Fruit of Passion

Shall we?

There was complete silence in the lawyer's office as Wania and Arsalan sat there waiting for the other to make the first move. The wait stretched to a whole minute and than Wania gave up realizing that making the first move just wasn't something one would expect from Arsalan Abbas. Wania cleared her throat a bit dramatically and started,

"I believe this is unavoidable..."

"Unfortunately, I agree.." Arsalan replied in flat tune.

"Look, let's get one thing clear, I am being pushed in to this situation without my consent or prior knowledge. So, it's going to take some time for me to adjust and...." Now she's looking straight into Arsalan's eyes as she completed "Expect resistance!"

"Noted and...." Arsalan gave her the same potent stare as he continued "Don't expect any less from me". For some reason they stayed in their staring competition for a few seconds unable to back down, un-willing to yield. 

For the first time since Wania met Arsalan Abbas she came to know that his eyes were brown with freckles of hazel and, they have somehow turned a deeper shade of brown as their eye-lock continued. 

Arsalan wanted to look away, break the eye contact almost immediately but some unknown gravitational pull held him in place and restricted his eyes from tearing away from hers. Her big doe-shaped eyes stared back with him with fierce determination, challenging him to retreat but Arsalan, though not an assertive man, wasn't a push-over.

"Shall we then?" Wania finally spoke, not breaking the eye-lock

"Please." Arsalan slightly pushed the file of the contract towards Wania without looking away.

A slight smile ran across Wania face. So, he is solid, Wania thought and then with a minute tilt of her head broadens her smile and tore her eyes away from him and towards the folder. With swift and graceful motions, she took a pen and signed the contract under her name and then passed it on to Arsalan.

The sudden smile had dazzled Arsalan momentarily and he had to shook his head slightly to come out of that daze as Wania looked away. He was still shaking his head when Wania passed the folder to him. His response was a soft nod without the eye contact, because the eye contact can prove to be a dangerous thing when it comes to Wania Ghani. He took the pen out and signed the papers silently and with that stood up.

"I guess we are done here. See you then." with a formulaic response Arsalan started to move towards the exit but was halted in this tracks by Wania's voice,

"Loosen up a little Mr. Abbas."

Arsalan had to take a sudden twirl to look at her then and saw her smiling with what seemed like amusement as she pushed herself up from the leather chair. 

"Excuse me?" Arsalan said, both genuinely confused and utterly annoyed by her remark.

"We will be working along side each other in the months to come or may be years,....don't you think it will be nice to be nice to eachother?" Wania said thoughtfully but her eyes shone with mischief.

"You haven't been very nice to me to begin with....why this sudden change?" Arsalan asked raising an eyebrow.

"It's not sudden Arsalan. It's thought-out....And it's necessary." Wania was speaking now in a softer and more serious tone and Arsalan realized that even though she did teased him she was in fact correct. Arsalan nodded and sighed and with resigned voice said,

"This is me very nicely saying, see you then." with this he gave a forced smile and Wania laughed out loud.

"Damn! you really need me....or you're doomed. You can't sell a single thing with that fake-ass smile let alone run a business worth millions." Wania eyed him like she's seeing an alien, her expression showing both interest and disbelieve.

However, her response and her constantly searching eyes annoyed Arsalan to no limits and he retorted,

"Well, Miss Ghani, I don't need you anymore than you need me. But, without my yields, good luck finding the quality product for your company or loose millions in imports."

This wiped the smile off Wania's face, which was then replaced by a frown and the playful twinkle in her eyes was taken over by flare of resolve. In a flash, gone was the spirited Wania, in her place stood a cut-throat bussiness women. The change was so sudden that Arsalan was taken aback.

"I and my business is not dependent on you or your enterprise. But, I will honor the contract if you will." Wania said in a curt and straightforward manner and Arsalan had an overwhelming urge to take back his words but instead he breathed in and said,

"And I will do the same."

With this they both nodded in agreement as the door opened and Jami Fareedi walked back in to his room and Wania instinctively turned towards him.

"So, are we on board?" asked Fareedi with a cheerful voice and before Wania could respond Arsalan answered, "We most certainly are." but his eyes were on Wania. Her eyes too flickered towards him as he spoke and he was relieved to see that the lively glimmer was back there.

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