All Chapters of MARRYING MY BEST FRIEND'S FIANCEE: Chapter 191 - Chapter 200

Arni watched Orla with the fabric merchant’s grandson, and, seeing the look on her face, wondered what had caused it. Why was he so curious about her? She meant nothing to him, and that was the way he intended things to stay.The fabric merchant was telling Orla that if she were to let him have some drawings and details of what she wanted, he could arrange to have some sample patterns made up for her. Orla handed the little girl back to her mother and reached for her notebook and the samples, swiftly selecting colors and patterns in the combinations she thought she would need. Her manner was now businesslike and focused.Arni observed that she had an easy rapport with people and a natural way of communicating with them. She respected their professionalism, and he could see that they in turn respected hers.It was very important to him that this new venture was not just a success, but that it achieved an almost iconic status as a leader in its field. His heritage and his blood demanded

The sight of Arni walking towards her through the shadows was so unexpected that it shocked Orla into immobility for a few seconds before she struggled to her feet. His terse, ‘What are you doing?’ didn’t help.She told him, 'I wanted a closer look at the pattern on these tiles,’ she said, indicating the tiles forming the narrow footpath. And if you’ve come to find out if I’ve finished the layouts you wanted, then the answer is yes. At least in draft form. They’ll be on your desk before you leave tomorrow.’The words were a staccato burst of edgy defensiveness that fell away into sharp silence when Arni stepped out of the shadows. Automatically, she looked at him, and then couldn’t look away, her breath locking in her throat, her stomach tightening in response to what she could see. His torso and his feet were bare, as though... as though he had been in bed. Naked? Why was she thinking that? He could just have been relaxing. But something told her that Arni wasn’t the kind of man who

It had been three days since Orla had last seen Arni—three days in which she had had time to focus on her work and re-balance her own sense of self.Where another woman might have found it galling and humiliating to have a man walk away after having started to make love to her, Orla could only feel relieved that Arni had done so. She had been given a second chance to protect herself from her own weakness, and for that she could only be profoundly grateful.But being grateful wasn’t doing anything to ease the ache that had woken her from her sleep last night—and the night before, and the night before that. Orla stared grimly at her laptop screen, battling determinedly to will away such potentially dangerous thoughts. Was this the way her mother felt about the married man she had once told Orla was her father, whose desertion she claimed had pushed her into the arms of a series of other men?But then her mother had told her so many different stories, changing with her mood and her need

'Ekbal won't let you leave until he's heaped you with samples,' Dave warned, reaching out to pluck a stray thread of cotton that had attached itself to the sleeve of her top as the factory owner hurried away for more samples.Orla smiled back at him, unaware of the fact that Arni had just walked into the building and was standing watching the byplay between them with a glacier cold look in his eyes.It was Dave who saw Arni first, his own gaze sharpening in recognition of what he could see in Arni’s eyes as he strode towards them."There’s a very angry-looking alpha male heading this way," he told Orla drolly. And he looks very much as though he thinks I’ve been trespassing on his private property.’"What?" Orla turned round and then gave a small ‘oh’ of mixed comprehension and surprise as Arni bore down on them, her stomach churning out its message of acute physical awareness of him as her heart pounded erratically.He was wearing light linen, apparently oblivious to the heat in the

Relief washed through her, chilling the heat of her earlier anger.‘Yes, I can—and I do.’Ignoring her protest, Arni insisted grimly, ‘Admit it. You were coming on to him so hard that you were oblivious to anyone and everything else—not that he was objecting. He was as eager to get you into his bed as you were to be there. That was patently obvious.’‘That is not true, and I was not coming on to him,’ Orla denied truthfully again. ‘We were simply both being polite to one another.’ She was getting her courage back now that she had escaped the humiliation of him reminding her how passionately she responded to him. ‘Good manners are a highly valued trait in Indian society—something that Indian children are taught at their mother’s knee. As I should have thought you would know.’The silence was suddenly alive with the kind of danger that brought up the small hairs on the back of her neck.‘So you maintain that you were simply being polite, do you?’‘Yes,’ Orla insisted.‘By offering yours