Living Royalty

34. This was all my fault!

This chapter is not going to be in either of the sisters' P.O.V. Just wanted to let you all know in advance. Everything I'm writing is pretty much pre-planned, so this chapter is not going to be in their P.O.V.

HABIB'S P.O.V.

When the group of clients who had come to my office earlier on left, I immediately called on Samiha's phone to tell my daughters to come back. But Samiha cut the call. Instinctively, I got worried. Why didn't she answer my call and cut it right away? But I didn't get time to continue to stress about that. My phone rang. Expecting that it was Samiha calling me back, I didn't wait to check the caller I.D and just answered immediately.

"Hello, Samiha?" I said into the phone.

"No, Habib, it's me, Zakir. Please come to the boardroom on 17th floor. There's an important meeting. All managers and directors are present," Mr. Hamid said, from the other end of the line.

My worry about Samiha and Samaah resurfaced but I knew I had to attend this meeting. Knowing that phones were not allowed there, I left my phone in my desk drawer with my car keys.

I entered the boardroom, and just as expected, all the managers and directors were there.

"Where's the marketing manager, sir?" One of the directors asked Mr. Hamid, referring to Mr. Yan, who was the marketing manager and the Ex-M.D.

"I've called him, he'll be coming in a bit," Mr. Hamid replied.

A few minutes later, Mr. Yan entered with a man I didn't really know, but I knew he worked in the marketing department.

The meeting started and after I was introduced as the new M.D to everyone, a lot of important decisions were made and some discussions took place. The dirty looks Mr. Yan's companion kept throwing in my direction didn't go unnoticed by me, but I brushed them off, because I assumed he was just bitter about the fact that his colleague's position had been taken by me.

As soon as the meeting ended about half an hour later, I rushed to my office, worried about my daughters. I knew they had never come to this place before and I hoped they were fine. I couldn't possibly look for them in a building with 22 floors. As soon as I got to the door of my office, Salman stopped me.

"Mr. Ashraf, those two girls who were in your office earlier on told me to tell you to check your phone immediately," he said, emphasising on 'immediately'. That just increased my worry! I was so tensed and I wished I wouldn't have got them out of my sight, although I practically had no choice but to do so.

I got in my office and roughly opened the desk drawer. To my horror, my car keys weren't there!

What on Earth is happening? Why are my car keys missing? Why did Salman tell me that the girls asked for me to check my phone immediately? Where were my daughters? The thoughts kept on circulating in my head, as I took out my phone and turned on the screen. I did a double take when I saw 24 missed calls and 2 whatsapp messages. Ignoring the whatsapp notification that simply read '2 messages from 2 chats', I opened the missed calls. All of them were from various unknown numbers, but none of them were from my daughters.

I called back on the most recent missed call, hoping that the person picks up immediately.

"Hello?" A voice came from the other end of the line.

"Hello? I just saw your missed call. Were you trying to call me?" I asked.

"Yes! Are you Habib Ashraf?" The person asked.