Chapter 27: ᴛᴡᴇɴᴛʏ-sᴇᴠᴇɴ

The first thing Zain did on arrival in New York that evening was to go see Emma, quite still shook by the facts he'd discovered during his discussion with Alfred Taylor.

Maggie, Emma's aunt was her usual suspicious self as they sat to eat supper, while Amy was super excited to see him. When Emma asked him why he was just coming now, he told her he was caught up in a lot of stuff.

He couldn't bring himself to tell her that her father had revealed to him the reasons why he'd suddenly began abusing her mother years ago, and what horrendous reasons they were.

It made the man's violence towards his deceased wife understandable, though Zain didn't deem it justifiable enough.

"Zain, you're acting suspicious. Come on what's going on." Emma asked putting back the food she was set to put inside her mouth with her fork.

Zain realized that she still had that prerogative of knowing someone's feelings with a keen look, and it unnerved him. If she continued to stare at him like that, he would just spill the beans, something he didn't want to do because it would pain her to know.

"It's just work stress. You know I have a lot to do in George's absence coupled with my own company." He replied evasively, digging in on his spaghetti. Then he decided to divert the attention from himself. "He called me today by the way. He called you yet?"

Emma's eyes widened incredulously and dramatically. "Do you think I'd be this calm? I would be so worried sick!"

Zain felt a shot of jealousy, yet he held it back as usual. And Maggie's surreptitious distrusting glances at him was enough to aid him.

After supper, Zain spent some time playing with Amy, though he realized he wasn't fully immersed in it.

Throughout, his mind constantly drifted to Emma, the secret Zain knew would shatter her if she discovered it. But mostly how he could accomplish what he'd particularly came here to do.

"Hey, princess." He said softly. Amy looked up from the blocks castle house she'd resorted to doing alone after Zain's several drifts. "Could you distract your mother for me please?"

"Distuat?" Her brows crinkled in confusion, probably at the unfamiliarity of the word.

Groaning, Zain wondered if there was a more demure word that the little girl could understand. He couldn't recall any, so he resorted to another method. Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit, he brought out a small doll he'd bought for his princess back in California. "Here take this and go show to mum. Tell her I bought it for you."

"A doll." Amy said excitedly, then taking the plastic from his hand, she ran off without even a thank you.

Zain immediately sprung to action and took another turn around the living room so that he ended up with Em back facing him.

While the little girl gushed about her new doll and Emma pretended to share in her excitement, Zain furtively cut a lock of Emma's pitch black hair with a scissors he'd kept in the inside pocket of his suit.

Retreating as fast as he could, he took a rubber envelope from his pocket and put the sample in it, tucking the deceptively acquired material back.

That was exactly when Emma turned, and luckily, she didn't look like she suspected anything. "Thank you so much for the present."

"Oh no problem." He replied way too quickly, his voice hoarse from the nervousness.

"Are you okay? You look. . . ill at ease."

"Uhm, Emma I think I have to go. I want to sort out some files before sleep so I have to start it early."

"Is that so?" She asked calmly, but the telltale crease of her brows betrayed the fact that she didn't really buy that. And she looked slightly disappointed, something he would've reveled in had he not been in a quest to get away before the guilt made him reveal the truth he'd discovered.

Zain walked to Amy and knelt before her. "Princess, I have to be going. Will see you soon?"

Amy nodded. Zain kissed her on the cheek, then getting up, he said a quick goodbye to Emma and went off. In his car, he was finally able to breathe fresh air instead of the suffocating guilt.

Plucking out the hair sample he'd collected from his pocket, he shivered as he thought of it's purpose, remembering what had lead to him having to do this in the first place.

Total, menacing silence reigned as the two men stared at each other. Alfred sat at his desk with Zain occupying the one opposite him, and while Alfred was definitely trying to make him flinch, Zain refused to cower and met his gaze brazenly, and it was obvious from the telltale flicker of surprise in his eyes that he wasn't used to that.

The man had already been in a surly mood, that'd been obvious, but that churlishness had increased tenfold after Zain told him he knew of his past; of how he'd abused his wife and practically abandoned his daughter.

"So tell me Zain." Alfred started bitterly. "How come Emma told you so much about her past, and about all that happened." His brow wiggled mirthlessly. "Are you her lover, anh?"

"What?!" Zain's armour of control wavered a little until he held it tightly, appalled by how disgustingly the man had drawn his conclusions. "How could you think that of your daughter?"

A scoff was all he received in return.

"I'm not her lover, but I'm the man she would've married had it not been for some reasons, and that reason sir, is all your fault. You..."

The older man's gaze grew even more harder, stonier and calloused, but there was a hint of agony that had Zain pausing.

And the bitterness of being in front of this man finally caught up with him; this perpetual stranger who'd been the cause of all his problems for the past 9 years. Yes, Emma had insulted and rejected him several times back in the university, but the real mastermind was her father.

"Do you know how much witnessing what transpired between you and her mother hurt her? We met in the university, and I fell in love with her. She loved me too but refused to act on her feelings for me all because of you!" Zain immediately stood and pointed an accusing finger. "Your daughter grew to resent not only you but all men in general. Your daughter, sir, wants..."

The speed at which Alfred shot to his feet cut Zain short. "She is not my daughter and I did not father her!" He suddenly blurted, voice thick and intense and raspy with emotion, as if a seamed wound had been cut open.

"What?"

"Amy cheated on me. She gave birth to Emma and made me believe she was my daughter when that wasn't true." His nostrils flared warningly. "So stop referring to Emma as my daughter because she is not mine."

Zain was lost for words, feeling like the zeal he'd come here with had crumbled. Perhaps not crumbled because he'd suddenly got an answer to the question he'd come to ask. "Is that why you abused your wife?”

The older man looked away and didn't answer, but the pain of remembrance radiated off him.

"How did you find out?"

Alfred sat back slowly into his seat, looking calm and calculated. "A very good friend was the one who removed the blinkers for me and made me realize the whore I'd taken as a wife. He played me a recording in which my former wife was speaking to her lover while they. . . while they had sex. Phone sex to be exact."

Zain sucked in a breath, realizing how great the man's odds weren't. To discover something as such about your wife must be so heart wrecking. "But where and how did this friend of yours get the recording?”

After pondering for a while, the deep lines of uncertainty on the man's forehead gave way to those of panic, and Zain realized with horror as he took his own seat that, Alfred hadn't really gotten deep into it. Hell, he probably hadn't even cared to ask.

"Did your wife confirm what you were told?" He asked, looking straight at Alfredo, and it was the man who flinched this time, as if he was afraid of the realities Zain was starting to unearth.

Eventually the defensive answer that came was, "Do you think I'm so stupid a man to believe that woman? Or do you think she would've admitted that she cheated on me? I heard her in the recording very clearly. it was her, and she was making all those sounds that she did when we made love."

"Did it ever occur to you, sir, that perhaps your friend lied to you?"

"Why would he do that?" Alfred shot back, and Zain detected the risen panic in his tone.

Leaning forward, Zain placed his cheek on his palm while supporting his elbow on the table and gave the man a soul searching look. "I don't know. You tell me." When the man didn't answer, he asked. "What if it was just a plan to break your marriage? You fell right into it. You destroyed all the years you and your wife had spent together, all those that were still to come because you hadn't trusted your wife enough."

He wished he could sound more defensive than he did, but since he had never known Emma's mother, he couldn't vouch for her innocence.

“Brian didn't deceive me.” Alfred begun. “The two of us were like brothers. We loved and looked out for the best for each other. He couldn't have lied about something like this. He couldn't. He wouldn't...” he trailed off, as if detecting the flaw in his logic, the chink in his armour.

Seeing that the man was off balance, Zain pressed his advantage. “I know of people who've experienced the worse kinds of betrayal from people they never expected it from, and for reasons they never suspected. Your case wouldn't be the first.”

“But a DNA test proved it!” Alfred came back almost desperately. “I read it. It proved that Emma isn't my daughter.”

“I'm sorry, but if my suspicions prove accurate, this wouldn't be the first time I'm hearing of a DNA test being falsified or at least the samples being changed deliberately.”

Sighing, Zain stared intently at the man, sensing the riot within him. “I'm not trying to make a verdict here Sir, but if we're being honest, there's a probability you were deceived. So to clarify everything, I suggest we have another DNA test conducted. If it turns out negative then we know you were never deceived, but if it turns out positive...” Zain mused, watching as Alfred shuddered as if involuntarily.

Closing his eyes, Alfred leaned back in his chair and exhaled deeply. As his eyes opened, he failed at trying for a facade of control. “I don't know why you've chosen to rake over the past when it won't change the reality; Emma is not my daughter. I'm certain, but just to prove it to you, I'm ready for a DNA test.”

Sighing, Zain drove to his apartment where Alfred would be occupying one of the other two rooms. The man stared intently at the lock of hair through the transparent rubber envelope. "How did you get this?" he enquired.

"Does that even matter?" He asked spitefully, feeling bitter. Perhaps it was because, after causing him to lose the woman of his life years ago, the man could defend himself with an excuse if the DNA test turned out negative. But mostly he was worried for Emma.

How she would feel if the test came out negative. If she realized that the life she'd known as a child for which she'd suffered so much was deceptively established, that her dead mother wasn't that saint she'd seen her to be, that she'd for a long time been and was still living a lie.

It would destroy her.