THE HUSBAND SHE NEVER WANTED

Chapter 4: The First Text

The lingering warmth of the café disappeared in an instant, replaced by a cold dread. Layla stared at the notebook in her hands, her fingers tightening around the damp cover as if gripping it harder would somehow make the words vanish from the page. But they remained right there, written in cold, undeniable ink.

‘You should have listened.’

For a long, agonizing moment, all she could hear was the frantic sound of her own heartbeat echoing in her ears.

Zayd was around the table and beside her in seconds. “Layla.” His voice was low and steady, but there was a sharp, dangerous edge beneath it now that had not been there before. He looked down at her pale face, then took the notebook gently from her hands. His eyes narrowed into slits the moment he read the single line.

“Where exactly did you find this?” He demanded softly.

“It was right there on the floor.” Layla whispered, her voice barely working. “Right beside the leg of my chair.”

Zayd flipped through the rest of the notebook. Most of the pages were completely blank. A few random sheets toward the back had hurried scribbles—numbers, unfinished sentences, fragments that made no logical sense. There was no name on the cover, no obvious sign of ownership, and that somehow made it infinitely worse. It looked completely ordinary, forgettable, and plain. It was the kind of notebook anyone could buy at a corner shop and leave behind without a second thought.

Except that it had her name written clearly inside.

“Did anyone come near our table while I was at the counter?” Zayd asked, his eyes scanning the room.

Layla shook her head too quickly, then stopped to think. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention to anything.”

Zayd’s expression hardened as his gaze moved deliberately over the nearly empty café. The sleepy woman by the window was still sitting there, completely engrossed in her phone. The two men behind the counter were still laughing quietly over whatever match was playing on the television. No one in the room looked remotely interested in Layla, Zayd, or the notebook that had suddenly materialized beside her chair.

“This isn’t funny,” Layla murmured, more to herself than to him, her arms wrapping around her torso.

Zayd looked down at her, his jaw tight. “No. It isn’t.”

A cold knot had begun to tighten painfully in Layla’s stomach. The heartbreak she had carried into the café felt different now—still painful and humiliating, but entirely pushed aside by a heavy, paralyzing fear. She did not know which possibility was worse; that Farouk was somehow behind this twisted game, or the terrifying alternative that someone else was. Someone who had seen her tonight. Someone who knew her name, her face, and exactly where she was. Someone who had been close enough to slip a message right at her feet without her ever noticing.

What if they were still inside the room, watching her right now?

Zayd noticed the panic rising in her eyes. “Hey,” he said, catching her attention. “You’re not staying here a second longer.”

She didn’t object. She didn’t remind him that he was a stranger or that she didn’t owe him compliance. The truth was, she didn’t want to remain near that notebook either. It sat on the table like physical proof that she was no longer safe.

Zayd threw some money onto the counter to pay for the tea, slipped the notebook into his hand, and guided Layla out of the café with a quiet, protective urgency that made her pulse rise all over again. The drizzle outside had thickened back into a steady rain, though it wasn’t falling as heavily as before. Still, the night air felt much darker now, as though the city itself had shifted into something hostile around her.

They reached the sedan quickly.

Layla slid into the passenger seat, clutching her handbag tightly against her chest, while Zayd climbed into the driver’s side and locked the doors the moment he shut them. The sharp click of the central locking system sounded incredibly loud in the quiet interior of the car.

He placed the damp notebook face-down on the dashboard and started the engine.

Layla stared out the side window at the blurred, watery lights of the passing traffic, trying to force her breathing into a steady rhythm. She hated how shaken she felt. She hated that the universe had apparently decided heartbreak alone wasn’t enough punishment for one evening. Most of all, she hated that some part of her was now actively waiting for the next message, the next warning, the next terrifying interruption.

Beside her, Zayd kept one hand firmly on the steering wheel, his jaw tight and prominent. His attention was entirely split between the dark road ahead and the heavy silence inside the vehicle.

“Do you really think it’s Farouk?” Layla asked at last, unable to bear the quiet any longer.

Zayd was silent for a long moment as he navigated a turn. “I don’t know, Layla.”

“You read his message to me,” she pushed.

“I did,” he said bluntly. “And it sounded incredibly manipulative. Possessive, too. But being a miserable ex doesn’t automatically mean he’s behind a stalking display like this.”

Layla looked down at her lap. “He’s never done anything remotely like this before.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Zayd muttered.

The silence stretched out between them again, but it no longer felt empty or awkward. It felt incredibly careful, as though both of them were moving around something fragile and dangerous without yet knowing its true shape.

“Thank you,” Layla said softly into the dark.

Zayd glanced over at her. “For what?”

“For not saying ‘I told you so’ about getting into a stranger’s car after nearly being hit by it.”

That comment made the corner of his mouth twitch with a ghost of a smile. “You’re very welcome.”

Layla gave him a tired, grateful look. “You’re surprisingly comforting when you want to be.”

“I try my best.”

“No, you don’t,” she said, a small spark of her earlier spirit returning. “You mostly just bark orders.”

That earned a genuine, quiet laugh from him, and Layla felt some of the tight tension in her shoulders loosen despite the circumstances. It was ridiculous, really—how easily he managed to pull her back from the absolute edge of panic with nothing more than dry replies and that calm voice. She knew she should be suspicious of how quickly she was settling into his presence, but right now, all she felt was relief.

And that frightened her too, because she had only just lost one version of trust tonight. She had no business reaching for another.

Zayd pulled the car over a few minutes later, parking near a quiet, dark city park lined with dim streetlamps and rain-soaked trees. The road was completely empty except for a lone tricycle passing in the far distance. Layla frowned, looking around. “Why are we stopping here?”

“Because you still don’t actually want to go home,” he said simply, turning off the headlights. “And because I don’t think you should be left entirely alone with your thoughts right now.”

Layla opened her mouth to deny it, but the words never came. He was entirely right. She didn’t want to go home yet, not with her mind in absolute pieces and her face still carrying the swollen evidence of everything that had happened.

Zayd reached into the back seat, pulled out a fresh bottle of water, and handed it over to her. Layla took it, suddenly realizing how completely parched her throat was, and took a long sip.

“Do you just keep an entire survival kit in this car?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Only useful things,” he replied smoothly.

A genuine laugh escaped her before she could stop it. It was softer than her previous ones, less startled, and this time she didn’t feel guilty for letting it out. The sound seemed to settle between them in the small space, warm and surprising.

Zayd turned to look at her then, properly looking at her, and for a brief, intense second, the air inside the vehicle completely shifted. He didn’t say anything reckless or try to flirt; he simply held her gaze a little longer than strangers ever did. His dark eyes were steady, deep, and far too observant.

Layla was the first to look away, her cheeks warming.

The silence that followed felt different charged with a strange, quiet weight. Layla tightened her fingers around the water bottle and stared out at the rain-speckled glass. This is completely absurd, she told herself firmly. You are sitting in a parked car at midnight, crying over an ex, terrified by anonymous messages, and somehow still noticing the eyes of a man whose surname you don’t even know. She almost laughed at her own mind.

Almost. Then her phone buzzed with a loud, violent vibration.

Both of them froze instantly. Layla’s breath caught painfully in her throat as she pulled the device from her bag. Another unknown number sat on the screen. Her hands shook terribly as she unlocked it.

This time, there was no warning text. There was a photograph.

Her stomach dropped into a hollow pit.

It was a picture of her and Zayd inside the café, clearly taken through the foggy window from a distance outside. She was leaning slightly forward at the table with her tea in her hands, while Zayd sat directly opposite her, looking at her. The angle was slightly obscured, hidden, as though the photographer had been crouching or hiding behind a vehicle, trying very hard not to be spotted.

Beneath the image was a single line of text:

‘You move on very quickly, Layla.’

Layla went entirely cold, the blood rushing out of her head. Zayd took the phone from her hands before she could even protest, his face darkening into absolute fury as he stared at the image. When he finally looked back at her, there was no trace of humour left in his expression.

“Did Farouk know you were going to be at that café tonight?” He asked, his voice deadly quiet.

“No,” she whispered.

“Did anyone from your family know?”

“No.”

“Then someone followed us from the road,” Zayd said, the words landing between them like an open threat.

Layla stared at him, her pulse thundering in her ears. Outside, the rain continued to slide down the windshield in crooked silver lines, and for the first time that night, the darkness beyond the car no longer felt empty.

It felt like it was actively watching her.