Dastoor-e-Dil (ON HOLD)

5

Saleh POV

Life works in weird ways, never in my life I would've thought that I would re-unite with a certain brown eyed beauty named Hayah Khan. Every single day for the past six years, I have thought about her because, well, I simply cannot get her out of my mind. Even though, I absolutely hate how cheeky and intolerable she is, a part of me was glad to see her again, and that too in a place, so unexpected.

I never wanted to come to Pakistan this early for the wedding, scratch that, I didn't want to visit Pakistan at all, but with my best friend Ali's puppy dog eyes and constant blackmailing I decided to fuck it and come anyway. It was awkward, yes, because I was the only non-family member around, they really tried their best to make it comfortable for me, but I wasn't really letting my guard down in an unfamiliar household.

I was sitting in the drawing room with the rest of the family, I could hear the elders talk about the wedding preparations, the youngsters planning how to drain Ali's pockets in all the rasms and I could see Ali and his fiancé, Fatima bhabi give each other those "lovey dovey eyes", ugh, I had enough.

I faked getting a call from my PA and I excused myself to go into the front lawn, once I was there, I opened up my emails and started replying. I thought I heard a car door shut outside and then someone knocking on the gate, I was about to open it, but then I remembered how I probably shouldn't open the door for everyone, especially in Pakistan with their current crime rate.

It could be a dacoit, or it simply could be someone at the wrong address, otherwise they would ring the doorbell. I continued pacing around the front lawn, replying to my emails when someone started banging the gate. I had the upper hand, as I was almost as tall as the iron gate, so I peeked over and saw a girl with brown-ish hair, realizing it was someone who was meant to be in the house, I started to open the gate, but the locks were so fucking complicated. After a minute of struggling, the door opened to reveal no one other than Hayah Khan.

This girl was the last person I expected to see, she was looking at me with the same shocked eyes, I had managed to keep my composure and lower my gaze, even though the inner me wanted to keep looking at her. She had grown even more beautiful in the past few years. Gone was the adorable baby face, I was standing in front of this gorgeous woman who I knew I'd lose my heart to, if I even looked at her longer than five seconds. Before we could have a normal conversation, Fatima bhabi came and took her away. I stood there trying to calm myself down because my feelings towards her didn't really matter, because, she hates my guts.

Hayah POV

My brain was hurting, all through out the dinner, I could feel Saleh's eyes on me, I don't know what the actual hell he wants. He's probably planning how to murder me and dispose off my body before the nikkah. My relationship with Saleh was simple, we both hated each other.

Growing up, our parents were really close friends. In fact, it was Saleh's dad who had extended a job opportunity to my dad all those years ago that made us move to Canada. When I made the decision to move to Pakistan, my dad retired as the CFO of Rehman Tech.

Anyway, since our families were super close, we got to meet each other, every other day and whenever we did meet Saleh never let a chance to annoy me. It started off as pulling my pigtails from when I was in elementary school to playing pranks on me, all the way up to my high school. He was older, so I was always compared to him and his success in academia. I mean, yes, he has a degree from an IVY League, but hellooo, I'm a freaking doctor. 

Saleh was the perfect child in the eyes of my parents. My entire life, I've been compared to him, it just gets too much. Plus, he was always so arrogant that made me hate him. I hate myself for even showing the slightest bit of emotion towards him, I blame it all on the interaction we had when we met for the last time, six years ago. I forgot how arrogant and intolerable he was. I mean, even today throughout the dinner, he wouldn't stop staring, it was to the extent that even Fatima noticed and teased me whenever she could.

I didn't let her have the upper hand though, I'd pull the uno reverse card and tease her about Ali bhai and she'd go all quiet and red. Apparently, Ali bhai and Saleh met in college and they've been close friends since. It's a really small world and for once, I hated this fact. All of the things he did to me started coming back to me, his endless teasing and calling me that oh so intolerable nickname, "Princess". It all started with the fact that I was closer to my dad and this lead to him teasing me as being my "Papa's princess" which led to it being solely princess now.

This interaction had finalized one thing though, I was going to stay far far away from Saleh Rehman.