Patience & Faith - a journey series #1 | ✔

2: Choices and Acceptance

"Some things beautiful to the eye could be poisonous to the heart or soul."

It was the one thing that I felt after years of Sabr. I never complained nor had I ever desired anything, for I got whatever was needed, but today I felt hurt for the decisions that were being made. If the only mother was here, then she would protect me while the others devoured me like hungry lions. I sat numb while my father smoked his million-dollar cigar and watched me, waiting for an answer. I swallowed the lump in my throat; I was trying my best not to cry, but a few lone tears escaped my eyes. Answer to what, by the looks of it, he had made his mind up and I felt he was only taunting my existence.

Only an hour ago the meeting ended. It was an arrangement made by both parties on the agenda of making business relations strong and to see two popular, intelligent and beautiful children be one. There was nothing beautiful if your father saw everything as a deal and you're to be husband hated you for your existence.

An hour ago.

As my father's words registered into my brain cells, I understood the agenda of this gathering. Conjuring my confidence up, I voiced what had been on the tip of my heart and now my tongue.

"Baba, how could you do this?" I paused, gesturing towards the man who owned two emerald stones. "I don't know this man." I reasoned.

Father laughed joyously. "I know him, and that's enough. It's for the best."

I breathed deep and dared to meet his penetrating green orbs that sucked my soul in within seconds. My heartbeat faster as I matched his unforgiving stare, "And you agree to this?" I questioned breathlessly. Everyone turned mute and listened to what he had to say. He watched me for ten deadly seconds and then turned towards the man whom I thought looked familiar earlier, he was the father of the man I was to marry. He was handsome, and I knew where Musa got his looks from.

He chose not to answer me as he left it on his father's head looking for "it's your doing, speak." I was utterly worried about how I was to spend the rest of my life with him.

"You two are heir to both companies, if you marry, we will not only merge two businesses, but we will make a strong relationship in our business world too dear child." Mustafa, Musa's father, paused and got up from his seat. "Understand that this is for the best, no arguments." His intimidating tone left no space for any objections. I sat there confused. Musa not glancing at me once left the conference room without a word as his group of people met my father. The two women who were present were the family of Mustafa followed out. One was his daughter who despised me, by the looks of it and the other was the sister of the father, a woman I could not decipher so far. I was in no position to make good relations or to check the family out, I was going to be a part of the said cold family. A family business they had is a powerful way of ruling many, and as far as I knew they were not so keen on ruining their tradition of merging businesses via marriage. I wasn't the first to be scum in their business game.

A marriage I was stuck into, a marriage I was to fulfill no matter what. My father would've married me off with or without my consent and so after the Al-Mustafa left I had sat alone with my father deciding on how to express my words of care to him. If I accepted this cold marriage, I would show responsibility and my love for my father, I was that desperate on gaining his affection, but was it enough to be the star of my to-be husband's eye too by doing this?

Now.

"Baba," I whispered, and my confidence was long gone.

He watched me with smoke billowing around his gigantic frame, he truly looked like a king, and a day was coming when I was to take that very place where he sat so proudly, I was to be my father one day.