Holding On

ᴛᴡᴇɴᴛʏ-sᴇᴠᴇɴ

The first thing Zain did on arrival in New York that evening was to go see Emma, quite still shook by the facts he'd discovered during his discussion with Alfred Taylor.

Maggie, Emma's aunt was her usual suspicious self as they sat to eat supper, while Amy was super excited to see him. When Emma asked him why he was just coming now, he told her he was caught up in a lot of stuff.

He couldn't bring himself to tell her that her father had revealed to him the reasons why he'd suddenly began abusing her mother years ago, and what horrendous reasons they were.

It made the man's violence towards his deceased wife understandable, though Zain didn't deem it justifiable enough.

"Zain, you're acting suspicious. Come on what's going on." Emma asked putting back the food she was set to put inside her mouth with her fork.

Zain realized that she still had that prerogative of knowing someone's feelings with a keen look, and it unnerved him. If she continued to stare at him like that, he would just spill the beans, something he didn't want to do because it would pain her to know.

"It's just work stress. You know I have a lot to do in George's absence coupled with my own company." He replied evasively, digging in on his spaghetti. Then he decided to divert the attention from himself. "He called me today by the way. He called you yet?"

Emma's eyes widened incredulously and dramatically. "Do you think I'd be this calm? I would be so worried sick!"

Zain felt a shot of jealousy, yet he held it back as usual. And Maggie's surreptitious distrusting glances at him was enough to aid him.

After supper, Zain spent some time playing with Amy, though he realized he wasn't fully immersed in it.

Throughout, his mind constantly drifted to Emma, the secret Zain knew would shatter her if she discovered it. But mostly how he could accomplish what he'd particularly came here to do.

"Hey, princess." He said softly. Amy looked up from the blocks castle house she'd resorted to doing alone after Zain's several drifts. "Could you distract your mother for me please?"

"Distuat?" Her brows crinkled in confusion, probably at the unfamiliarity of the word.

Groaning, Zain wondered if there was a more demure word that the little girl could understand. He couldn't recall any, so he resorted to another method. Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit, he brought out a small doll he'd bought for his princess back in California. "Here take this and go show to mum. Tell her I bought it for you."

"A doll." Amy said excitedly, then taking the plastic from his hand, she ran off without even a thank you.

Zain immediately sprung to action and took another turn around the living room so that he ended up with Em back facing him.

While the little girl gushed about her new doll and Emma pretended to share in her excitement, Zain furtively cut a lock of Emma's pitch black hair with a scissors he'd kept in the inside pocket of his suit.

Retreating as fast as he could, he took a rubber envelope from his pocket and put the sample in it, tucking the deceptively acquired material back.

That was exactly when Emma turned, and luckily, she didn't look like she suspected anything. "Thank you so much for the present."

"Oh no problem." He replied way too quickly, his voice hoarse from the nervousness.

"Are you okay? You look. . . ill at ease."

"Uhm, Emma I think I have to go. I want to sort out some files before sleep so I have to start it early."

"Is that so?" She asked calmly, but the telltale crease of her brows betrayed the fact that she didn't really buy that. And she looked slightly disappointed, something he would've reveled in had he not been in a quest to get away before the guilt made him reveal the truth he'd discovered.