The playlist was now on The Chainsmokers’ Something Just Like This. They were on the first course, and true to his words, no one, not even the waiters, was around the restaurant. She chuckled as he went behind the counter, coming out with a cart.
“I would have told you what was in the appetizer, but the only thing I recognize there is the cornbread.” Zayn was kidding, but he loved hearing the sound of Rina’s laughter. She shook her head, her face brightened from the humor that had settled comfortably.
Zayn slid in a plate before her, then took his and returned to his seat. The cart still had something in it, and Rina looked at him with the question in her eyes.
“Oh, that.” He grinned ruefully. “I couldn’t go back at every course. I don’t know much about serving myself either, so I just decided to get it all in there. The dessert is going to be slightly different because it can’t be brought out just yet. One of my men is keeping watch over it, though, but you shouldn’t worry. He’s pretty….”
“Discreet,” Rina completed. “I know. I’m not worried.”
Zayn lifted an eye, pleased that their conversation had taken this route. “You are beginning to trust me, aren’t you? That’s a great development.”
Rina wanted to say that she’d always trusted him, even before she knew him personally. She wouldn’t have agreed to get into a contractual relationship with him in the first place, if she didn’t believe, somewhere deep down, that Zayn had her back.
The only thing she wasn’t sure about was how long it was going to last.
“I don’t trust you exactly,” Rina said instead, shrugging. “But seeing I don’t have any other choice, I might just as well start believing that you wouldn’t stuff my head down the toilet when I get too annoying.”
Zayn leaned back into his seat, his eyes twinkling in humor. He bit his lower lips, and shook his head slowly, his white teeth on display. “That’s some vivid description,” he teased. “But if I was going to do something like that, I would toss you into a body of water instead. That’s more dramatic and specific. It shows power and maybe a tad of intellect. I get off on those.”
“Figures,” Rina whispered to herself, rolling her eyes but Zayn caught it.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” she shrugged. “I was just wondering how much of that ego I was going to have to take. I know you’re the most powerful man in the country. You don’t have to flaunt it.”
“I wasn’t flaunting it,” he argued softly. Rina loved the fact that he wasn’t been forceful about it, giving her the freedom to form her opinion about him. “But if you call that flaunting, I wonder what you would say about the moment we get married.”
“It’s going to be purely contractual!” Rina said. It felt like Zayn needed to be reminded, but he wasn’t ruffled by her outburst.
“I never said it wasn’t,” he mused. “But my wife is not going to be cooped up inside my home. You are going to be a force to be reckoned with. That is what I call flaunting. And it’s not going to be only because you’re my wife if you’re going to be bothered about that.”
Rina flushed from the way he looked at her as he spoke, like this was not merely a signature on a piece of paper, lacking a foundation. He looked at the plate in front of her and realized it was still the exact way he’d left it.
“Eat,” he instructed.
Perhaps, it was the way he said it, the alluring force attached behind the instruction. But it got Rina picking up the cutlery. He watched her as she ate every single bit from the plate before speaking.
The silence was comfortable.
“Joel,” he murmured suddenly like they were continuing from an unending chain of conversations. “I don’t like him.”
“What?”
“It’s not to make you bothered or anything,” Zayn was quick to add. “I’m just informing you, in case I act out of character when he’s around.”
Rina would have preferred asking him when he never acted out of character, but instead, she chuckled. “I’m sure you think that way because you’re yet to know him. Joel is a pretty friendly person, and he makes a conversation feel great.”
He nodded, urging her on. If she had looked closely, she would have seen his jaw set into a hard line. “Today, he was so excited about getting his space for his fashion house, and he wanted to share that news with me. He turned this mini space into an office, and said it would be all mine as long as I accepted to train the models he would be recruiting after the publicity hits.”
“Hmmm.” Zayn reached for his glass of wine. “I’m interested in your response.”
Rina looked at him like he’d grown two horns. “I accepted it of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Did he add that to the contract, or would you be doing that without extra incentive?”
“Not everything is about making profits, Zayn. Sometimes, you need to give back to the public.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
Rina nodded.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do since it’s your job, and you’ve told me countless times not to interfere with that, and I’m going to respect that.” Zayn rose out of his seat and walked over to the cart. “But sometimes, the public we’re so hellbent on giving back to doesn’t even deserve it. Remember that it was this same public who chewed you and spat you out like you didn’t matter, when in fact, you are a star that deserves to shine.
“Some of these models you would be training would have retweeted about the scandal, or even gone on Instagram live to talk about how they think you rose to stardom too early simply because they’re jealous. Are you sure you don’t want to collect your money’s worth from them?”
Something dawned on Rina as she watched Zayn talk, her eyes drawn to his lips more times than she could count. It was the fact that they made a great team – Zayn and Rina.
And it scared the shit out of her.