Page 171 of The Circle of Exile
She stepped closer to him, raising her hand to cup his jaw. It was bristly, the stubble heavier now that he didn’t have to look perfectly put together all the time. She liked it. It reminded her of that old Atharva who would travel for days to interiors on tours, who would make the centre of villages his home for a week, who would go like Santa Claus and come back like Superman.
“You make me want to kiss you.”
“Then who is stopping you,” he edged closer to her, not even touching her and raising her body temperature by a few degrees.
“Umm mmm…” she scrunched her nose. “I’ll make one minute here feel like a hundred hours for you. And then you will complain that you lost time.”
“Overconfident. Come here and show me.”
“No,” she acted pricey. “Let it be. You’ll waste half your afternoon thinking about me when I go.”
His head cocked to one side as his arm stretched out to capture her. She stepped away in time.
“Myani zuv.”
“You’ll be lost in the memory of my kiss and forget to finish my son’s treehouse before his birthday.” Iram kept taking steps back. He lunged and she turned, breaking into a run inside the house. He was close behind when she heard the telltale blare of his ringtone. Iram had rushed up the steps to the verandah when she turned back. He was still on the ground, phone plastered to his ear.
“Hmm…”
She took steps back down, seeing the playful air around him vanish slowly. Like a bubble was dissipating.
“Zafarji is still there.”
Her brows rose.
“No… fine. I will come and see you at your house. Mine is watched at all times.”
He ended the call and pushed his phone into his pocket.
“What happened?”
“I will take a quick shower and go out for an hour. I have to meet Singh sir.”
“But wouldn’t he be at the Secretariat right now?”
“He has taken a sick leave.”
“Why does he want to meet you?”
“Qureshi. He is undoing a lot of executive decisions without due bureaucratic procedure. And he has started to dig into my PoK travel documents.”
“But aren’t they already with the SIT?”
“The original ones. There is a dossier on your plane and the passenger count.”
“But Qureshi knows I came on that plane. He doesn’t want to hurt me… or does he?”
“Not you, myani zuv. But if he gets a way to prove your presence in this issue, he can subdue me.”
“More than this?”
Atharva chuckled bitterly — “I am the biggest threat to him today. Because I have nothing to lose, position-wise. And he has everything to.”
“What will Singh sir do?”
“I will find out today.”
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