CHAPTER 17: TILL MORNING I could feel Mrs Wilson's eyes on me from the start of dinner till the end, but I tried to avoid meeting her eyes. What Dashiell did was so embarrassing for me to want to share, but I guess she saw everything so there was no need to hide anything. The atmosphere was getting tense with no one but us here as the heavy rain had prevented her husband and my son from coming home."Are you okay now dear?" Mrs Wilson asked, placing her palm over mine.I forced a smile, "Yeah, I'm okay," I replied and the air became tense again."I feel bad seeing you like this after witnessing what happened outside, and I won't say anything to support what he did but what I will say is that Mr Blackwood didn't have an easy childhood, and what he had gone through contributed to the emotional wall which he built around himself,""Well, he wasn't the only one who had a hard childhood," I muttered under my breath, unconsciously rolling my eyes.Mrs Wilson smiled, her eyes softening b
CHAPTER 18: BOIL THEMThe soft knocks on the door stirred me up from my sleep. I didn't open my eyes, but I could hear Mrs Wilson's gentle voice call out to me. "Zahra, dear, are you awake? My husband had to leave early and I do too, so I brought you breakfast," I opened my eyes to find my leg sprawled across Dashiell's body, and our faces inches apart. My gaze softened as I took in the handsomeness of his well constructed face. God really took his time to sculpt a man as handsome as him.As I began to stare at him further, ignoring Mrs Wilson's disturbing knocks, he opened his eyes, leading me to jump back and hit my head on the wall."Ouch," I whispered, caressing the place that had just gotten stitched.He furrowed his brows and eyed me suspiciously, before grabbing his shirt from the floor.By this time, Mrs Wilson had stopped knocking for five seconds, and before I knew it, she was back."Zahra!" She screamed nicely. "You have to open the door for me to bring you food," Dashi
CHAPTER 19: LIAR! I tightened the thin strap on my orange, knee-length gown as I walked through Mrs Wilson's opened door. A smile spread on my lips as I looked back and saw her and Mr Wilson waving through the open window that overlooked her freshly mowed lawn.I soon turned around to face Dashiell who was leaning on his navy blue Cadillac car, and dressed in an all black suit. It had been two weeks since Dashiell allowed me to give an order that my father and brother should be killed, and since then, I haven't spent an hour apart from happiness and joy. Every day after that, Dashiell usually came to have dinner with us at the house, and sometimes he would stay the night. My heart was full of joy as I started to give second thoughts toward him liking me. After all, the whole Malek issue was over, and I had already signed the inheritance papers to allow my son to be in charge of the entire Kashem empire, and finally, everything felt like it was in place.Last night, Dashiell call
CHAPTER 20- CONGRATULATIONS, LANDLADYI slowly opened the door to Mrs Wilson's house as she had given me a spare key in case of a time like this. The interior of the small house was dark, and I didn't want to wake anyone up, so I turned on my phone's flashlight."12:19 am," I mumbled to myself as I unconsciously checked the time.I started to tiptoe to my room, and as soon as I got there, I dragged my luggage from under the bed and started to stuff my clothes inside. When I was finished with mine, I dragged the luggage to Mrs Wilson's porch, slithered over to my son's room, and started to pack his things too, before carrying him on my shoulders and leaving the house."Dashiell must not find me here," I muttered under my breath as I struggled to balance the two luggage on my own. I settled the load outside Mrs Wilson's gate and immediately ordered an Uber which came in less than fifteen minutes, and I was off to a hotel to stay for the night.************I woke up as early as 6 am an
CHAPTER 21: YOU HAVE LOSTDASHIELL BLACKWOOD'S POV "Soñar Blackwood will be arriving in Los Angeles from Italy later today. He is my cousin and I would like for him to stay in your apartment building for the meantime," I said to Zahra, who was busy lying on the bed in her executive suite, tapping across her screen.She looked at me with a confused expression on her face, "I thought you bought the building for mine and Salem's use? What's with keeping your family members here? When he can literally stay in a hotel. And, I heard you have an estate which is four times the size of Malek's estate, why don't you keep Soñar there?" I shifted in my seat and studied Zahra. She was becoming too questioning and smart these days. I wanted her to be grateful and not ask any questions, but she never listened, and that was the main reason why I asked Soñar to leave Sicily and come here.I knew that Zahra didn't have any friends, and I figured that if she was friendless and jobless it would lead
CHAPTER 22: HOW INSENSITIVE!ZAHRA'S POVIt was 7 pm when I stumbled up from my sleep with my head feeling groggy as I heard a knock on the door."Who is it?" I asked, but there was no answer, and so I went to open it.It was one of the maids who was just hired, Mallory. She looked at me with a tired expression and bowed a little, "Ma'am, there's someone at the reception asking for you. He said his name is Soñar from Sicily," My curiosity was piqued as I heard who it was. Hm, Dashiell's cousin was here so soon. I waved Mallory off and immediately went to get dressed, at least to leave a good impression on this Sonar person.I was sure he was going to be very different from Dashiell, but not too different from his other bubbly family members like Micheal, Aunt Maggie, and the others.I finally settled for a short pink skirt and a white off-the-shoulder cropped top. The skirt was so short that if I bent over a little to pink something, I would be exposing my bum, but I was a fan of sho
CHAPTER 23: FANTASY The candles in the room started to get lit one by one, followed by the chill breeze that blew rose fragrance into the room. I lay on my rose filled bed and started to delve into the sweet comfort it gave me.Before long, a man emerged from the silky curtains in my bedroom, I recognized him as Micheal, the one who took me home from Aunt Maggie's party. Then, out of nowhere, Soñar appeared from behind him and began to stride toward where I lay.I sat upright, my mouth almost drooling from seeing them shirtless. I could feel the way my eyes bore into the thick lines that formed abs on their stomach, how the lines dissected into one another, and the hardness that I could feel inside of me even as they seemed far from where I lay was thrilling.As I looked on, from the corner of my vision, I could see Dashiell emerge from a makeshift door. He was shirtless, but he had a towel wrapped around his waist to cover his private parts. Just as the towel was about to fall, I
CHAPTER 24: THE MISSING GODFATHER I sat by the large window in Salem's ward room as I recounted the last interaction that Dashiell and I had. After I heard what he said, I was angry, sad, and I wanted to slap the shit out of him the next time I saw him, but he never came. Minutes turned into hours, hours turned into days, and today marked the ninth day since I last saw Dashiell. During his absence, I went through the five stages of grief back and forth, and at the end of the day, everything rounded up to resentment. 'Why would he do this to me?' was the only question that kept repeating in my head as I replayed the event of that night. Why did he hate me so much that he would watch happily as the only joy in my life was dying slowly? Why Dashiell? My heart kept shattering as I would wait till midnight at the hospital reception, waiting for Dashiell to come and see my son who had been admitted into the facility for over a week, but I was forced to mend my heart back every time the