Page 64 of First Comes Marriage
Zafar looked at her and raised his eyebrow in question. ‘Where else would I be?’
‘I thought … we thought that you might have …’ She looked at Reshma and then back at him. ‘Umm, I think there may have been a bit of a misunderstanding.’
‘You think?!’ Zafar asked incredulously, the sight of Reshma’s tear-stained face making his heart sink, but as her words and their implication slowly registered in his brain, he felt a flicker of annoyance at her lack of faith in him. ‘Can you give us a minute please, Niya?’ he asked with more calm than he felt. He’d had a day from hell and now this.
‘Sure.’ She smiled at him and gave Reshma a final pat on the back before quietly walking away.
Zafar didn’t move from where he was standing and Reshma didn’t either. Thankfully, her tears seemed to have stopped, but they’d left her eyelashes spiky and tracks downher cheeks. She had dark smudges under her eyes where some of her make-up seemed to have smeared. But she still looked bloody gorgeous to him.
‘I don’t even know where to start, Reshma. What the hell is happening here?’
‘I thought you had left. What are you doing here?’
‘Uhhh … correct me if I’m wrong, but we have a reception to attend right now. I don’t make a habit of putting on a tux every day. And where exactly am I supposed to have gone?’
She sniffled and rubbed the back of her hand under her nose. When she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘London.’
‘London? Because …?’
‘You said you had to go back as soon as possible because your hotel deal had some issues. You said that last night. On the phone. And then …’ She swallowed, her voice a bit clearer but with a hint of confusion in it. ‘I saw you getting into a car and you had your suitcase with you. I thought you were leaving to go back to London because of your work.’
‘Without telling you?’
She looked at him for a moment without responding and just as he was about to repeat the question, she jerked her head once in a nod.
Zafar closed his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Jesus. Reshma.’ He could hear the growl in his voice. How could she doubt him like that? Granted, he’d been pretty focused on the hotel situation since they’d left the restaurant yesterday – though it felt like it had been days ago – but he couldn’t believe that she thought he’d have just left her without so much as a ‘I’m leaving, see ya.’ Especially after the way they’d connected in recent days.
‘You didn’t go to the airport.’ She said it like she was testing the words out.
He lowered his hand from his face and saw her looking at him, her expression still one of disbelief but with a hint of confusion and now sheepishness there.
‘I didn’t go to the airport.’
He was tempted to hold her. Take her in his arms and comfort her, reassure her that he hadn’t left and was still there. With her. But he had to clear this up first. He had to try to understand how she had got it so wrong to the point of breaking down like that. He put his hands into his pockets.
‘I did say yesterday I need to go to London and I also said I needed to do it as soon as possible. But it was my immediate reaction to the problem. It’s what I would have done if I gave no thought to anything – or anyone – else.’
She swallowed and he saw the misery gradually disappear from her face and posture as her shoulders relaxed a bit. ‘But I saw you get into the car with your suitcase.’
He nodded. ‘That’s because I did get into a car with my suitcase. I didn’t have a laptop bag or rucksack, so I emptied my suitcase and loaded the laptop and bits I needed into it and made my way to a nearby hotel because I had no internet after the power cut.’
Her eyebrows furrowed. ‘What power cut? There was no power cut.’
He raised his eyebrows at her outright denial. ‘Therewasa power cut. Just before you saw me leaving the villa, there had been a power cut. I called you, but when you didn’t answer, I messaged you and then called Uncle Jawad. He said all the villas had lost power. Weren’t you at Auntie Ruqayyah’s villa?’
Her forehead didn’t clear as her lower lip slowly curled in to sit between her teeth. God, that habit of hers …Zafar cleared his throat and tried to bring his attention back to the moment.
‘I wasn’t at the villa. I had gone for a short walk. It must have happened then.’
‘It didn’t last long, but it threw the internet out for long enough that I didn’t bother hanging around. I packed what I needed and went to a hotel to use the internet and finish off what I was doing so that I could make it in time for Saleema’s reception.’
She stared back at him, and he saw the moment the penny dropped with her that he hadn’t actually walked out on her without a word. The only thing she said, though, was a softly voiced, ‘Oh.’
‘Yes.Oh.’ Zafar shook his head. ‘I don’t even know what to say, Reshma. I didn’t realise you had so little faith in me. What is it you need from me to reassure you that I’m here? With you. I’m not going anywhere.’
She watched him intently and he watched her back. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with fresh tears and in the next moment she took the few steps between them and wrapped her arms around him, resting her cheek against him. She held him so tight, she had both his tux and his shirt in her grip.
‘I thought …’ She turned her face into him and he gave up holding back and wrapped his arms around her, holding onto her just as tightly as she held onto him. Zafar could see the depth of Reshma’s insecurities and her doubts stemmed from the way she’d been treated in the past. It would take time for her to shake them off, so he could understand why she had reacted the way she had.
