Tainted Souls

Chapter 7

 Leonardo 

 There was a desperation in her plea that clawed itself into my heart. Even though I was tempted to dig around about her I couldn't. It felt like an illegal invasion of someone's territory. 

 I wanted to find out who she was hiding from and why? But I wanted Alia to trust and tell me about it instead of going behind her back and hiring a private investigator for the task. A few times I was on the verge of calling Ricardo my PI and asking him to look into Alia but her desperate plea restrained me. 

 It had been four days since I last visited her and every minute felt like a century. The craving to see her and to kiss her was intensifying with each passing day. 

 Fuck. 

 I had never felt this desperate and uncertain ever in my life like I felt now. Two more days passed and when I couldn't control myself anymore I went into the town and bought freshly baked croissants from a local bakery. 

 I made my way to her home but when I reached there she was not at home. Her neighbor, an old lady, informed me, Alia went for a walk. When I asked her the route she took, the old lady gladly instructed me in the direction in which she went. 

 When I reached a waterfall after walking for half an hour, I found Alia sitting on a bench near the cliff. Placing the box of croissants on the bench I settled beside it. 

 Alia tensed noticing my presence but she didn't say anything nor did she make any attempt to leave. 

 "I am sorry," I apologized, looking at the water falling from the mountain and hitting the rocks below. 

 "One sorry wouldn't cover the list of your offenses," Alia remarked in a displeased tone. 

 "I am offering you an apology for every one of my transgressions," I replied, in an amused tone. 

  Alia had not made any attempt to run, I would call this progress. Maybe we were heading somewhere in this strange relationship we had. 

 "What if I refused to accept them?" She asked, turning to me with her brow arched. 

 "Then I will offer them again and again until you reconsider and forgive me," I reached out and tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. 

 Alia sucked in a breath as my fingers grazed her cheek and ear. She was wearing a white coat and had tied her hair in a messy bun. Even in this simple attire, she was beautiful enough to make my blood rush. 

 "I want to start over on the right foot," I said to her, not attempting to pull my hand away from her. 

 Alia leaned back, breaking our contact and I dropped my hand. Her chest was heaving as if she had run a marathon, and her lips were trembling. I felt a strange satisfaction sensing the effect I had on her. No matter how much Alia tried to run from me or push me away, she couldn't deny the attraction between us. 

 "I don't have anything to offer you, Leonardo, you are wasting your time on me," she replied in a sad tone after a few moments of silence. 

 "Speak only for yourself, Alia, I am very much capable of making decisions for myself," I clipped in a displeased tone. 

 If I thought Rameen was stubborn, she was a cakewalk compared to Alia. Never had any woman affected me as she does. There was nothing I could think of other than Alia, since the day I had met her in that supermarket. 

 "We can't have a future," she said, rotating the ring in her finger. 

 It was a pink diamond studded in a platinum ring in the middle of two white diamonds. I was sure that the ring was worth millions. This only spiked my curiosity, to find out who she had been married to. It surprised me that I had never noticed her ring before, maybe because when she was around the only thing I could focus on was her. The ever-changing emotions in her eyes, and that angelic face, which stole my breath every time my eyes fell on her.