Chapter Two

"The Bad news continues"

It wasn't until 9:30 AM when I was finally over with all the formalities of road control rules. I called the police and was given a ticket for breaking the idiotic parking board. Oh and yeah I have to go to the insurance company to fix my car too, Excellent!

I tried to forget about that and focus on the current issue. The meeting, I seriously am not in the state of actually attending it but I still have to. My make-up had melted in the heat and my hair needed to be fixed too. I refreshed my lip-gloss, perfume and tamed my hair a little. I wore my shailah, took my stuff and headed to the building.

The security man greeted me yet again, today. It's been a year since I've been working here and that is a long enough period for me to get to know every employee in this office. Oh and just something to add about my personality, I am a little too social, so it's easy for me to get along with people everywhere.

Once there, I almost darted from one corridor to the other with the sound of my heels tapping on the floor. It was strange how quite it was down there. I saw Mrs. Miller, a Scottish woman, sitting as usual on her desk in front of the meeting room. Once her eyes laid on me, she widened them in surprise.

"Mahra," she stood up. "I thought you won't be coming." She said, marching towards me. As she walked I noticed that her striped skirt was ruffling and riding-up slightly. She was a short plump woman with green eyes and red hair which was a great but weird combination, I always thought.

"Good morning to you too, Mrs. Miller." I said, a little sarcastically.

"Oh yeah, morning. You are late." She told me like I didn't know that already; "The meeting has started half an hour ago." I looked away, cringing my forehead.

"I know, I know but I just got caught up with some stuff. Is everyone there?" I asked, stepping forward towards the door.

"Yes, Yes." She nodded, and waved her hand as a sign for me to go in and I did.

I wanted to ask her what the meeting was about before going in but once the door was opened and all of the eyes have turned towards me, I simply forgot all that was on my mind.

Almost all of the members of our department were gathered in the large meeting room. There weren't enough seats for them to be seated; therefore half of the employees were standing and listening to Mr. Waleed, my boss. He looked at me and smiled, which eased my disturbed nerves.

"Sorry Sir," I apologized and I was about to start giving him my excuse but he silenced me with a gentle hand gesture. There was no place for me to sit so I stood next to one of my colleagues, Noora. She smiled at me and I returned it, then both of us turned to listen to what Mr. Waleed was saying.

At first, I didn't get half of whatever he was talking about as my mind still grieved over my car, but when his words like; "From now on" and "After I am gone" clicked in, I began to get confused. What's going on?

I turned to Noora, questioningly.

"Mr. Waleed is resigning. His son's going to take over." She whispered to me. The news shocked me of course, and it looked like she felt the same way too and couldn't help but spread the gossip around as soon as she could. Us girls!

"What?" I demanded. My voice was louder than a whisper so she elbowed me because my reaction did cost us some glances from the people around us.

I looked at Mr. Waleed and at the guy sitting next to him. And that's when I went completely rigid. I don't know how I could be so oblivious, I totally missed him. It's the guy I saw this morning, the one who offered to help me.

He sat tall in his chair, with one leg over the other, his long fingers supporting his chin. He stared all of us down with his big brown eyes with a shade of hazel to them. They had a glint of an arrogant mastermind. It looked like he had something very intense going on in his head, and it didn't feel good to me.

There was a great deal of pride in his silence too. He looked from one to the other as if he owned the place, as if we meant nothing to him. My observation led me to these conclusions.

My thoughts were interrupted when Mr. Waleed looked at the man who sat beside him and said; "Now we move to the crucial part of the meeting." Mr Waleed's face turned all business. "As you all know that my speeches are never brief," he gave a knowing smile.

"But I'll try and cut this one short and introduce you to your new boss, Mr. Zayed my son who will be your new director from now on." He looked at everyone for their reaction. "It is finally time for him to handle my work and let me rest." He completed. Almost all of us were struggling to comprehend his words. As for me, well, it came as quite a shock.

So this is his son and he'll be our new boss? The guy with proud, cold eyes!

"Our ways of running the business might be different but I hope that it doesn't affect our work progress." Mr. Waleed went on.

"And not to forget, that the key to success is accomplishing the tasks at hand while building relationships." He pressed on his last words. "This can only be achieved by working together, teaching and helping one another, improving ourselves as a company as well as individuals. I trust that all the members of this company will put forward their suggestions and implement them for the betterment of this company." His words were so powerful and heavy that for a moment I thought that's exactly what everyone's going to do.

"Thank you all for your support and now I hope that you will share your experiences and be a good source of guidance and help for my son, both professionally and personally." He finished, with smiling eyes.

Silence lapsed in the conference room.

"It's been an amazing journey, working with you all these years and working for this company." That, surprisingly was Mr. Faisal an old emotional guy who respects Mr. Waleed sincerely just like everybody else in this room. "As hard as it is for us to believe you are leaving this company, we will be assisting Mr. Zayed just as we did with you." He spoke directly to our new boss, Mr. Zayed.

Apparently, Mr. Faisal stood right beside me and Noora, who, during his speech looked at me and passed me a look that said; Here-we-go.

We both tried to hide our laughs at Mr. Faisal's 'Emotional comment'. I bit my lip and turned back to face both the father and son, but my smile soon faded when my eyes fell upon a couple of impassive eyes.

Our eyes met for a couple of seconds and then he looked away but just in those seconds, I felt like someone had poured some cold water on me. This new boss is already intimidating me.

Mr. Waleed spoke for another ten minutes, giving us some encouraging words, some advice and very rarely some warnings. "I hope that you keep on doing a great job just like the way you have been performing with me all these years. Give the best of your abilities to help this company rise even further. And now I'd like Zayed to say a few words." That was how Mr. Waleed had finished his speech and now everyone was waiting to hear what our new Boss will have to say.

All eyes turned towards Mr. Zayed as he sat there all confident and assured, staring back at us. He straightened in his chair and then said; "Looking forward to work with you all," he pressed a half smile, on which his father beamed. And that was how the meeting ended. Unlike his father Mr. Zayed's speech was brief, which was unexpected.

Some people rushed outside to get back to work while some, like me, stayed there. I stayed because I felt the need to make sure that whatever I just heard was true and somehow listening to it from Mr. Waleed himself made a lot more sense to me.

A group of people stood around Mr. Waleed, asking him questions and telling him how much they'd miss him. Some were trying to get emotional too, a total unnecessary act and the reason for which I didn't understand. Mr. Faisal who stood next to me and Noora was one of them too, probably giving another of his infamous emotional speeches.

Fatima my best friend nudged my elbow and I turned to her. She wore a half smile on her face and hinted with her eyes towards the group that I was just staring at.

"How did you find your new boss?" she questioned, eyeing Mr. Zayed.

"Yeah...We'll find out when we start working with him." I tried not to give my personal thoughts to her, afraid that I might sound too judgmental.

"It looks like he can handle all of this," She stated. "He seems to have a lot of self-confidence." I nodded, agreeing.

"Yeah the confidence part is definitely true." I saw the CFO talking to his new boss as Mr. Waleed stood there listening to their conversation.

"Even Mr. Waleed seems to be very positive of him." She added.

"Of course he is certain of him, if not, he wouldn't be handing the company over to him." I said. I looked for a chance to talk to Mr. Waleed and tell him how shocking this news is to me, but he was surrounded by too many people so I decided I'm better off it.

"Are you coming?" Fatima asked, as she walked to the exit. With one last sullen glance at Mr. Waleed I nodded and followed her out of the room.

The day as a whole had been a total disaster. I was going through some physical pain to finish my work and get over with all the files in front of me before lunch. Honestly, I should be thankful because the arrival of our new boss has disturbed things here.

As the gossip swelled from one corridor to the other, the day was finally coming to an end. I had just collected my stuff and was rushing outside to get to my car when I bumped into Mrs. Miller on the main exit. Unlike this morning, she smiled when she saw me or maybe it was just my sullen look that gave me away.

I saw her smile turn into a grin; "Look at you!"She said, examining my face, closely. I had been in a bad mood the entire day, so much so that I had even refused to have lunch with the girls and went to sit by myself in the coffee shop.

I plastered a smile on my face. "Is it that so obvious?" Mrs. Miller was one of those people who knew about my relationship with Mr. Waleed. He was my boss, my guide, my father's best friend and had also become one of the people that I had come to admire and respect during these two years.

"Yes dear." She patted me on the shoulder as I stood by her. "It isn't surprising seeing such a reaction from everyone but I think we're lucky to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." Her words were true and held a pure meaning to them.

"It's not goodbye. He said he'll be visiting, constantly." I told her, recalling the conversation that me and Mr. Waleed had today, after lunch. He'd seen me by chance. Something I was grateful for.

"Yeah, so he said." She nodded, staring at something behind me and then she smiled making me turn to what she was looking at.

Once again, I saw him; Mr. Zayed and yet again he looked at me, this time a little less coldly. As he walked towards us with elegant steps, I noticed how very tall he really was. His manner of walking had a gleam of arrogance in it too. But the man did seem to have control over himself, his mind and also his facial expressions, well mostly they were just blank.

"I think he has his father's abilities." She exclaimed, as he walked past us.

"No matter how good people claim he is, he can never come close to what Mr. Waleed is." I said a little loudly and then realized that it was extremely stupid. What if he heard me? But for some odd reason I blamed him for all of this. I didn't want him to replace Mr. Waleed.

**

*Zayed*

My first impression of the company, so far, has been better than what I had expected it to be. A couple of things I'd like to change though but other than that, things are working just fine.

It's in a better condition than how it was when I left six years ago. That was the time when the economic crisis struck in 2008, when I had left to complete my studies.

As is the custom, my father yet again went back home without me accompanying him. I wanted to stay a few more hours to get a better look at this place.

It was nearly 4:00 in the evening when I heard the door open and saw Mrs. Miller who had been a secretary for her older boss as in my father, for more than seven years now. She held the door with one hand and peeked in.

I looked away from the files that I had been studying and faced her with a questioning look. Her lips broke into a nervous smile, and then she murmured; "I thought you'd be going now...ss...sir." I felt her hesitation with the word 'Sir' which made me smile but I hid it. She then let go of the door and stepped in.

"I was going to." I said, shutting the files in front of me. "But before that I would like to tell you a couple of things that I want be done tomorrow." I noticed her switching back to her secretary role as I told her what tasks she had to do.

Once done with that, I headed to the ground floor. Nothing about that had been interesting until I heard someone say something which I instantly disliked. Just the sound of it had been disturbing to my ears.

"No matter how good people claim he is, he can never come near to what Mr. Waleed is." Those words annoyed me. They came from the woman I had noticed twice today and now she stood next to Mrs. Miller having yet another topic to gossip around.

Normally today everyone would talk about this, but people would talk in hushed tones or keep quiet when they see me around but it looked like this girl had intended otherwise. She seemed that kind too, unable to handle her imprudence.

As I walked up to my car, my thoughts went back to where I had seen her today. The way she had looked at me when I offered her my help. She had been absurd enough to reject it and so I didn't bother to ask twice. My intentions had been good but she had refused my assistance.

She'd even been late for the meeting and the words that she had just said. All of this and from what I saw of her today, her actions, they led me to some conclusions, that she is extremely unsettled and petty.

After twenty minutes, I was at home. I parked my car in the garage and walked to the entrance. On my way I saw both my nieces coming back from school. As always Kholoud ran up to me and I placed my hand around her shoulder.

"God, sometimes I feel like I am not even this family's child." A familiar voice said from behind me. I turned, smiling and saw Kholoud's twin sister standing there, glaring at her sister.

"Why is it so hard for you to grasp this piece of reality that uncle Zayed actually likes me more than he likes you?" Kholoud spoke. I turned to her, "Kholoud." I warned and that silenced her.

"Khaulah," I ushered her with my other hand. "Come here you jealous one." She walked towards me, stomping her feet on the floor as a sign of her annoyance.

I hugged and kissed her forehead. Then just to annoy her a little further I ruffled her hair, something she despises a lot.

"Argh!" she yelled in frustration. Exactly the reaction I was looking for.

"Not my hair." She shouted making me laugh.

"Didn't you want to be loved?" I asked, hiding a smile.

"Yeah but not like this. You know it takes me hours to style my hair." I looked at her long brown hair falling on her shoulders.

"It's not my fault, I like your hair." I said, taking a chunk of her silky hair and feeling it.

"And mine?" that was Kholoud. I looked at her. There wasn't really a lot of difference between the twins. At the age of fourteen both of them were a little too tall than their peers.

"Yeah and yours too." I confessed, heading to the door as they followed, arguing again as usual.

I walked in the dining room and saw my mother sitting there along with my older sister 'Laylah'. I could still hear a warm discussion going on between the twins.

"That's it. Enough you two!" I hadn't meant to sound so harsh but something in my tone or expressions had hushed them. I could see fear in their eyes.

"Zayed." I heard my mother's voice calling me. I turned and saw her smile at me. There was a different look in her eyes. I'd think it was pride.

"Salaam-Alaikum." I greeted and went over to kiss her forehead.

"Alaikum-al-salaam, Habibi. (Dearest) How was your first day at work?" She inquired. I sat beside her and took off my 'Egal and Safra' (An Arabic accessory worn by men. It's made of black cord, helps to keep the 'Safra' (Scarf) in place.)

I placed my head on her lap as she ran her hands through my hair, softly. I lay there, my eyes closed, feeling her motherly warmth, which helped sooth my weariness.

I hummed and whispered a 'Fine'.

~*~*~*

First of all Eid Mubabrak to everyone out there, secondly we both would like to thank our editor U. BH for helping us with the story.

Hope u guys liked the chp and the characters. Plz let us know wht do u think of it through the comments:) It's our Eidiyah for everyone who read the 1st chp, since we both r 'Broke' and can't afford 2 give u Eidiyah in cash but I hope u guys accept this:)

~Edited by; U. BH

~Lots of Love from the writers; ~Witty & Witch.