I looked at Hamza's flushed, bearded face and noticed his hand underneath Layla's dress which he abruptly pulled back. My breaths came in hard and fast. Layla looked like she was going to cry any minute.
Hamza opened his mouth to say something but I didn't hear him. I just backed out of the room and ran.
****
Armaan
Jasmine came hurtling down the stairs and almost crashed into me but I managed to steady her.
"Whoa, Jas. Slow down. Why are you running?"
She was breathing really fast and she looked as though she had seen a ghost. She shook her head at me, not saying a word and stared at me with wide eyes filling up with tears.
I frowned at her. "Jasmine, what's wrong? What happened?"
She shook her head again, pressed her hands to my chest and seemed to be pushing me away from the stairs.
"Hey." I took her face in my hands and studied her panicked expression.
I was hot and sweaty after the soccer game I'd been playing behind the house with my family and had just come inside for a snack after the match ended. I hadn't expected Jasmine to show up here so quickly.
Why wasn't she saying anything?
I could hear the rest of my family outside about to enter the house and I didn't want them to see her like this. I'm sure she didn't either.
"Listen, let's go to my room and talk," I said softly, feeling worried about her.
"No!" she finally said and tried to drag me away from the spot by pulling at my arm. "Don't...don't go upstairs. Please."
I was so confused by her behaviour. She never acted like this, never got that kind of tortured look in her eyes except when...
I stilled and then glanced upstairs, remembering that Hamza hadn't been at the game. "What the hell happened?" I demanded, feeling angry now.
He wouldn't. Not again. Not after the way he had told me he was sorry for hurting Jasmine.
"Layla," she sobbed and gave me a pained look. "I think Hamza...I think maybe he tried to seduce her."
Rage filled me up at her words. What in the name of Allah was she up to now? Layla wouldn't even let me...
I narrowed my eyes at her and stepped back. "You just can't help yourself, can you?" I hissed at her as everybody started to file in. I didn't care. I was so pissed off. "Finally...finally I am happy and moving on in life and you still want to mess it up for me!"
She hugged her forearms around her stomach as though she was cold and tears streamed down her cheeks. "I saw them, Aaru," she told me. "I saw Hamza and Layla in bed."
Someone gasped but I kept my eyes pinned on her. "Really?" I bit out. "What else did you see? Let's hear it. What were Hamza and my fiancée doing in bed exactly?"
She looked upstairs and I followed her gaze to find Hamza standing at the top of the stairs with a stern expression on his face.
"I think you should go, Jasmine," my mother spoke up firmly from a few feet away. "Maybe it wasn't a good idea calling you here for the divorce. We will do it another day."
Jasmine wasn't listening to her though. She was glaring at Hamza, her dark eyes shooting fire at him.
"Tell him the truth," she said loudly. "Tell him what you were doing to her."
My brother just maintained a calm front in the face of her dramatics and shifted his gaze to me. "She's lying, Armaan. You know she's only trying to make trouble."
"I'm not, you bastard," Jasmine yelled at him. "How many girls have you done this to over the years? I thought it was just me. How many girls have you seduced and promised to love?” She was crying so uncontrollably. Everyone was just staring at her, including Hamza's wife.
"Jasmine, get out of here," Zoya said angrily. "What is your problem?"
Jasmine responded by pointing to Hamza with a dark expression on her face. "Him. He is my problem, Zoya. Your brother, who shows the whole world what a respectable man he is and yet goes around touching innocent girls behind his wife's back."
Alisha, my sister-in-law, was the one who reacted first. She walked over to Jasmine with a fierce look in her eyes and slapped her hard. Jasmine reeled from the assault and placed a hand on her cheek. I didn't move from the spot. What was she trying to do by bringing all this up now? And using Layla's name to get to me.
"How dare you talk about my husband that way?" Alisha hissed at her. "After everything he did for you! You were an orphan. He took you in. He gave you a home. And this is what you turn around and say to him?!"
"He took from me as much as he gave," Jasmine said brokenly, looking towards Hamza. "I was just a teenager. He...he made me love him. He used me not once but twice."
She turned to me with a torn expression. "You know this," she cried softly. "Tell them. Tell them it's true. He doesn't deserve to just walk around like this and keep destroying other girls like he destroyed me."
Still, I said nothing. Did nothing. The shock of seeing her confront him like this was too much for me.
"She's lying," Hamza said firmly. "She's the one who wouldn't leave me alone the entire time she stayed under my roof. I kept reminding her of the boundaries but she wouldn't listen. When I told her I would expose her to Alisha and Zoya, she ran from Amira."
Jasmine stared at Hamza incredulously. "You son of a bitch!" she screamed hysterically.
