𝔇𝔞𝔴𝔫 𝔱𝔬 𝔇𝔲𝔰𝔨 (The Legacy Duet - 2)

Pompa

Taimoor

𝕴 passed yet another sleepless night while my wife went back to her rooms to sleep. Fuck if I was getting any. I couldn't think about sleep with her scent on my sheets, the indentation of her head on my pillow, and the warmth from her body seeping into my bones.

Was it dumb luck or a ploy on her part? Could she really just have ended up in my bed? Knowing her, it could be a ploy. But her expressions had been real. For the life of her, her eyes always gave her away. She couldn't fake anything. At least, that's what I told myself, thinking about her like an obsessed fool.

And I was obsessed.

Throughout my time in Hong Kong, I'd carefully grilled Akbar incessantly after his calls with Mrs.Khan as to her daily activities, partly because her idiot cousin was on the lose and partly because I was desperate to know every detail.

"Why don't you do us all a favor and talk to your wife?" Akbar had sniped the day before, and I had nearly put him through the wall.

"Because I'm asking you," I'd snarled, tired from the constant meetings and the low hat I'd been forced to wear.

Easier to cover the scars, Akbar had said.

He had taken a step back under threat of losing his position, informing me of her walks in the foyer, her time exploring Mughal House's library, her attending an event with Zeenia, the trip to her parents, updates from Scorpio, her visit to the spa, her successful visit to the designer, her dinners in her room, and the time she woke up and retired for bed.

I'd almost fired him there and then.

This girl was slowly working her way under my skin. Her presence, and the fact that she made me feel more emotions in one day than I'd felt in my entire life. Her innocence called to a dark part of me that wanted to ruin it, that wanted to shatter it, claim her, but something deeper stopped me from getting involved—some foreign, visceral need I couldn't explain and didn't even understand.

I could change everything so fast. From the softness in her eyes to the fire in her soul, I knew he'd told her part of the truth. I could turn her against him by telling her the truth, the whole truth, not the version he'd told her. If only I was a better man, a man that wasn't so dead set on revenge. Maybe things could be different?

I could keep her with me until she realized no one would ever make her feel the way I did. Make her want me. Make her mine.

The woman had no idea.

She thought I liked her. She thought she could play with me, pull me in and leave me. She had no idea about the self-control I'd employed to honor our agreement. To honor it because I respected her spirit and her gall. She had no idea that I wanted to bask in her light. To live in her glow.

I was undeniably obsessed with her.

I didn't know why I'd provoked her before she left, only that I needed to. I wanted to drag some reaction from her, something other than that rigid composure that turned her into an ice sculpture and chased the expressions from her face. She wasn't her without her expressions. Her expressions were what made her remarkable.