Chapter 96
(Zayn's POV)
"Give me five minutes," Kat spoke while leaning towards the mirror in the bathroom, eyeliner in hand.
"Take all the time you need babe," I said to her. "I'm right outside."
I walked out of the restroom, leaving her inside. My heart was beating out of my chest as I made my way over to the side drawer where I had put the ring. I looked around and made sure that she wasn't looking before opening the drawer and taking it out, quickly putting the velvet box in my pocket.
I shut the drawer quickly and tried to control my spinning mind.
This was it.
I was taking Kat out for dinner at one of the best restaurants in town, and it was going to be perfect. I was wearing her favorite cologne, I had finally built up my nerves after two weeks, and I was going to ask her to marry me tonight.
She didn't understand why I had randomly brought up dinner with her but she didn't debate too much. She quickly grew excited and told me she knew exactly what to wear. Always a good sign.
I paced the room nervously, my mind wandering with "what if's". But if one thing was for sure, I knew she would say yes. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her and she wanted the same with me, now all we needed was a ring. And not something like the promise rings that we got back in Christmas.
A real ring.
I ended up standing face to face with myself while looking in the mirror. I examined myself. I was wearing a black button down shirt that was rolled up to my elbows, just how she liked it. The ring was in my pocket, and I was so nervous. I didn't know why, I just was.
I took a deep breath and stared directly into my eyes through the mirror.
"Listen up Malik," I said to myself quietly, "tonight is the night. Tonight, you're going to make Kat yours. You can do this."
I nodded at myself, then shook myself off. I stood tall, my heart rate quickening.
"Katrina Desire," I practiced, "will you marry me?"
No. It's too simple.
"Katrina, I love you. And I always will. Will you do me the honor and spend the rest of your life with me?"
Getting better, but not yet.
"Katrina, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Would you want to too?"
Ugh. No. That was worse.
"Katrina, will yo-"
"Zayn?" I heard Kat's voice call out from the bathroom.
I jerked into reality and turned around, "yes babe?"
"Can you come here and zip up my dress?" She asked.
Once I walked to the bathroom, I saw her struggling to reach the zipper. I went near her and placed my hands on her back, zipping up her dress. She smiled then turned around to face me.
"Thank you sweetheart," she spoke, reaching up and brushing her lips to mine.
"You're welcome," I tried my hardest not to show how nervous I was as I smiled back. "You ready to go?"
She nodded, "yup."
I took her hand and she grabbed her purse from behind her. We walked out of the bathroom and to the living room, both of us slipping on our shoes.
I grabbed her arm once we both stood at the door and she tried to balance herself in her heels. I watched as she stood tall and intertwined her fingers into mine.
I held her hand tightly, the hand that would soon have a ring on it. I opened the door and we walked out. I locked it behind us before we made our way to the elevator.
"I'm glad we're having dinner," Kat spoke as we both stepped in the elevator. "We barely have time together anymore."
I hit the first floor button and turned to her, "I know babe, and I'm sorry. It's this job."
She nodded, "it's okay babe. I understand."
I stared at her, realizing how much I really did love her. All of my nervousness went away because I had no doubts that she was the woman that I would spend the rest of my life with. All I had to do was ask.
Once the elevator doors opened, we both walked out. We walked past the doorman who said, "where you headed, Mr. Malik?"
"Dinner," Kat replied excitedly.
I smiled at her, and at Lenny the doorman. He opened the door and smiled at us. "Have fun, you two."
"We intend to," I said to him. We exchanged smiled before walking out of the door. I took my car keys out of my pocket before unlocking the car.
Once we both sat inside, Kat turned to me. "What restaurant are we going to?"
"Alimentum," I told her, starting the car. "Have you heard of it."
"Are you kidding? I heard it's the best restaurant in town. And the most expensive."
I turned to her when I heard a hint of worry in her voice when she thought about the price of the restaurant.
"Sweetheart, don't worry about anything but us tonight. Okay?"
She stared at me and nodded, "yeah, you're right. Nothing else matters."
I smiled at her, resting my hand on her leg. She took a sigh of bliss and I started driving.
She was right. Nothing else did matter. Tonight was our night. I didn't care what happened tonight, nothing was going to stop me from proposing to her.
We reached the restaurant a short while later, and I felt my heart racing. Kat and I stepped out of the car and into the restaurant. I placed my hand on the small of her back and walked to the reservations stand.
"Reservations for Malik," I told the man standing at the podium.
He looked down and scanned his list before nodding. "Mr. Malik, right this way."
Kat and I followed him as we walked to the a table at the center of the restaurant. I pulled out a seat for Kat and she sat on it before I took my seat.
The man left us some menus and said, "the waiter will be here when you're ready."
I nodded as the man turned away. I watched as Kat scanned the menu.
"See anything you like?" I asked her.
"What's there not to like?"
I chuckled, looking down at the menu. But I wasn't paying attention to it, instead just thinking of my game plan. Should I do it while we're waiting for food? Should I stick it in her dessert and hope she would see it? Should I do it now?
My mind was thinking about multiples of ways to propose, but I just wanted to do it. Her answer wasn't going to be no, and I knew that she would love any way that I asked her, but I wanted to make it special.
"Did you pick something?" Kat asked me, disturbing my thoughts.
"What?"
She smiled, "to eat. Did you pick something to eat?
I looked up at her and shook my head. "No, how about you just order something for me? I'm not sure what."
She smiled and nodded, "okay."
I raised my hand up and called out a waiter. A man walked up to us with a notepad in his hand. "Are you ready to order?"
I nodded, then turned to Kat. Kat smiled at the waiter and started to say the order, but I wasn't to focused on that. My mind was somewhere else. And it would be until I proposed to her.
Once she was finished ordering and the waiter walked away, she turned to me. "I ordered you the Venison. Is that okay?"
I nodded at her, "yeah, that's fine."
She furrowed her eyebrows, noticing something was wrong. "Are you okay?"
I faked a confident smile, "yeah, of course. Everything is perfect."
She didn't buy my excuse. She took a breath and placed her hand on top of mine. "Zayn, is there something on your mind?"
"No, nothing," I lied. "I'm just hungry."
Clearly, she wasn't satisfied with my response. She was about to say something else when we were disturbed by a waiter who walked up to us, pulling a cart.
"Would you like some wine?" He asked us.
Both of us nodded. I needed some confidence and she needed some reassurance. He grabbed the glass on our table and said, "what type of wine?"
"Do you have rosé?" Kat asked. The man nodded at her and she said, "some rosé please."
The man turned to me, "and for you sir?"
"European white wine please," I asked him. Good old Europe with their good old wine.
The man poured our drinks in our glass, and I watched as he did this, even though I didn't care. I saw Kat staring at me from the corner of my eye, but I didn't look at her, knowing I'd become weak.
"Enjoy," he told us, placing our glass in front of us. Then, he turned around, walking away. I grabbed my glass and took a sip, and she did the same. Once we put our glass down, we looked at each other.
I began caressing the back of her hand with my thumb. She looked down and sighed, "I know something's bothering you, but I won't ask because I don't want to ruin the mood."
I smiled at her, "thank you, sweetheart. Don't worry about it, it's not that big of a deal."
Little did she know, it was a huge deal. I just couldn't tell her anything about it until I actually did it. Then, we could talk all about it.
So I decided to change the subject.
"Have I told you how beautiful you look today?" I smiled.
Her eyes lit up, and she smiled back. "Thank you babe."
I brought her hand up to my lips and kissed the back of it. Her cheeks heated up, and I love how she still got nervous around me. Oh how I loved her.
***
We had finished our food and we were waiting for the dessert that we ordered. Kat was acting all bubbly because of the rosé wine she had drank, but I couldn't adore her any less.
I hadn't proposed to her yet. I had tried to pull out the ring three times before, but something always ruined the moment. But I knew I would do it soon and I was very excited for it.
"I'm going to go use the restroom," Kat announced.
"Alright babe."
I watched as she stood up off her seat then walked to me, placing a delicate kiss on my lips before turning and walking to the restroom.
This was it. This was my moment. When she came back, I was going to propose to her. When she came out of the restroom, I was going to be on one knee and ask her to marry me. This was it.
I pulled the box out of my pocket and took a breath. My heart was beating out of my chest as I took the ring out of the box and held it. I was going to propose to her.
Kat was going to become mine.
I stared at the ring, running a finger over the diamonds. I was so happy until something in me clicked. Something bad.
What was I doing? I couldn't propose to Kat. Not like this. Sure, this was the perfect moment. Everything was great. But I just couldn't propose to her.
Of course, I loved her. I loved her more than anything in the world. And of course I was going to propose to her, marry her, start a family with her; but not like this.
If I proposed to Kat now, everything would change. Some for the better but some for the worse. When we got married, who would come? Grace and Liam? No. She deserved far better than to get married in a rush. She deserved to have her full family.
Even if they didn't approve of me.
I didn't know what I was thinking. I wouldn't propose to Kat without her Dad's approval. Of course, there was a 90% chance he would say no, but I had to take the chance. If I proposed to Kat and we got married and her dad found out then, he would never speak to Kat. He would never approve of us. When we would start a family, our kids wouldn't know their grandparents and I didn't want that.
I wanted a full family. I wanted to be happy with her.
I had to ask Mark for his daughter's hand in marriage. I had to ask my mom to approve of Kat. I had to make huge decisions before I proposed to her. It couldn't happen like this.
I would propose to her, and I would marry her. Only her.
But not like this.
***
I was sitting in the dark with my head in my hands. The only sound I heard was the sound of the water running in the shower because Kat was in there. Everything else was quiet, except for my mind.
I know I made the right choice not to propose to her right then, but now I don't know how I'm going to ask permission to Mark. I was balancing the cell phone in my hands, but I didn't want to turn it on.
The ring was back in it's secret hiding place and it took a great deal of effort to do that. I didn't understand why, but I was on the verge of tears. I wanted so badly to propose to her, but I just couldn't do it. And now that I have the phone in my hand, I didn't know why I won't call.
The truth is, I'm scared. I don't want to ask Mark for permission and it completely backfires and he never lets me near Kat again. I didn't want Kat to be angry at me if Mark came and he took her away from me. I didn't want my mom not to give me permission. I didn't want everyone to turn on me because of one decision.
I wanted to have Kat to myself. And I wanted reassurance that she would never go.
And because of the crave to have Kat all to myself, I dialed a number that I would never dial for anything. My fingers were shaking as I hit call, and my heart was dropping at every bell.
But once the bells stop ringing, my heart stopped.
"Hello?" I heard a dangerously familiar voice say. "Who is this?"
I gulped. "Mark? It's..." I took a deep breath, "Zayn."
There was silence on the other line, and I prayed that he didn't hear so I could change my mind. But it was too late. He had heard it loud and clear.
"Zayn Malik?" He asked, saying my name as if it were an undoing. "As in the bastard who ran away with my daughter?"
I ran a hand over my face, "this is he."
"Where is Kat?!" He spoke quietly, and I was surprised he wasn't yelling. "Where did you take her? Is she okay?!"
"She's fine," I reassured him. "She's in the shower."
Mark took a deep breath, "Zayn, then why did you call? You know that I'm going to find you now. No matter what."
I collected my thoughts but I knew not to say the real reason why I called him. I wasn't going to ask for her hand in marriage over the phone, even though I knew it was the safer bet. I needed to clear things up and speak to everyone in person. Not like this.
All I ever told myself was that she deserved better.
"Mark," I started, "I want you to come here. I want you to see her. I want you to know that both of us are doing fine. But I don't want you to take her away from me."
He chuckled, "Son, are you drunk? I'm taking her away from you right when I find you two."
I ignored him. "Mark, I'm going to tell you the address in a bit. I have not told Kat that I'm calling you because she's set on never speaking to you again. But I want her to because I don't want her to lose her father because of me."
He stayed quiet.
"When you shot me, she wanted to turn you in but I stopped her." I continued, "Mark, I was never going to turn you in. I didn't want Kat's family to break apart. Especially because you guys have a new baby coming along and I didn't want to ruin that."
"Zayn, just send me the address. I don't want to hear anything," his voice was still angry, but softer.
"My family doesn't approve of Kat, you don't approve of me." I said to him, "both of us have left things behind, Mark. But I don't want her to keep her from you for too long."
"Dammit Zayn," Mark said, "just tell me the address."
"Just don't take her away from me." I warned him, my voice sharp. "Because Mark, if I took her from you once, I can take her from you again."
He stayed quiet, then sighed. "Zayn, where are you two?"
"Cambridge," I admitted. "I'll message you the address."
He took a breath, then said, "I'll be there tomorrow morning."
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Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. What just happened.
Do you guys think Zayn did the right thing or do you guys think he's crossing the limits? What do YOUUU guys think is gonna happen?
I'm hitting the final chapters and I'm debating weather or not to have a happy ending or not. What's your vote?
Anyways, vote, comment, and share. I love you tons. xx
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