Her Step Husband ✓

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"AssalamoAlaikum," they both greeted everyone present at the table.

Unaiza bit her lower lip when she saw Aqia's expression changing from happiness to confusion. Huzaifa slid the chair for her and squeezed her hand for her to recline on it. He himself sat on the chair beside her.

"You didn't wear that yellow dress, Iza?" She asked with a crinkle of her nose.

Unaiza inhaled a breath in distress. "Aqia Mama it's..."

"I asked her to change," Huzaifa answered instead, taking a generous bite of the fried egg.

Unaiza stared at him in disbelief. He was again taking the whole blame on himself.

"You did that," Aqia murmured.

He nodded with a smile. "She is my wife. I can ask her to do anything I want."

"What are you saying? You asked Iza to change the dress which she was supposed to wear right now. Why did you do that?" Aqia clapped back.

"Because I didn't like that color on her," he said, poking the fork in the white of egg once again.

Tashfeen scoffed and here Huzaifa didn't even try to stop that lopsided sly grin. That was his motive all along.

"What do you want to say? You asked her to change the dress because you didn't like it?" Aqia asked sternly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't like bright colors on her at all. Hence I told her that she can't wear them anymore because I don't like her in those dresses."

Unaiza was perplexed over how the things were going on. She tried to meet his gaze but he wasn't looking at her. Why was he doing that? That was her mistake. She had a problem with wearing bright dresses. Burning the yellow dress was her fault. Why was he altering everything?

"So you want to rule over her?" Tashfeen finally snarled, glaring at him.

Huzaifa grinned. "You should have known this when you gave her hand to me in marriage that I am a guy who love myself more than anyone else. If I don't get my ideal, I will mold her into one because that's my hell of a right. If I don't like anything about her, I will change her to become like the one I can at least like. So your complaint doesn't make any sense. She is my wife and I can do anything with her."

"You aren't making any sense, Huzaifa," Haider intruded. "Unaiza is your wife. You are not her owner to force her under your twisted self-made ideologies to act like you want. Spare some breath to the girl."

Huzaifa gulped the water down his throat. "You should have thought about this Haider Bhai when you forced her upon me. I didn't beg anyone that I wanted to marry Unaiza. So now all of you have lost the right to intervene now."

"Huzaifa..." Unaiza whispered as her eyes filled with tears but he still didn't look at her.

Tashfeen clenched his jaw angrily. "We haven't lost any right over Unaiza just because you married her. She is still our daughter. Come out of your useless and ridiculous thought processes."

Huzaifa laughed under his breath. "She is my wife. A wife has to abide her husband no matter what. You remained on this earth for a much longer time than me so you must be aware of this."

"Huzaifa!" Aqia rasped.  "I won't let you do that. Unaiza is not a tongueless pet of yours to treat her as you want. She has a family and we are her family."

"Aqia Mama, please. He is...Huzaifa is just..." Unaiza started crying with hiccups now. She wanted to say that Huzaifa wasn't right. Whatever he was saying was wrong. She had burnt the dress in the first place.