Authors: Zeenat Mahal
The Contract (14 page)
you’d just asked anyway. Why did you do that? I don’t get it.”
After a stunned pause he said quietly, “I wasn’t pretending with all that sappy stuff. And there
aren’t any meetings.”
Confused and angry again, she asked, “What do you mean? Then why…?”
“What else was I supposed to tell Ami? I thought it was very obvious. I…I thought you’d realize
that that was just an excuse…”
Outraged she threw the duvet off and stared at him.
“You made this whole thing up? What did you need an excuse for…?”
She stopped because he shifted too, and he was much closer than she’d thought.
Softly, he said, “This…”
And he pulled her towards him gently.
“If you’re okay with it?”
Shahira smiled and simply nodded.
* * *
Groaning with acute embarrassment she buried her face deeper into the pillows when she woke up
the next morning. Had she actually done that? She’d never felt this horrified at her behavior her whole
life. How was she ever going to face him again?
With a new wave of mortification, she remembered how she’d shuddered against him
uncontrollably, not once but
every time,
while he’d held on to her soothing her and then she’d actually
cried
. Oh, my God! He must think she was the biggest idiot in the world. What with his own candid
admissions of having had numerous affairs, and she with her sexual deprivation…
oh no, no, no!
A strange swell of emotion was rising in her chest that left her almost breathless. Hussain had
made her feel beautiful and desirable whereas she’d felt dirty and humiliated before. She’d never
behaved with such abandonment. Admittedly, all her previous experience had been with a selfish and
mentally sick man.
“Hello.”
She heard Hussain’s soft greeting as he came and sat down on the bed beside her, but she lay still,
hoping he’d leave thinking she was still asleep, because she couldn’t face him just yet. She still
hadn’t decided how to put on her morning face.
He gave a soft laugh and said, “I know you’re awake, so get up while the coffee’s still hot. Unless,
this is a hint for me to get back in?”
She spluttered, “No…no, I just woke up…”
He was laughing at her again. His voice infused with laughter, “I can’t believe you didn’t know
what an orgasm was—you were most poetic in your reactions.”
An embarrassed cry of protest escaped her, and with another laugh he pulled her against him, and
whispered in her hair, “I’m just teasing. Oh God, Shahira. I love you so much.” His voice gentled as
he added, “I said it last night, but you may have missed it, seeing as you were reacquainting yourself
with your lost libido.”
She gave a muffled laugh and Hussain continued, also laughing, “I’m in love with you, totally and
desperately. I’m quite sure you missed that part, and I rather like saying it. I’ll try and make you
happy, always. I’m not going anywhere, ever again. I’ll appoint people to look after the other offices
and set one up in Lahore so I can stay with my lovely family and my beautiful, gorgeous wife. I’ll
always love you.”
Shahira sighed with a sudden surge of happiness.
“You’ve given me everything that I thought I’d lost, Shahira. But that’s not why I fell in love with
you. I loved you long before I thought redemption was possible.” He paused and his voice changed a
fraction. “It would be really nice if you loved me a little, too, but it’s okay if you don’t, yet. I’ll never
hurt you, Shahira. I promise.”
She was still propped up against his broad chest and smiling. Well, she hadn’t just been re-
discovering her lost libido, but a lot more, much more than she could ever have expected or even
imagined life could offer. She’d been falling in love, for the first time in her life, and she’d been
falling for a while now, she just hadn’t known it.
Her wicked sense of fun urged her to say, “I
am
bound by a contract,”
After one of his signature pauses, he said with mock gravity, “Yes, you certainly are, and if last
night was any indication of how seriously you take…”
“Stop it,” she cried, turning bright red, and pushing him away.
Hussain pulled her head back a little to look into her face, his eyes knowing, and smiling, he said,
“I’m sorry. It’s hard to resist when I’m feeling so happy. You know you could just admit that you’re
head over heels in love with me too. Or I’ll be forced to remind you exactly how much. Or maybe that
was your plan all along.”
Hussain kissed her passionately, making her heart sing because she knew now that this man would
always be kind and chivalrous to her; that he meant what he said, and would say only what he meant.
That finally she could trust a man enough to love him, and depend on him to not destroy her because
she did.
≈
A B O U T T H E A U T H O R
Zeenat Mahal (@zeenat4indireads) is an avid reader and has been writing for as long as she can
remember. She has an MPhil in English literature from Government College Lahore and is
currently doing an MFA in creative writing from Kingston University London. She won a BBC
short story competition in 2001 and has been a regular contributor to local newspapers. Zeenat
has eclectic tastes and an insatiable desire to learn. Her romances are a heady mix of the
traditional and the contemporary, old world values face the challenges of a shrinking globe that
impinge upon and help shape South Asian sensibilities.
The Contract is Zeenat’s second published novella. Currently she is working on a literary novel
with elements of magical realism, while continuing to write romances. She can be contacted on her
FB page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zeenat-Mahal.
Zeenat currently lives in Kingston Upon Thames with her fabulous sons.
A B O U T I N D I R E A D S
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