The car was finally alive again. After two hours of the caretaker tinkering under the hood with a wrench and a string of local curses, the engine hummed with a steady, rhythmic purr. It felt like the first thing to go right in days.
But we weren't leaving yet. Not until the last lamp was cured.
"I am officially retiring from the lighting industry," Rayan announced, dropping onto a plastic crate. He looked like he'd been dragged through a coal mine, but he was grinning. "Zara, if you ever ask me to help with 'interior design' again, I'm blocking your number."
"You love the drama, Rayan, don't lie," Zara shot back, though she looked just as exhausted, leaning her head against a stack of pallets.
I looked at Alayna. She was standing by the workbench, wiping down her tools with a slow, methodical precision. The dust had settled into the creases of her clothes, and her hair was a wild halo of loose strands. She looked human. Not the "Siddiqui Heiress" my mother talked about, and not the distant artist who had been haunting the library. Just... Alayna.
"Dinner," I said, the word feeling heavy in the quiet warehouse. "We aren't driving back on empty stomachs."
We didn't find anything fancy. Rayan managed to track down a local spot that delivered karahi in foil containers and hot, pillowy naan that smelled of woodsmoke. We cleared a space on a large wooden cable reel, using it as a makeshift table.
For the first time, we didn't talk about the Nikkah. We didn't talk about the "Five Days until Eid" countdown. We talked about the ridiculous manager, the way the acid had turned Rayan's thumb a temporary shade of green, and the sheer absurdity of the four of us sitting in a shed on the outskirts of the city.
Alayna actually laughed—a small, genuine sound that made the tension in my chest loosen for the first time in weeks. I caught her eye over the steam of the food, and for a heartbeat, the "CEO" didn't feel like a mask I had to wear. It was just us.
"We aren't making it back to the city tonight," I said, checking my watch as the midnight chill began to creep under the warehouse door. "The roads are still slick, and we're all dead on our feet. I found a place ten minutes from here. An actual hotel. With actual hot water."
"Praise be," Zara muttered, already reaching for her bag.
The hotel was a stark contrast to the rest-house. It was a boutique place, tucked away from the main road, with dim amber lighting and the scent of sandalwood in the lobby.
"Two suites," I told the receptionist, sliding my card across the counter. "Side by side."
As we walked down the carpeted hallway, the silence returned, but it wasn't the jagged silence of the car ride. It was the heavy, comfortable weight of people who had worked a long day together.
I stopped at the door to the girls' suite. Rayan was already heading into ours, yawning loudly.
"Alayna," I said, stopping her before she could follow Zara inside.
She turned, her hand on the doorframe. The soft hallway light softened the tired lines of her face.
"Get some real sleep," I said quietly. I reached out, my thumb brushing a stray smudge of metallic dust from her jawline. It wasn't a "move." It wasn't a calculation. It was just an instinct I hadn't been able to suppress for years. "The mothers can wait until tomorrow."
She didn't flinch. She didn't pull away. She just looked at me, her eyes dark and unreadable.
"You're covered in dust, Zayn," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
"I know."
"You look better this way," she said.
She didn't wait for me to respond. She slipped inside and closed the door, leaving me standing in the hallway with the ghost of her words hanging in the air.
I walked into my own room, stripped off my ruined shirt, and stood under the scalding spray of the shower. As the grey water swirled down the drain, I realized she was right. The suit had been a cage. The dust... the dust felt like the truth.
Tomorrow, we would go back to the city. We would go back to the guest lists and the gold and the expectations. But for tonight, the "CEO" was buried under a layer of warehouse grime, and for the first time, I wasn't in any hurry to find him again.