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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
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2024-10-29 19:42:56The next morning—the first in our new house—was an unusual one.
“Kriti, you gotta wake up and lock the door. I'm leaving.” His voice drifted to me through a cloud of sleepy warmth.
“Where are you going?” I whined, still warm and comfortable in the silky sheets of my new bed.
“Kriti, wake up and listen to me,” he said a little more forcefully this time. I pried opened my eyes to see him standing beside me, every inch the sexy, powerful executive in an impeccably tailored suit. He looked so damn hot!
I got up and my lips murmured automatically, “sexy!”
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I replied immediately
“Kriti, you said something.”
“No, I didn’t,” I replied hesitantly and then smirked, “I think you need to get your ears checked. Should we see a Doctor?”
His lips twisted into a bemused grin immediatel
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A week passed by, and we kind of fell into a routine. We started going for walks together in the mornings and I found a maid for us. We were happy to connect with people in our building and we were lucky that we had good neighbors. My clothes had changed from those heavy, traditional sarees and suits to mostly lightly flared dresses, shorts and T-shirts. However, I did face challenges there. I got bored spending the whole day in that lonely house, and I was already running out of novels. I remembered our conversation from that night so many weeks ago, and, after years, I decided something for myself. I had always been a creative person. I loved art of any kind, from dancing to makingrangoli, I had loved everything. But, as the years passed by, all of that kind of slipped away. Maybe that’s why I opted for literature for my degree program. Because writing, in my opinion, was a form of art. And a true artist doesn’t only create masterpieces but also takes ti
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While Arnav was at work, I spent my days cutting and folding colorful papers into different kind of flowers and birds, using my glue gun and pearls and stones to decorate everything I made, from photo frames to pen stands and some cute little vases. I fell in love with the things I made. It made me feel pleased with myself. I had started decorating each corner of the house with something or the other. The appearance of my living room had changed, each thing felt like it was shouting at me, “go Kriti! Go!”My eyes were in awe of the wind chime I’d just made. I didn’t notice when Arnav came back from work, as he spoke, “Kriti! You left the gate unlocked again.”I turned around to find my husband raising his eyebrows at me. But he looked different that day. He looked way more tired than any of the usual days, and his eyes looked gloomy, “Arnav! See this. It’s finished.”He approached me, his eyes fixed on the be
Arranged Love: An Arranged Marriage Billionaire Romance CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
When the doorbell rang in the middle of the weekday, I was not expecting my husband to be standing at the gate. “Arnav, how come you’re back so early?”He smirked, “Kriti, won’t you let me come inside? Are you asking me to leave again?”“No,” I quickly moved aside, “it’s nothing of that sort. It’s just strange for you to be home early. What happened? Not feeling well?”“No, I’m alright,” he rushed into the hall, throwing a stack of files on the table. “More than just alright, actually. I am here because Golu is on his way, I just wanted to stop by and let you know before I go to pick him up.”He was unusually cheerful, and it made me happy to see him like that.“Oh! Great. So, I’ll prepare everything then.”“Don’t worry about all that, I’m just excited to meet him after so long,” he said, sound
Arranged Love: An Arranged Marriage Billionaire Romance CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I wiped my hands on the kitchen towel and called out to him, ‘yeah, coming!” I grabbed a tray from the counter, put a big smile on my face, and went out to greet the boys. But my smile faded as soon as I saw who stood in my foyer. I blinked twice.“Sameer—”Sameer said, “Kriti.”Our eyes met and the world around me just stopped. What the hell was happening? Arnav went to pick up his cousin, Golu, and Sameer Omar was in my house. I was confused. I wanted this to be a nightmare. A nightmare that I could wake up from with a jerk and all this would just vanish. Arnav looked from Sameer to me, confusion on his face. Sameer was giving that same idiotic smile he always had, and I was cringing on the inside.“You people know each other?” Arnav asked.Sameer and I both answered him, “yes.” I was trying to keep my internal cringe from becoming an external shudder of disgust.Arnav
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Six years ago, September:It has been a long time since I have had a chat with you dearest Diary. But today, something happened at college. You know that I have been nominated as the Cultural Society President. It would not have been possible without Mumma and all my teachers.Today, I was trying to explain to the girl playing Laxmibai in the upcoming youth fest drama, that she must make her character more compelling and she’s got to enhance the dialogue on her own. But she was not ready to listen to anything. Instead, she just picked a fight with me. I was all alone there, with her, and she got so angry. I was actually scared for a moment. But you know, that hideous basketball player in our class, Sameer, he heard what was happening, and he stood up for me.I would have never, ever expected that from him. I’ve never even talked to him before. He was just in a few classes with me, and oc
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I didn’t realize that it was possible that the mere existence of man in the same city as I, could cause such grief. Sameer was like a rash that just would not go away. The next morning I slept late, and didn’t see Arnav before he went to work. When I did wake up, however, I found a text from Sameer on my phone—a good morning message. My mind was clouded with that look on Sameer’s face when he said he’d missed me. Did he really miss me? Did I really care?My doorbell rang before I was even fully out of bed. I jumped out of the bed, threw on my robe over my nightie and raced to the door, expecting maybe Arnav was back. Sameer was the last person I was expecting to see that morning, and yet, there he was, standing on my doorstep.“Arnav’s not home,” I stated in blatant defiance. “Why are you here?”“I just wanted to visit myBhabhi.”I wanted to slam the doo
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Five Years Ago, January:Dear Diary, each passing day is becoming more and more difficult for me. I just can’t forget the things he said to me after reading that letter. The first thing he asked me was, “why?”He asked me why I loved him. Does that even makes sense? Is there ever a reason why we love someone the way we do? Is it even under my control? Couldn’t he see that, with every day that passed, after that first conversation of ours, that I felt something? I fell for him. Head over heels. He made me feel special, made me feel like he cared about me, and I loved him for it. We’ve spent so many days together, and I now realize that I spent those days in a lie of my own manufacturing. I was so sure he loved me. But he doesn’t.He said, “can’t we just be friends?”What kind of friendship is this? What kind of friend sits by your si
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POV: ArnavI exhaled a breath as I hung upAbhishek Bhaiya’scall. He said he missed me. Even I miss our family but at least, Kriti and Golu were there. It had been nearly two weeks since Golu had arrived. That bastard had actually kept his promise by meeting me several times. I felt good with him. All those years, when I was all alone, I met him regularly just because, most of the time, he made my tension, the pressures, fade away a little bit. When I was struggling with the relationship with my real brother, he was there with me at least. I was able to just live some peaceful moments with him. We went for drives together in Kanpur on his bike. It gave me so much contentment when we drove to his place here in Indore the first time. I thought back to what he’d said on that first day while we were driving to his place.He’d been surprised. “Kriti, you found her?”“I didn&r
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EPILOGUEThree Years LaterThe hairdresser was busy as she carefully straightened each strand of my dark brown locks. I searched my own face in the mirror and found that I’ve aged a little.Years have flown by. The day Arnav and I became one, my whole life changed. It wasn't too soon after that I found my real calling, my real passion and I wrote a book. I always wanted to be everything at once, and being a writer helped me to be that. For my third book, I landed a reputable publisher. Arnav and I have since been each other's best friends and he calls me his better half. My phone rang and I answered Arnav’s call on the first ring.“Hello? Kriti, are you ready yet?”“Almost, it will take about twenty more minutes.”“Okay, I’m leaving to pick you. Prabhat has called me several times already. We must be there by 6 pm sharp.”“We’ll be there at six, Arnav, don’t worry.”“Okay! I’m on my way. Love you.”Today, my second book was launching. It was a big day for me. I was right, I was made t
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Arranged Love: An Arranged Marriage Billionaire Romance CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
POV: ArnavI exhaled a breath as I hung upAbhishek Bhaiya’scall. He said he missed me. Even I miss our family but at least, Kriti and Golu were there. It had been nearly two weeks since Golu had arrived. That bastard had actually kept his promise by meeting me several times. I felt good with him. All those years, when I was all alone, I met him regularly just because, most of the time, he made my tension, the pressures, fade away a little bit. When I was struggling with the relationship with my real brother, he was there with me at least. I was able to just live some peaceful moments with him. We went for drives together in Kanpur on his bike. It gave me so much contentment when we drove to his place here in Indore the first time. I thought back to what he’d said on that first day while we were driving to his place.He’d been surprised. “Kriti, you found her?”“I didn&r
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