Chapter 61: His Father's Wish

Flashback

"Shehryaar, son, go make your life. How long will you continue like this?" his father uttered,

his eyes filled with tears as he sat beside him.

His father’s health was deteriorating day by day. Shehryaar knew what had been eating him

from the inside. He was aware his father didn’t have the will to live left in him. Since the day

his mother was caught with another man in the bedroom she shared with his father, his

father had been heartbroken.

His father, Haider, and mother, Jaha Ara, had been bonded in an arranged marriage but

often seemed like a couple deeply in love with each other, as if it wasn’t an arranged

marriage but a love marriage.

Haider fell in love with Jaha Ara the very day his eyes landed on her. She was standing in the

middle of that garden full of roses, azaleas, lilies, but to him, she was the most beautiful

flower. He had requested his father, Shabbir, to get him married to Jaha Ara.

His father, Shehryaar’s grandfather, who was the mafia don at that time, went to every

length to have the girl married to his son, yet both families were unaware of Jaha Ara’s

secret love for a man named Umer. She continued her relationship with him despite being

married to Haider. The day she was caught was no less than an apocalypse for Haider.

He thought Jaha Ara loved him, but she didn’t. From the day his wife committed suicide, his

will to live diminished. Haider also came to know that Jaha Ara had taken money from his

father to marry him. That revelation destroyed him. He tried to kill himself too, but his

father stopped him.

This incident affected his three children. His eldest son, Irtaza, his middle son, Shehryaar,

and his youngest daughter, Dua.

Yet the most affected was Shehryaar. Haider had watched him grow distant from others

over time. He had seen the hatred and rage in his eyes toward womankind. He didn’t trust

any woman apart from one or two in the family.

He had begun to think that all women were alike, just like his mother. If a mother could

abandon her children for someone else, then any woman could go to any length to get what

she wants, without any care for her family.

That was also one of the reasons he wasn’t getting married. He had started to believe that

his wife would betray him too, just like his mother, that she would only come after his

money, just like his mother.

He began to see all women from that same angle. Shehryaar knew that wasn't a sane

perspective, but he grew into what he had witnessed and experienced in his childhood.

The impact was deep, engraved, and he couldn’t help but see her as just a piece or an object.

"What do you want?" he said. "Do you want me to end up like this too?"

"Like what?"

"You know what I’m talking about, Baba."

"Not every woman is like your mother, Shehryaar."

"If she can be, then anyone can be. Wasn’t she the epitome of a good wife and mother?

Wasn’t she? But look where we are now, just because of that single woman."

"Not everyone is like her," his father reiterated, and Shehryaar just scoffed.

"Get married, have children, set up your life. I want to see you married while I’m alive."

"I don’t want to get married," he said with finality.

"Look at me, son." His father pulled his arm, but Shehryaar didn’t look at him. "Look at me,"

he said again, and this time, Shehryaar turned his head toward his father.

Haider tried to sit up, and as he placed his hand on the bed to support himself, it slipped,

and he couldn’t sit up. Shehryaar immediately stood and held his father’s hand to help him

sit up.

He was stepping back when Haider held his arm. "Tell me, is there any girl in your life?" he

asked.

"Why do you ask, Baba?"

"Just tell me."

After a few moments of silence, Shehryaar spoke. "Yes, there is one."

"Do you like her? Love her?"

"No, I don’t."

"Then what is she to you?"

"No one."

"Tell me about her," his father asked with curious eyes. "Tell me, what is it that piques your

interest in her?"

"She doesn’t fit the definition I’ve set for women. She is different from others, but I know

she too will show her true colors, sooner or later."

"Marry her, Shehryaar."

"As expected," he muttered under his breath. He saw it coming.

"You can ask my doctor. I may not have much time left. This is my last wish—to see you

married before this disease consumes me. I want to see you happy. Tell me, will you fulfill

it?"

He didn’t answer, just looked at his father with a stoic face and void eyes.

"She is different, but that does not mean I trust her. 'She is different from others' were the

same words you used for my mother, then we all saw how different she was."

"Will you fulfill the last wish of this old man?"

He kept quiet.

"Will you?" he asked again.

Again, all he got was silence.

"I ask for the last time—will you, son?"

"You can’t pressure me like that, and I don’t want to marry just to end up like you, like

Irtaza. Didn’t Zahra betray him too?"

He saw tears fill his father’s eyes. "I’m saying this for your own good. It kills me, your

grandfather, the whole family, to see you like this. What have you become, son? Look in the

mirror—look at what you’ve become. If you think I don’t want to live, then what about you?

Aren’t you a living corpse?"

"Who made us all living corpses, father? A failed marriage because of a two-faced woman

who married you only for money."

"Will you fulfill my wish?" his father asked again.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

After a moment, opening his grey eyes, he looked back into his father’s eyes that reflected

helplessness. They were dull. Dead.

"I will give you my answer soon," he said, tapping his father’s shoulder. "Soon, Baba."

Marriage was not something he had ever thought about. It was a foreign thought to him. A

distant one. Rather it never occured to him that he would get married.

He picturized his life in achieving as many success as he could for his company. He had

invested day and night, blood and sweat in building it. His company making progress by

leaps and bounds was all he always cared for.

He never compromised on his work.

And apart from his business his personal life was working with his brother, Irtaza and

partner, Moosa in strengthening the mafia.

He was an obsessive man. In every field of his life he always carried an obsession in his

heart to produce the results he wanted. If he won't get any thing by fair means he would use

his own dangerous ways to get things done then but at the end he would have what he

wanted.

Marriage was nowhere in this circle of his life. And his father had put up this weird demand.

And the only woman that was on his mind these days was just Sheharzaad.

As if she had done some magic on him.

Whenever his eyes would droop down, in that darkness, her face would appear.

That night would repeat in his mind like a broken record.

He didn't go near any other woman after spending that one night with her.

She was really something else.

And if he could give someone the status of his wife then it might be her. But still he wasn't

sure.

He knew what needed to be done and he was doing exactly that.

When she had left his office, he retrieved his phone before dialing a number.

"Hello, h-hello sir," the man on the other side of phone stuttered.

"Ahmed," Shehryaar uttered.