Forget Me Not (Zayn/Harry; Mpreg AU)

19 - Swallowing that pride

"Sir Zayn?"

The harried petite lady that works as the secretary for the owner of TM Designs is in hot pursuit of the surprise visitor to their workplace, her breath coming out in short puffs as she tries to match her short strides with the dark-haired lad's quick longer steps.

Zayn grunts out a greeting and walks to where he knows the owner of the company is.

The secretary looks around their current position and finally realizes where they are heading to. She breaks out into a jog to stop Zayn. "Sir, please, she's in a meeting with Mrs. Deakin and has ordered that they are not to be disturbed. You can wait at the lounge if you want to speak to her."

"I need to talk to her now, Julie," Zayn says, pushing the unlocked doors to a familiar office. He sends a polite smile to the terrified secretary, who is standing stiffly by the hallway, and closes the door. From his position by the door, he can already hear the conversation inside the conference room, two voices engaged in business jargon. He wants to barge in there and interrupt their nonsense, but decides not to because then it'll jeopardize the outcome that he intends to achieve by coming here. So, he sits on the couch and waits patiently.

Fortunately, Zayn doesn't have to wait for long because merely seven minutes later, he sees Johannah Deakin exiting the room, laughing. Next to her is none other than Trisha Malik, smiling big and satisfied. Zayn knows, from that pleased look alone, that she's closed another big deal.

"Oh, Zayn!" Johannah greets in surprise, rushing to hug him. Johannah's family and the Maliks have been close ever since Zayn has known. In fact, Johannah - or as Zayn fondly calls her - Auntie Jay is his godmother and her son, Louis Tomlinson, is his best mate. "How have you been, love? You've lost weight!"

Zayn grimaces and kisses her cheek. He forces a smile at her before looking over her shoulder to catch his mother's expression. As expected, she is no longer smiling, a hard look in her eyes.

"I'm good, Auntie Jay. I've been, uh, working out," Zayn answers politely, effectively answering her query with something plausible. Then, he musters up his courage, says, "Hey, mum."

"Zayn," Trisha responds through gritted teeth. Jay turns to look at her and, as if a switch is flipped, she returns to her joyous expression. She approaches Jay and grabs her arm gently, steering her away from Zayn. "I'll talk to you later, Zayn. I'm going to walk Jay out."

Sensing that something is amiss between the mother and son, Jay lets herself be escorted out of the office after bidding Zayn a goodbye. On their way out, she does not ask any questions and hopes that whatever the problem is between Trisha and Zayn, they will be able to solve it together.

After watching Jay's car disappear around the corner, Trisha promptly rushes back to her office, not wasting anymore time. When she comes back, Zayn is still on the same position as she left him.

"And my reckless son comes crawling back to me," Trisha chuckles without humor, sitting on her chair and eyeing Zayn with a cold gaze. "What do you want? Had enough of that gold digger?"

Zayn is close to screaming at his mother's face but he tries to control himself because he came here to ask for help, not argue with his mum. He sighs deeply to calm himself down. "I need your help."

"I'm not going to give it to you," Trisha scoffs, shuffling the papers on her desk.

With clenched fists, Zayn thinks of Harry lying helpless on a tiny hospital bed, pale and exhausted from too much work and this becomes his motivation to try harder in gaining his finances back. "Harry's sick, mum," he says. "We need money for his medication."

"Zayn, I don't know what happened to that intelligent brain of yours, but I just have to ask, where on the bloody earth are you going with this?"

For Harry, Zayn repeats inside his head when the urge to get up and leave is overwhelming. "Please, mum. Give me back my bank account or at least one of my credit cards. Harry needs it."

Trisha locks gazes with her son, staring straight into his eyes and seeing the desperation and plea in them. The anger inside her, the burning one directed at this nobody Harry, grows double in size, hotter, almost exploding. She cannot believe that her proud son is now a whimpering mess infront of her, begging to have his money back for someone else. Absurd.

"As far as I can remember, I gave you an ultimatum," Trisha responds coolly as she tries to remain calm. However, when she continues to speak, her voice turns steadily louder, angrier. "I told you to choose between that filthy boy and us. You chose him. You readily followed him. Now, you must faithfully suffer the consequences of your reckless actions. You had my word, Zayn, something that I do not intend to break. You are no longer a Malik. The money in your bank account is for a Zayn Malik and you are not him. Those finances are not yours, so leave them be and get out of my sight!"

By now, Zayn has tears streaming down his face, the only indication of the pain that he is feeling because otherwise his expression gives nothing away, blank. "How can you do this to your only son?"

Trisha turns away from Zayn, not wanting to see the heartbreaking expression on her son's face. "No son of mine is disrespectful. You disobeyed us, Zayn. And for what? A poor boy with nothing on his name."

"I love him," Zayn points out, voice breaking.

She has had enough and so Trisha slams a hand down her wooden desk. It seems as though she has forgone all sense of professionalism in the workplace and is showing her true feelings regarding the matter. "I don't care, Zayn! Your so-called love for that boy is nothing but disgusting to me. It irritates me, angers me even! Haven't you noticed? I do not wish to have such a person as my in-law, no. If you continue to be with him, you are not a Malik! The only way that I can accept you back into the family is if you leave that gold digging bastard!"

Stunned by the words that came out of his own mother's mouth, Zayn realizes that there is really nothing that he can do about this problem with his family because leaving Harry is never an option for him. He'd rather go hungry and broke than think of spending a minute without the enchanting, curly-haired human being. Whatever his mum is saying will have to be defied again for Zayn is choosing Harry over them all over again.

With a shrug and a sigh, Zayn gets off his seat. "If you're quite done with your insults, I should be going then. Good day, Mrs. Malik."

Trisha glares at Zayn, breathing heavily with her face flushed red with fury. She watches silently as Zayn wipes his face clean of tears and squares his shoulders. He then marches to the door with his head held high.

Despite the near crippling pain inside Zayn's chest, he manages not to crumple right on the spot. He makes it to the door in confident strides and is about to open it and let himself out when his mother decides that she needs to have the last words in this conversation.

"You'll be back with us soon enough, Zayn. I'm sure of it. Whatever you have with that man isn't going to last, remember that."

Outside the TM Designs building, Zayn fishes his phone out of his jeans' pocket. He sends a text to someone he knows that definitely has the capacity to help him out of his predicament.

Meet me at St. Ann's please. I need your help.