Affianced By Force

CHAPTER THIRTY - Maze

Umamah drove to work the following morning, despite her earlier agreement with Faisal to rest for two days before resuming work. It was a Monday and she didn't see the need to honour their promise. She wasn't even sure if they had a promise anymore.

If anyone had been surprised to see her so early and alone without Faisal, they kept it to themselves.

At work, she called the marketing team and asked for the data valuation on their new collaboration. She moved to the Finance department to enquire about the monthly dispensed beneficiaries' budget. She even went to Extraction and Production to monitor their works. All areas out of her powers. She wanted to be so busy that she didn't have to think about the situation of things back at home.

But she couldn't run away from her nemesis. Not when that nemesis was simultaneously her boss and husband.

Faisal arrived work and headed straight to her office. She wasn't there. When he was returning to his office, he met her at the stairs with a team of three other women he didn't recognize. When they saw him, they greeted.

"Wa'alaykumusssalaam Wa RahmatuLlaah. Uhm... I would like to speak with my wife, please."

The women nodded and left immediately.

Umamah made to turn away from him, but he was faster than her. He stood in front of her.

"I woke up and you already left for work. I thought we agreed no work until Wednesday?"

She gave a curt nod of her head. "And I thought we agreed no more secrets from each other." Her sarcastic reply taunted Faisal.

"Please... Don't do this..."

"If you don't have any instructions to give, please excuse me sir." She interrupted him, making to move past him again.

"Ummie..." He took her hands. "Please. I can't take this. Just... talk to me."

She pulled away from him and matched down the stairs, leaving him staring after her wake.

The rest of the day did not go well. The office hadn't been expecting their boss, so they hadn't prepared for his table. But with his return, work went flying around.

Faisal wanted to get busy as well, so he called for a meeting with all marketing managers from all the companies' subsidiaries. All subsidiaries had one marketing goal. To achieve a marketing target of 30% within the last quarter of the year. No one was expecting the urgent meeting and it took some branch subsidiary managers a little more than a few minutes lateness to arrive at the head-quarters.

Umamah, being the head of strategies and communication for FIH was of course, in attendance. But unlike in their previous meetings, she didn't look at Faisal. She was too engrossed with her iPad.

Faisal continued to stare at her wondering what was going on in her mind. Wondering when this would end. It had only been less than 24hours, and he was loosing his mind already. Ya Allah! have I loved someone too much to the point of pain? He asked his innerself?

"I believe our clothing-line Marketing Managers should go first." He began the meeting after the agenda was read.

"At the last meeting, you were supposed to come up with the best strategy to increase our sales target by 30% within the last quarter of the year."

Mr. Anda, the Marketing Manager of Faisal's Clothing was on his feet. "Y...yes sir." He sent papers across the room. "We were actually trying to see how we can convert some of our old customers into loyals. We forwarded some emails to them on the new summer wears seeing most of them bought our harmattan outfits. It does look promising, but until we get the their actual..."