Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Two
Isabelle had been avoiding Khalil since her return from his office. She knew that at some point she would have to face him, but she could not shake the anger she had felt at seeing Cassandra there. He hadn’t even had the decency to tell her that he had hired his ex.  
At first, she had wanted to confront him, to fight him, to ask him why he would do something so despicable, why he would ruin the budding trust she was beginning to feel towards him, but then she had decided against it. She would not show him that she cared about him, that she had missed him enough to show up at his place of work unannounced. She refused to have a hand in embarrassing herself further.  
Isabelle sighed heavily as she ran the hairbrush through the tresses of her wet hair, staring blankly at her reflection in the mirror. Swollen, red eyes stared back at her, the heavy eyelids evidence of the terrible night she had had. She thought back to the dream, and she felt the hairs at the back of her neck rise. She hated how real it had felt, almost as though it had been her in another dimension. She absently ran the brush through her hair as she thought of the strange man who had been holding her mother captive.  
He had felt familiar...she could have sworn that she had met him somewhere before.  
She stopped midstroke, brows drawn down in concentration as she thought long and hard about where she had met someone similar. That similar presence that always seemed to send chills down her spine.  
A loud gasp escaped her lips as the memory hit her like a bag of bricks.  
The man in her dream had felt the same as the entity that had confronted her at the lake. She wondered how they were connected, if it was a cult, what it had to do with her, what they wanted from her, why she was having strange dreams of them, and if her dreams had any bearing in reality. She wondered how the man had the same markings as her, how he had gotten them. She had thought that she was the only one able to have such markings. 
So many questions continued to run through her mind as she absently brushed through her hair. What had her mother been apologizing for? Her eyes had told Isabelle that there was more to her apology. What did they want with her? They had mentioned her father; what did he have to do with this? What secrets have been held away from her?  
Deep down, inasmuch as she wanted answers, she was afraid of what she would find. She sighed heavily and dropped the brush carefully on the counter, tightened her towel around her waist, and stepped out of the bathroom. She absently decided that it was time to visit her father.  
“Fuck!”  
Isabelle felt her heart jump into her throat as she stepped into her room to see Khalil lounging lazily on a chair, a bouquet of roses in his hand.  
“What the fuck are you doing here?!” Isabelle asked as she tightened her towel around her chest and shifted on her feet as Khalil’s eyes glazed over in lust.  
Khalil swallowed as his eyes zeroed in on her exposed legs. “You look beautiful...” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  
“What are you doing here?” Isabelle asked again.  
“I came to see you,” he replied, his eyes continuing their exploration of her body. “I’ve been waiting for you.” 
“I’m here now. What do you want?” 
Khalil rose to his feet and handed the flowers to her. “These are for you...” 
“Thank you...” Isabelle whispered as she gently took the flowers from him, ignoring the jolt of electricity that went through her as their fingers brushed.  
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Khalil said as he moved closer to her, crowding her with his presence. “Why?’ 
Isabelle swallowed and looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 
“You don’t?” 
Isabelle shook her head, continuing to look away from him. “No, I don't." 
Khalil sighed and ran his hand through her damp hair. “Did I do something to offend you, my darling?” 
Isabelle opened her mouth to speak, but instead shook her head and continued to look away from him as his fingers continued to run through her hair.  
“It’s nothing,” she said finally after a long spell of silence.  
Khalil wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close until she was flush against him. He leaned down and buried his nose in her hair, sighing as the sweet smell of her rose shampoo assaulted his senses.  
“Tell me what I did, my love, and I would gouge out my eyes and offer them to you as an apology and give them to you.” 
Isabelle rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to laugh at his antics, wondering to herself when Khalil became such a man who cracked jokes with her.  
“That won’t be necessary," she said and tried to sidestep him, but he simply tightened his hold around her waist, pulling her even closer to him.  
Khalil sighed and placed a soft kiss on the side of her head. “Come on...tell me what offence I committed, my darling...” 
Isabelle took a deep breath and released it slowly. She had decided that she would not mention the incident at his office to him, that she would go on about her life as if that didn’t happen. She had decided that she would hold his act of betrayal to his chest and that no matter what he did, she would remind herself that he didn’t love her, that all the words he had said to her had been lies.  
Now, she found that the resolve was wavering. The more he held on to her and continued placing soft kisses on her forehead, the more she wanted to ball his shirt in her hand and pound it against his chest. The more she wanted to yell and scream and ask him why he had betrayed the trust that she was just beginning to have in him. 
“Isabelle...tell me...” Khalil urged as he kissed down the side of her face, even as she continued to face away from him.  
Isabelle closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “If you insist.” 
“I do insist,” Khalil replied and released his hold on her waist.  
“Since when did Cassandra work for you as your personal assistant?” Isabelle asked as she crossed her hands across her chest.  
Isabelle enjoyed the look of shock that covered Khalil’s face. She smiled up at him ruefully, anticipating the lies that were bound to flow from his lips.  
“How do you know that?" he asked and scratched the back of his head.  
“Is it important how I found out?” Isabelle countered, still unwilling to admit that she had paid her husband a visit at his place of work.  
“Not entirely...did she tell you?” Khalil asked, his brows drawing down in annoyance at the mere thought of Cassandra flaunting his decision to employ her and already thinking of all the ways he would fire her.  
“How I came to know if irrelevant, what I want to know is how long she has been working for you, why she is working for you, and why you never deemed it fit to inform me on that new development!”  
“I...I am sorry. You are right, I should have told you when she began working for me. Especially since...” Khalil paused and sighed, unwilling to complete the sentence. “She came to me, apologized, and asked for a job.” 
“And you gave it to her?” 
Khalil shrugged and smiled wryly. “We grew up together. I just did that for old times’ sake.” 
Isabelle cocked her head to the side and looked at her husband, realizing that he meant what he said. He seemed oblivious to the fact that this was a ploy, that she wanted more than just to be his personal assistant. She scoffed, unsure what to say to him.  
“You’re silent,” he said as he continued to look down into her eyes.  
“What do you want me to say?" Isabelle asked.  
Khalil shrugged. “Anything. Say that you’re angry at me and you want my head served to you on a gold platter. Say you want me to fire her...” 
Isabelle shook her head slowly as she thought back to the run-in with Cassandra. She thought about how the woman she had met didn’t look like someone who had any plans of turning over a new leaf, or of letting Khalil go.  
“There would be no need for that...”  
Deep down, she wanted him to fire her, to send her away. But there was something about something that told her that she was not the type to give up or let go easily, that she would go to the ends of the earth to get whatever it was she so desired. If Khalil went ahead to fire her, she knew she would have a hard time keeping track of her.  
And the way her life was unraveling before her eyes, she didn’t need more unknown enemies. Cassandra was fine where she was...where she could keep her eyes on her. There was something else that nagged at her about her husband’s childhood friend, but for the life of her, Isabelle could not place her finger on it.  
Until then, she would keep her enemies as close to her as she could. And while she found out as much as she could about this strange man with markings identical to hers, she would keep her known enemies at arm's length.