"You're kidding, right?" Rakia gave Dashtan a probing look of disbelief."That's up to you, whether you believe me or not. I've told you the truth." Dashtan finished his coffee and then looked at Rakia, who seemed to be debating whether to believe."So what do you say? Want to come with me to the dig? I can tell Liam to make you a journalist who will cover the process."Rakia looked at Dashtan in surprise; what a tempting offer. When else could she be part of a team covering and witnessing a historical event? Rakia could see no other answer than to accept the offer. Dashtan looked at the woman waiting; he had already set the bait, just waiting for the fish to grab it."That will be one of the things I will never forget in my entire career. I'm willing," Rakia broke in."But there are conditions." And those words made Rakia again."Well, then I won't be going.""You've already agreed to it; there's no turning back, Rakia...." Dashtan smiled slyly in her mind. Rakia resented the man's d
They ended the kiss by closing their eyes, resting their foreheads against each other, and inhaling as much air as possible to fill their oxygen-deprived lungs."Don't ask for my heart, Rakia...," Dashtan said after she gained the strength to speak."I won't ask for it; I just want us to be honest with ourselves in this marriage." Rakia tried to get the Man to open up to her and go through this marriage without any pretense. Dashtan opened her eyes while Rakia immediately distanced them as she turned to the other side. She took a deep breath and then let it out regularly."I'll try, but if I feel it's beyond my limits, I'll stop."That remark made Rakia look back at the Man; a small smile broke out on her face."That's the spirit. Now, I have to eat and take my medicine; then we'll talk about the excavation later," Rakia said before getting up from the sofa and leaving Dashtan, who was thinking about his decision again. He turned to Rakia, who was hobbling out of his office. He had on
Her cell phone ringing woke Rakia from her sleep after she had made love with Dashtan a few moments ago. But when she woke up and checked her surroundings, she found him nowhere, not even in this room. Rakia covered her body with a thick blanket. It once again looked around for Dashtan, but all she found was her loneliness. Her cell phone ringing had stopped because she didn't answer the call. She let out a long sigh and closed her eyes for a moment."I regret it now," she said, but a second later, she smiled and shook her head weakly. Her cell phone rang again, and she lazily answered the call."Hi, are you awake? Sorry for not waking you up; I had a meeting that I almost forgot about." Dashtan's voice came from the other end of the line. Rakia smiled while biting her lower lip. Her face flushed with embarrassment, but she quickly pulled herself together."Um, thanks for calling, but you still left as you ran away after screwing someone's daughter." Rakia looked down. Dashtan laughed
Dashtan hugged Rakia tightly in their drenched state.“Thank God...,” he whispered while Rakia was still in his arms. He then broke the hug and looked at Rakia with a relieved look on her face.“Come on, let’s go inside; you’ll catch a cold; you have to change,” Dashtan said, carrying Rakia in front of his body to enter the house. He dropped Rakia inside the woman’s bathroom per the woman’s instructions.“You also change; please get me the bathrobe,” said Rakia, who was now sitting on the closed toilet of her bathroom. Dashtan complied and got up from his crouching position in front of Rakia.“I’ll be right here after I change,” promised Dashtan, to which Rakia responded with a nod as she looked at the man with a weak smile of gratitude. As Dashtan left Rakia to get changed, he returned to the pool to retrieve Rakia’s walking stick, placed it in the living room, ran to his room to change quickly, and returned to Rakia’s room with the woman’s walking stick.“Kia...,” Dashtan called, op
Dashtan turned to Rakia as the woman mentioned the name of the woman currently on his doorstep, his face betraying confusion. "Do you know her?" Dashtan asked curiously. "We met at the greenhouse when her mother took her there." Dalilah answered Dashtan's question. The man turned back to his guest. "What brings you here?" Dashtan spoke with no friendly intonation at all. Dalilah was instantly nervous at the man's unfriendly tone with her. She would have had to summon up so much courage and guts to see him alone if not for something urgent that only he could help her with. "I... Want to talk to you, it's urgent, please...," Dalilah pleaded. Rakia, who felt ignored, turned away and returned to the house. Her mind immediately thought of all the assumptions about Dashtan and Dalilah. Everything only led to one conclusion. Rakia chose to return to the kitchen and eat pizza alone. For her, she did her best not to interfere too much with the man's personal life as long as Dashtan didn't
Rakia gulped as Dashtan said his confession. She wanted to interrupt, but on the other hand, she tried to listen to the man's explanation. "She was two weeks pregnant, but not my child. She forced me to take responsibility after she carelessly joined a party with her classmates back in college in America. On an island for three days. I had forbidden her to go but Dalilah is a party girl and stubborn, so I had no choice and let her go." Dashtan continued his story. Rakia now felt half empty. She was grateful for not interrupting earlier. "Two weeks later, she confessed that she was pregnant and forced me to marry her and take responsibility because she had no idea who impregnated her. I refused to do so, and she threatened to kill herself, so I told her just to terminate the pregnancy." Dashtan took a deep breath; Rakia did too. For some reason, all her muscles suddenly tensed up as she listened to the man's story. "After that, we didn't speak to each other for a few days and before
That morning, Rakia woke up early after checking her cell phone notifications last night and getting a message from her boss to fill in the morning news. That meant she had to leave for work early in the morning. She looked at Dashtan, fast asleep beside her; last night had been draining for both of them. Dashtan, with his sexy finesse, is making love to her. She also didn't understand the man's anger when she told him her heart forbade him from doing things like this often. She didn't want to get so deeply attached to him either; she feared her heart breaking again if the separation came. But the sensation the man gave her when he touched her could not be denied. Rakia sighed loudly, then shifted slowly to the side of the bed and lowered her legs. She tried to use her legs to stand without the help of a cane, and the result was satisfactory. She moved her initially painful leg with gentle movements, and it didn't hurt anymore; it was just stiff. With slow steps, she headed to the ba
That afternoon, Dashtan arrived home after returning from the office; as he took off his tie and looked at his watch, he remembered Rakia. He clucked and ruffled his feathers in annoyance at himself for forgetting to pick her up. He took off his tie entirely and threw it on the sofa in the living room, after which he unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, unbuttoned his wrists, and rolled up his sleeves to the elbows. When he turned around to go back outside, he found Rakia had just entered and came over. “Sorry for forgetting to pick up....” Dashtan stared at Rakia, who just passed him without greeting him as if he was not there. Confused by the woman’s attitude, he felt that something had happened. Rakia entered her room and immediately closed the door and locked it. Dashtan kept all his curiosity about the woman’s behaviour to himself as he walked to his room to change. Meanwhile, Rakia placed her bag on the dressing table and let out a rough sigh. She wanted to talk to Das
Four months later.Rakia was surprised when Dashtan hugged her from behind. Her belly now looked bloated. She had just turned off the stove after the fried rice was finished. Dashtan kissed her earlobe, and it caused a slight sting that thrilled Rakia. “Are you done?” asked Dashtan in a highly sensual tone. “Why? You want to fuck me again?” guessed Rakia, which made her husband chuckle. Rakia rolled her eyes. “We should do other things besides bed activities. Eat, walk, work, the world is big and beautiful and there are many things we can do.” It wasn’t that Rakia didn’t want to, but they had done it repeatedly last night. Dashtan, who had just come from Dubai and left for three days, immediately asked for her nightly allotment. “I’m away for three days, I’m a man, there’s a lot of temptation in Dubai,” Dashtan admitted. Rakia turned her body to face the man. She draped both arms around her husband’s neck. “Where did you go while in Dubai? Did Razak take you to a place wh
Dashtan opened the door to the room he used as a reading room and found Rakia sitting on a comfortable sofa reading a book. The woman's attention was distracted by Dashtan in the doorway, who smiled and greeted her. "Hi, feeling better?" asked Dashtan as he approached Rakia and squatted in front of the woman. Rakia nodded with a gentle smile. "But the doctor still doesn't want me to go to work, are you home yet?" It was Rakia's turn to ask; it wasn't even lunchtime, and Dashtan was already home. "I want to take you somewhere." Dashtan said, which made Rakia frown. She then guessed. "Not fancy gifts again," Rakia said; she didn't really like the way Dashtan gave her gifts. It was always expensive stuff, not that she wasn't happy, but she still had to get used to using things bought with piles of money. Dashtan chuckled. A month had passed after all the problems between them and Dalilah were resolved. Dashtan divorced the woman, and Dalilah had to go to jail for the crime of att
Staring at the footage Dashtan was watching on Rakia’s tablet in his workspace, Dashtan checked all the footage Rakia had managed to get from the surveillance cameras the woman had installed in Dalilah’s room. It was only a matter of waiting for the woman’s arrest warrant from the police so that the police could freely search all her belongings. Dashtan transferred all the footage to a small flash drive, and tomorrow, he will submit the data to the police station as additional evidence. After checking all the data, Dashtan went from his office to his bedroom; he met Dalilah, crossing the living room. “Hi, what’s going on? I heard someone came in and Rakia-““Enough of the pleasantries, as of this moment I am no longer your husband.”The words were so quick but heard in Dalilah’s ears that she could only be surprised with widened eyes for a split second. Her lips seemed to move to say something, but Dalilah was just silent; Dashtan immediately walked away after saying that. Dalilah co
Dashtan arrived home and dashed into the house, which was currently quite crowded due to the arrival of the police and medics. Without caring about his surroundings, he immediately entered and looked for the figure that was the heart of his heart. When he saw Rakia being treated by the medics on the sofa in the living room, he could only stand still with his eyes filled with tears. He slowly approached the couch, distracted by the man’s arrival. “Hi...,” Rakia greeted softly with a hoarse voice.“Sorry, sir, she needs to be taken to the hospital immediately; the bullet is still inside and must be removed immediately to speed up healing.” Dashtan immediately nodded to the medic’s words. He lifted Rakia’s body, carried her to the ambulance, and followed a few minutes later after finishing his business with the police who arrested the perpetrator. Dashtan, with his murderous gaze, looked at the perpetrator, who two police officers now flanked with his hands cuffed behind his back. He re
A week after Rakia regained consciousness, the woman asked to go home because she didn’t feel at home in the hospital. But that didn’t mean she was free from medical treatment. She still had to keep resting and using IVs to support her recovery. The wound she sustained on her shoulder had not completely dried up, leaving her with pain Rakia could not tolerate. As a result, Dashtan hired a doctor who would come every three days to monitor and check on Rakia’s condition—and also asked the gynecologist, whom Rakia consulted and checked herself, to go to the house to check on the woman’s womb. Dashtan became super protective, which bothered Rakia, but she tried to understand. She asked Pedro to do it, but Pedro was a heart specialist with a busy schedule every day, so he couldn’t make it. “Don’t forget to eat and take your medicine; I’ll be home by lunchtime. Call me quickly if anything happens or you need anything.” Dashtan babbled at length, and it made Rakia roll her eyes because her
On a bright and cloudy Monday morning, Dashtan tried to go to the office and finish some work that had been neglected. Whether he wanted to or not, whether he liked it or not, as the CEO of a multinational company, he had a lot of work to do. Dashtan looked at his appearance in the mirror, which was not wearing a tie perfectly. He remembered the figure of Rakia, who always put on his link every morning. But the woman was still on the verge of life and death. He let out a rough breath and decided not to wear a tie that day. He removed it from his neck and threw it on the bed. He went to the wardrobe room to get a slim-fit suit and put it on, after which he left his room. He called his secretary to order breakfast. “Sir, today there will be a visitor from the police who wants to see you.” The secretary told him when he had just arrived and sat in his chair. He had forgotten about it because his mind had been in turmoil for the past few days. “Yes, let me know when they arrive.” Dasht
Dashtan's words were able to increase the panic and fear Dalilah felt. The woman stared at Dashtan with both eyes perfectly rounded. "W-what do you mean? That person must be lying. I don't know who that person is." Dalilah threw up her defense, to which Dashtan responded with a sarcastic smile. He lowered his raised hand, holding the cell phone to his side, and said, "I'm giving you a choice. Confess now, then I'll divorce you and not take the matter to the law, but if you still want to persist with your lies, you'll lose everything and end up in jail." Dalilah stared at Dashtan with a look full of fear. Her brain was busy thinking of defenses she should say to make him believe her. "Ash, I couldn't possibly do something like that. I am pregnant, so the doctor said, "This is your child; we will live happily." Dalilah was still trying to devise a defense that already sounded disgusting to Dashtan's ears. The man turned around and waved his hand behind him for Dalilah to stop saying
Dashtan returned to the hospital after talking to Razak. Doctor Pedro met him just as he arrived at the door of the ICU; he had just come out of the room to check on Rakia. “Do you want to look after her tonight?” Doctor Pedro looked at his son-in-law with a sympathetic gaze. The look on Dashtan’s face couldn’t hide the anxiety that was engulfing him. Dashtan nodded. “You can sleep in my room, because the ICU doesn’t allow anyone in there except the patient.” Doctor Pedro informed, and once again, Dashtan nodded. “Come on, let’s go to the cafeteria for coffee,” Doctor Pedro invited, which Dashtan agreed to. He needed a conversation partner to distract him from worrying about Rakia’s condition. “I told Adeline about Rakia, she’ll be here tomorrow morning to see her. I know it’s worrying but that woman has been through a lot as a journalist. Rakia is a strong woman.” Pedro smiled as his mind recalled Rakia’s vigorous and unyielding figure. As a stepfather, he knew more or less what
The medical team arrived along with the police, while the fire department arrived not long after. Liam immediately lifted Rakia's body onto a gurney with the help of a medical team and was then taken to the ambulance. The firefighters immediately put out the fire that was still raging and engulfed Rakia's car. Liam stayed for a while to watch the extinguishing process and answer questions from two police officers who had come to the scene. Several DS and other television station reporters covered the events at the location and tried to get information. This time, Liam became the journalist's target for information. The medical team had taken Rakia's body to a nearby hospital earlier. Dashtan came to DS shortly after the ambulance carrying Rakia's body left. "Where is Rakia?" Dashtan asked Liam with a panicked look on his face. "The ambulance just left for the hospital," Liam replied, and Dashtan immediately went to his car and followed the ambulance. Before he started the engine, h