SIRF TUM.....💓❤ (only you)

CHAPTER 42- THE EMPRESS' GAME

The kiss broke not with passion, but resistance. The young man pushed Yazmin back, his hands unsteady. Her eyes shut tight, not in surprise—only in raw anger, a dawning realization that she had been interrupted at the very height of her control.

From the doorway came laughter—low, amused, chilling in its precision.

"Darling," Soraya said, her British accent as polished as crystal, every syllable carrying a scalpel's edge. "Be a gentleman and leave us."

The man hesitated, frozen between the two women. Yazmin's eyes flared open.
"No," she snapped, her Indian-American cadence sharp, defensive. "He stays. You leave, Soraya. You came uninvited."

The man's throat worked. His instincts screamed what his pride resisted: Soraya's command was law. When her lips curved into that slow, merciless smile, the decision was made for him. She reached forward, fastening the top button of his shirt with a delicate flick, sealing his obedience.

He turned toward the door, each step a surrender.

"Stop!" Yazmin's voice cracked, jagged with desperation. But he didn't stop. The door clicked shut.

Silence swelled, heavy as smoke. Yazmin pulled her robe tight, irritation masking fear. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Soraya didn't answer. She moved into the room like she owned the marble beneath her heels, lowering herself onto the velvet chair with unhurried grace. "This is my mansion. You are hired by me. I go where I please."

Yazmin scoffed, her laugh brittle. "What—chairs like this in every room so you can make yourself comfortable anywhere?"

The shift in Soraya's gaze was enough to still the air. "Do not address me like that," she said, soft but lethal. "I am not your friend."

"Then stay out of what is none of your business."

Soraya reached into her folio, tossed a document onto the vanity. The papers slid across the glass with a whisper that was somehow louder than a gunshot.
"Enough games. Sign it."

Yazmin frowned. "What... what is this?"

"The contract," Soraya replied, her tone smooth as silk over steel. "Sixty percent of your father's companies. Payment for favours rendered."

Yazmin's fingers hovered above the contract, trembling before she pulled them back as if the paper burned. Sweat pearled at her hairline. Soraya saw it—and smiled.

She rose and began to circle Yazmin, slow, deliberate. Her heels clicked softly, marking time like a metronome of dread.
"Do you remember, Yazmin," she murmured, "the day you came crawling to me? How you begged—how you whispered you'd give me sixty percent if I indulged your ambition? Tonight was only favour one. The gala, the showstopper moment. And now, it is time."

Yazmin swallowed hard, her voice fraying. "Bu-but I haven't got the contract from SGC yet. Once I do—once I see the results—I'll sign. That was the deal."

Soraya's steps stopped behind her. She leaned in, her words ghosting against Yazmin's ear.
"Are you questioning my work ethic?"

Yazmin's hands shook on the robe's sash. "N-no, I'm just saying—the transfer will happen, but only when results are in. I said that from the start."

Soraya circled to face her, bending slightly so her shadow swallowed Yazmin whole. Her polished accent dripped with cruelty, each word calculated.
"And do you recall me agreeing to that? No, darling. It was you who came crawling. For two weeks I let you rot, and yet you clung to me like a leech. And now—" her smile widened, inhuman, "you think you can negotiate?"