Chapter 8

Part 7 B

If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever.

Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful 

When she opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was the clock on the wall. It was 6:30 in the evening and the sun was gone, she was in her bed once again and the room was swamped in darkness.

“Oh! Thank god you are awake Mahi! I had been going sick with worry,” until then Mahi had assumed she was alone so, the feminine voice came as a shock.

“Pallavi, is that you?” She asked and she heard someone moving around the room before the lights were turned on.

“Of course it’s me girl. How are you feeling now?” Pallavi smiled at her and Mahi squinted her eyes to look at her friend who was still wearing one of those brightly colored dress suits, that she wears to work.

‘So, she had came here directly from work, but why?’

“What are you doing here?” Mahi asked, realizing that her headache had lessened and she was feeling a lot better than the last time.

‘Last time!’ Her face paled again when she remembered all that had happened in the afternoon, the horror and dismay returning with a vengeance.

  “I know about your brothers and all about their previous shady business of stealing and selling cars in the black market…….Marry me and become my wife or I shall have your parents and brothers go through hell before I destroy you completely!” The words burnt her like acid on her skin.

It had taken her family 6 years to come out of that nightmare, years of humiliation and hard work on her brothers part to make a honest living and to get a normal job and all that would be destroyed again if that case is reopened.  Those horrendous days would return again when people would start talking and whispering when anyone from their family would be seen. Tejas and Chirag would lose their jobs and the worst part is – now that they have their own families – wife and children to support. ‘Oh! How would they cope?’

A wretched cry tore from her chest and tears started to spill down her cheeks in an uncontrolled motion.

She was acutely aware that now Pallavi had taken a seat near her head on the bed, trying to soothe her down.

“What is it? Tell me…” She was running a soft hand over her rumpled hair, trying to talk to her but Mahi could say nothing that would make sense to her friend when all this was barely making sense to her.

Her heart was aching because after years of relentless hard work she was about to make it to the top – was finally going to erase that stamp of being the sister of “thieves.” Yes, her bothers had a gone on the wrong track as teenagers and had almost got themselves killed before coming out of it but they had paid more than  enough for their share of mistakes.

‘They don’t deserve to go through that hell again!’

“And neither does I!’

Her heart constricted in the fear of unknown. ‘He’ll destroy all our lives!’ she pressed her tears stained face into the pillow , trying to stop the pain, the fear and her heart from breaking apart like that.

“Hey! Shh…shhh…” She felt her friend’s soft fingers massaging her scalp. “Don’t cry dearie…I am here and everything’s going to be fine!” And Mahi felt herself relaxing a bit. At least someone was here with her, she didn’t wanted to be alone right now when the ghost from her past were about to return.

And slowly as those horrendous memories returned from the past, reminding of how hard life had been when her brothers trail was going on – 6 years ago, she recalled something else too.

‘Tears had never solved any of her problems! It never did!’

She had hated it as a 17 year old to be looked at and treated like a criminal in school and in her neighborhood, when nobody became friends and sometimes people became downright hostile and nasty name calling and bullying publicly when she was around and many a times, she had broken down into a rally of tears which had never helped the situation but instead turned those bullies even more aggressive towards her.

So, she took a deep breath and then took two more, trying to stop those tears and to stop her hands from shaking and counted to ten until her breathing returned to normal. Pallavi was still sitting near her head, her voice anxious as she caressed her forehead like a mother.

“What’s bothering you Mahi? I have never see you cry like that.”

“It’s nothing! I am not feeling very well.” She tried wiping her face clean with her hands when she heard a crash and clucks of utensils coming from the kitchen that made Mahi sit bolt upright.

“Who’s in the kitchen? Is anyone else here?”

“Oh!” Pallavi’s frown eased up a bit and she out a soft giggle. “It must be your banker boyfriend!”

“My? What?” Mahi half scoffed, half laughed when she heard her.

“Your boyfriend! Stop pretending otherwise, he told me that you two are an item now.” Pallavi giggled conspiratorially and Mahi felt herself flush in embarrassment.

“He who? You are confusing me with all this. Who told you what? And what boyfriend?”

“Fine! Have it your way then!” Pallavi mocked. “You weren’t in the studio for the show, so I asked Kavya and she told me that you have taken a sick leave for the day. So, in the afternoon during lunch I rang you many times but you didn’t pick up. And then around 3:00 I rang you again and guess who answered your phone?”

She was once again grinning mischievously before replying in a snort.

“The handsome hot banker Kartik Rao.”

“Imagine my surprise when I realized that the man speaking to me from your phone was the same man you have rowed with, on the national television!” Pallavi laughed at her own joke though Mahi didn’t find it even remotely funny.

“But then the man was distraught and told me that you are really sick and that you have fainted and asked me if I could drop by, because he had no idea what to do and so, I drove here at once. It was around 3:30, just half an hour have passed and your man was panicking like a duck, ready to call ambulance, asking directions from his doctor friend from AIIMS.

First, I told him to calm down and then told him to check your phone and call your regular doctor while I rang your parents in Noida.”

Mahi listened with the same foreboding expression on her face without saying anything. Of course, she was in no mood for Pallavi’s cheerful jokes and had no energy left to tell her that Kartik Rao isn’t her boyfriend, but regardless of all that she was still thankful that Pallavi was here.

“Thank you for doing all that!” She whispered and Pallavi patted her head in a motherly way. “Oh! What are we friends for?”

“Now see here are the medicines the doctor prescribed.” Pallavi indicated at the small side table beside the bed. “He said it’s just viral fever but your boyfriend nagged at him so much that he had also taken your blood samples to run tests for malaria and chikungunia.”

Pallavi was smiling brightly. “He is one of those hot serious types, a bit arrogant sometimes yes, but he really cares about you…..I can vouch for that. After I saw him all noon sitting there beside you bed, gazing at you all Romeo eyed.” She sighed and Mahi felt herself flushing beet root red at her friends over romantic description of what must have really happened.

“Well, you are wrong he and I aren’t…”

But before she could tell Pallavi that Kartik is an arrogant tyrant who has got not one romantic bone in his body, someone knocked at her bedroom door and a moment later the devil himself walked in and Mahi had to bite her lower lip to refrain herself from saying anything untowards to him, in front of Pallavi.

Kartik’s Armani suit was no longer so immaculate as it had been in the noon. The coat and the tie were missing and he had rolled up the sleeves of his white silken shirt as he bought in a bowl of soup upon a tray.

The tangy smell of spices and the fresh aroma of tomatoes made Mahi salivate internally, to her utter shame and her stomach grumbled in appreciation as he placed the tray on the bed beside her.

Mahi couldn’t tell what he was thinking because she dared not look into those dark eyes, afraid of what else deviousness she might find lurking in there. But instead fixed her eyes on her lap.

“Well now I must get going!” Pallavi stood up, retrieving her bag from the floor ready to provide the two lovers, as she saw them, given some privacy.

‘Please don’t  leave me here with him!’ Mahi wanted to cry out to her  but refrained herself from doing it. For one, she was a grown up woman and she will have to face this problem alone sooner or later and secondly, Pallavi must be tired too and she didn’t wanted to impose on her friend more than what was absolutely necessary.

So, she just nodded mutely as Pallavi left them alone and went home.

The air in the room was stifled with tension and Mahi was aware of him sitting at the foot of the bed, in inch from her feet.

“Would you like croutons with the soup? I can make some, if you want.” He spoke, his rich warm voice soothing her soul like nothing else and the old familiar awareness returned and Mahi was ashamed of herself for melting like a wax idol on fire at the barest hint of warmth in his voice when she knew that he was hell bent on destroying her life and her family along with it.

“No, thank you.” She gave a curt reply and picked up the spoon and the bowl of soup, just to stop her hands from fidging in her lap.

She took the first sip of the hot liquid and sighed unconsciously, it was really delicious and then unable to stop herself she drank the half of it.

“What do you think?” At that sudden question, Mahi looked up at him despite her earlier reluctance and found herself facing a soft enamored smile on his face as he watched her sipping the soup and she could not help herself from blushing.

This smiling man was so close to the man Mahi had thought, she admired but he was really not! He was the stranger who was threatening to destroy her life and family.

Her eyes misted over and she put the bowl back into the tray before he repeated his question. “What do you think?”

“I think you are a tyrant, a manipulative arrogant ass and I wish you would get out of here and never come back!” She sniped and he had the audacity to laugh! The ass really laughed, with his head thrown back and Mahi gaped at him, incredulously.

The rich rhythm of that soft laughter reminded Mahi of old classical songs and melting caramel, the casets of rhymes and black and white movies, in other words it reminded her of comfort, warmth and home!

“I was asking about the soup…but regardless…thank you for the compliments and now can I get a kiss to top it off?” He asked casually as if asking the time and before Mahi could have said anything smart and sarcastic to knock him off, he was already crawling towards her on the bed.

Never before had she noticed the wide flexing biceps of a man from so close and had never known how the hard warm chest of a man feels under her fingers – to touch and caress, but she knew now as those some strong biceps enamored her in a embrace so tight that she was flattened against his wide chest.

It was all happening too fast, rendering her speechless and yet it was happened too slow at the same time because every single detail of those handsome features were now imprinted in her memories forever as he bent low………his lips touching hers…almost…almost but not quite!

“Oh! Oh My…sweet Mahi…!” A ripple of pleasurable sensation tingled down her spine, listening to his words and she would have sold her soul to the devil right then just to kiss him once…just this one!

When the doorbell rang, twice in quick succession and they were able to hear the voices of two men arguing. ‘Her brothers!’ Mahi gaped in shock.

“Mahi ! Darling, open the door!” Her mother was calling.