'What?!' Nur stares at him. 'You are kidding right?'

'No,' Dylan says as he stands up, 'I am being genuinely honest. I want you to marry me.'

'Just so you can protect me? You want to marry me for it?'

'What's wrong with it?' He cocks his head to a side and a few strands of hair obey the gravity. Nur has no idea why but she is getting too mesmerised with Dylan's hair. 'You are alone and I am willing to help you.'

'Yes, but marriage is something different,' she says. 'It is a beautiful bond and I don't want it to be tied on something this lame this.'

'Lame?' Dylan raises his eyebrow and opens his mouth to answer but decides against it. He picks up his coat from the couch and stuffing his hand in his pocket walks to the door. 'I don't mean to pressurise you, but atleast think about it.'

'This is a huge offer.' Nur walks to the door and opens it for him.

'Not offer. A proposal.'

Nur bites the inner of her cheek. 'Why are you so interested, by the way?'

Dylan wears his coat and walks out. He does not say anything, not even a goodbye as he turns his back to Nur and sits in his car. He drives off while Nur still looks at him, waiting for an answer which she got none.

Maybe not words, but Nur noticed a dainty smile on his lips. Her heart skipped a beat as she figured why could be smiling.

***

The next day, Nur went to work as usual and got rather scolded of being too early because even Cora hadn't flipped the sign from Closed to Open when Nur showed up. She stayed quiet as Cora lectured her because she needed something to set her mind off.

The whole night, Nur, instead of being scared that someone might intrude again, thought about Dylan's offer, no, proposal. She rang her mother twice and when she finally picked up, Nur's internet package left her side.

So, she laid whole night, tossing and turning, staring up at the ceiling, tracing the patterns and thinking. She only took a nap of maybe fifteen minutes but again, even in that nap, she dreamt of Dylan and blushed when she thought about how he saved her from the intruders and when she'd thought about intruders, her heart would sign her to work on that suggestion—proposal.

Thought entwined themselves in an infinite labyrinth. With more solutions came from problems until Nur was tired of thinking and to shut them down, she came to work.

Cora handed her the pamphlets and she distributed them. She came back and served two customers. She checked her social media accounts and found ... nothing.

'I believe my money is not wasted, is it?' Cora appears from behind Nur, startling her.

'No,' Nur refreshes the page of Facebook. She got one like. 'This takes time.'

'It better show me results.'

'Yes, it will,' Nur scrolls down further more, studying and analysing the pages of other restaurants' accounts, even taking notes to drift her mind off. When she is done, she looks over at Cora, sitting on the chair, counting her money. Nur battles with her own self, brings words to form sentences—to make sense but when she opens her mouth to utter her inner demons, no word comes out.

'Say it,' Cora says, still looking down and counting her money.

'What?'

'What you want to say.'

'N... nothing.' Nur let her eyes drop on her palm. Why is her heart beating so fast?

Cora places the money down after tying a rubber band around it. She zeroes her eyes on Nur. 'What is it? Do you want advance?'

'No,' Nur says. She decides to let another lie slip past her tongue but she thinks back to the intruders, to the horror they left to Nur, so, she speaks. 'Should I marry already?'

Nur expected a snicker but she only got a pair of raised eyebrows on a wrinkled face. 'Do you want to?'

Nur rests her chin on her palm, 'I don't know,' She says in a low voice, 'this is the problem.'

'It not really is.'

'What do you mean?'

'Do you like that guy?' Cora asks unexpectedly.

Nur ponders over, raking her brain. As she does so, she feels blood being driven up to her cheeks. She is about to say no, but then she thinks about the time she saw Dylan very first time on TV, wearing a crisp black suit and goggles. They hid his eyes but Nur's heart had already skipped a beat so she turned off the tv. She thinks back when she cooked her first meal and served it in front of him, only to have that dish slip from her hands because she didn't knew she would be working for Dylan Westbrook, the Young Billionaire. Her mind retrieved another memory of her when Dylan helped her with the medicines of her mother. How he boosted her confidence, helped her with the intruders. These all simple acts were enough to make her say, 'Yes. I like him.'

'Do you like the proposal?'

Nur thinks briefly. 'Yes,'

'Then,' Cora stands up from the chair and looks at Nur suspiciously, 'Do you want to marry?'

This time, Nur don't think a bit. 'Yes,'
____________
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