through my lips and I looked at him enthusiastically.

"Favourite colour?"

"Purple. Yours?"

"Black."

'black' the word simply held a lot of meaning.

"Favourite food?"

"Chinese and Yours?"

"Italian," he drawled.

"Oh, that is why you chose this restaurant. I liked the food and the place is warm and homely."

"I am glad you liked it. It is quite hard to get a table without reservation as it is always filled with tourists."

"In which subject did you major in university?"

"Microbiology,"

"You could take up a post in our company and continue your higher studies after our lives return back to normal."

"Really?" I asked excitedly.

"Of course," His brilliant dark eyes sparkled with warm indulgence.

"It was dad's wish that I work beside him in the laboratory, he wanted me to be a part of one of his researches in the least," My face stiff with strain, I swallowed hard.

Aahil paled but his gleaming gaze was veiled by thunderous silence.

Tears brightening my eyes, I didn't even look at him when I said, "I still can't believe that dad isn't with us anymore."

Registering my distress, Aahil frowned and abruptly reached a hand across the table to reach my tightly coiled fingers.

"You don't have to act strong. Believe me, I know how it feels to lose such a close person. But at the same time, we need to accept qadr and the Quran clearly warns us that every soul has to taste death. It's just that some of them taste it sooner and some later."

I undid my fingers from his and tried smiling, "Don't you think it should have been my lines? Aren't you the one who is stuck in the past?"

"What do you mean?"

"It is visible for all to see that you still haven't recovered from your mom's death. I wish you would open up and tell me about your mother."

His eyes lit up at the mere thought of his mother, "My mom was the most beautiful, most gentle and most loving soul to have inhabited this planet. She was a perfect Muslimah and someone who knew the art of spreading joy. She spent all her life in social work and was never interested in materialistic things. I bet there won't be another lady like her."

"I bet," I smiled affectionately.

'"Do you have any travel wish?' It was clearly visible that he was trying to change the subject, but I gave in.

"Switzerland, Paris, Italy---"

His sweet laughter enriched the atmosphere, "I did not ask you to dictate world map," His eyes twinkled with warm emotions, "On the contrary, could take you all those places when I am free from business obligations InshaAllah."

"You mean it?"

He nodded his head, still smiling.

"Do you like travelling too?" I asked hoping for a positive reply, "Even a small bus ride gets me winded up and I wish that the vehicle never stops. I like spending time with myself, It gives me time to understand myself better. It helps me sort out my emotions and apart from that I love spending time exploring new places and meeting new people."

His eyes never left mine, we were trapped in invisible hypnotism, "I wouldn't mind travelling if you would be my escort," Rueful smile played on his lips.

"In your dreams," I quipped.

"Don't challenge me," His expression turned sombre.

Raising my hands in an act of complete surrender, I spoke up rather softly, "I give up. Please don't initiate another row," Everything was going so smoothly, Aahil was being so nice that it felt like a dream come true and I did not wish for anything to spoil the magical moment.

"Are you implying that I am rude and it is I who always initiates a row. Isn't that blunt?"

"Of course not."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, "I don't blame you as I was hardly giving an impression of a gentleman," He added quietly.

"I don't mind if you get mad at me for something that I have done wrong, but I am not a gold digger and I don't want a single penny of yours."

" Isn't it a husband's responsibility to look after the needs of his wife."

"If Responsibility is a part of love then the wife is happy and besides even the man who provides has a deep sense of contentment, but when responsibility is forced upon someone then it becomes a burden and I don't wish to be a burden on anyone."

Some of his painful vulnerability swam into his eyes but still his focus on me seemed to be intense, "What would you say if I said I love you, Aleena?" he asked softly.

My heart turned over. I looked at him with suspicion and hope.

Suspicion won.

There was a reason to everything Aahil said. He was speaking from his head, not his heart, probably seeking some lever to keep this relationship going until it was needed.

If loving had ever been in his nature, Aahil had stamped it out as something too unreliable to trust.

"I would say you are lying," I replied with a mocking little grimace, that I hoped hid the pain behind the words.

"Why?"

"Because only a moment before you were considering me to be a gold-digger and for all, I know you still have the same opinion," I replied with a careless shrug.

"Then don't you keep giving me reasons to blurt out things which I don't mean to say," Aahil answered nonchalantly.

I shrugged once again, "Perhaps we are no good for each other."

A glitter of challenge sharpened his eyes to searing brilliance, "You cannot say that until we have given this marriage a chance."

I deliberately kept my expression bland, revealing none of my emotional torment. I did not want him to know how badly I wanted this marriage to work out. We would just have to wait and see.

"And what if I said that I don't love you?" he posed derisively.

"I would believe you."

He laughed. But his eyes remained devoid of emotions, "Do you know what love is, Aleena?"

"Do you, Aahil ?" I challenged with arch scepticism.

His mouth curled sardonically, "I guess not."

He guessed right, I thought with bitter cynicism. I was weak, a stupid fool to think that he was really trying to make this marriage work.

But I couldn't regret being with him. I felt more of everything when I was with him.

Life is sharper, sweeter, brighter, darker .......

While he is away I only feel half-alive.

And since he had opened up areas that had been avoided before tonight, I decided now was not a good time as any to find out how I really stood with him.

'Aahil!' a female voice shrilled ecstatically.

Aahil froze and winced as my head spun around. There was a beautiful blond lady. She spoke something in french which I was incapable of understanding. But it was clearly visible that she was trying her best to get his utmost attention.

Aahil's brown eyes skimmed mine with curious expectancy.

"Jennifer...this is my wife, Aleena," he drawled with supreme self-command.

"You got married? YOU?" she looked thunderstruck and finally took notice of me, "To her?" she gasped in stricken incomprehension as she gawped at me, "But why?"

I surfaced from her shocked gaze to find myself being regarded much as I myself might have regarded a cockroach. I looked at Aahil to find faint colour accentuating the hard slant of his cheekbones.

"Oh, don't mind me," I said sweetly, '/"You both can continue your conversation over the dinner," Then I turned on my heel and stalked out into the cold night air.

Several steps beyond the door Aahil reached me and closed a hand over my forearm, "How dare you leave like that?" he gritted rawly.

"Stop holding my hands," I removed his hand and turned, when a flash of bright light temporarily blinded my vision and I blinked in bewilderment, straining to focus on a man in a yellow shirt darting away with the camera.

Aahil took advantage of my stasis to grab me with a furious hand and guided me towards the car.

When I got into the car, Dilshad looked suitably grave head-on and from the back seat and through the thick glass separating us, I watched his broad shoulders give a betraying little quiver and I hurriedly looked away as mortification ate me alive.

I was trembling and deep down inside like a stricken mass of nerves.

I Had been jealous?

Jealous for the first time in my life.

Jennifer's familiar advances towards Aahil had filled me with rage and I had lost my mind and now the paparazzi had a photo of us having a stand-up fight outside the hotel.

"Your behaviour was .......," Aahil seemed to be struggling to find the right words.

"Appaling," I slotted heavily, "Maybe you should try to look on the bright side."

Aahil frowned in confusion.

"Weren't you the one who said the more miserable and out of place I look in the papers, the less surprised everyone will be when this fake marriage ends," I pointed out tightly.

A strained silence stretched.

"I have married a stranger...only you become more familiar and yet more strange with every minute I spend with you," Aahil confessed with such fierceness that made me shiver, "I do not understand you and I will not be satisfied until I do," Aahil conceded weakly.

A great sob was rising in my throat like the wail of a trapped animal in agony. I bowed my head unable to speak. If I opened my mouth I would have broken down and utterly disgraced myself.

Why did feelings have to be so complicated? Why did the brain always have to interfere in the matters of the heart?

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