If I had ever found my life complicated before, boy was it disastrously more confound now. For the past week, I have been at wits end trying to figure out these strange new emotions I have begun to feel towards Zayn. What were they? Admiration? Respect? He was being kept busy with work, leaving early in the morning and arriving home just before dinner was served. It wasn’t like we were spending any quality time before, but I was starting to miss him. Damn it all.
I spent most of my time researching the status of Molavi Industries. Calling father and discussing the matter with him personally was out of question, so I opted for searching in articles and documentation online. It was a meticulous task but curiosity was poking at my ribs like an enlarged liver. What I was hoping to find was irrelevant; I just wanted to see how things were in the company. My new found interest in the Industry surprised myself; I had never given much thought into the condition of father’s empire. In my research, I found that father had yet to state the successor of the corporation. This was not surprising. He was under much stress from Riverdale Corporation, an American oil manufacturer based in New Mexico, which wanted their hands on a sizeable portion of their steel profit. Father obviously had no intention of giving any of his profits away, but Riverdale was beginning to involve lawyers. I browsed past the topic, deeming it only noteworthy; father could handle this easily, as he had handled far worse in the past.
My attention was drawn to an article posted in the Hindustani Times about none other than myself. My eyes absorbed every word that was written. The article focused on my title as daughter-in-law of Malik Industries and daughter of Molavi Industries. It breezed over my credentials, listing briefly my academic success at Princeton and my numerous internships abroad. Even the author of this article, whoever he or she was, recognized my immense capability to hold any post at a corporation. I bookmarked the page in my web browser; I could turn back to this praising article whenever I was feeling a lack in self-worth.
The venture into investigating Molavi Industries was merely a distraction from the primarily concentration of my thoughts, Zayn Malik. He occupied every waking moment, whether he was in them literally or figuratively. I was even beginning to dream about his presence, regardless of the fact that these dreams consisted of him yelling at me. That was irrelevant. I had no idea what was happening to me, but I did have an assumption. And it wasn’t something I was willingly ready to accept.
Everytime a thought of Zayn appeared in my head, I immediately felt guiltily towards Liam. Though, of course, I shouldn’t be feeling guilt at all. After all, Zayn was my husband and Liam an assistant chef and good friend to the pair of us. Yes, I could safely call Liam my good friend; he had been the only one I could properly rely on for the last five months after arriving in this house. I had rightfully asserted that we had to keep manners professional, but I would steal greedily sneak into the chef’s kitchen to watch him work. He knew I would watch because, sometimes when he wasn’t there, he’d leave small cakes for me to consume. It was small gestures like that that reminded me why I cared so much for him.
Over the course of the past week, I had spent so much time in the chef’s kitchen, hypocritically disobeying the orders I had given myself. At this point, I knew Liam was fully aware of my presence; like now, for example. I was leaning against the furthest sink in the main kitchen, observing as he and another chef sautéed a quantity of onions. His precision was exceptional and I saw that he would, occasionally, glance over in my general directions. All the while, a painfully obvious smirk glued to his face.
I was terrible. Using him to pass my time was a terrible thing to do. But I couldn’t help it; coming into the chef’s kitchen was the only way I could distract myself from Zayn for extensive durations of time. How else would I do the deed? More aimless internet wandering?
