163. OS: 7: The Other Woman (Part 29)

Part 29

Khushi looked in to Arnav’s molten eyes and grit her teeth, adding fuel to her fury so that she did not collapse in a pile of mush before him. She straightened her spine and glared at him, clutching the rose more firmly. She fisted the fringe of her dupatta with her free hand.

As she watched, Arnav stood up, his eyes on hers.

Then he left his seat and walked towards her on slow, purposeful feet.

Khushi watched his shoes coming closer to her and then stopping near her. There was an ‘H’ in metal on his shoes. She frowned. ‘H?’ Why did he have an ‘H’ on his shoes? Was he trying to prove that he is He-man Singh Raizada? she wondered.

“Khushi,” he called softly to break her preoccupation with his feet.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, anger and fear blending in to a potent mix that made his eyes glow.

“Come with me,” he said softly for her ears.

Khushi wanted to refuse. But over his shoulder, she saw the curious and startled faces of his family. She didn’t care what they thought, but Shyamji... He mattered to her. He had given her a job, put up with her fumbling and clumsiness, found excuses for her when not one justification was in sight... He would find out that she had barged in to his Saale-saheb’s house and made a scene like a fishwife. No, she couldn’t do that to her employer.

She nodded slowly, reluctantly, letting her eyes slide away from Handome Singh Raizada’s.

She felt him take the hand that was holding her dupatta.

She jerked, startled, her eyes rushing to meet his gaze. Her fingers left the cloth in shock.

Without wasting time on words, Astute Singh Raizada led her up the steps, his long legs eating up the distance. Khushi had to run to keep up. The hues of the rich curtains and the plush carpets were little more than a blur to her eyes as she was towed to his room.

Smart Singh Raizada tugged Khushi in to his bedroom and quickly locked the door. The last thing he wanted was Di coming to dry mango pieces for pickle or Mami looking for her lipstick or Nani seeking Laxmi in his room or garden while he was savouring the few moments he had with Khushi.

“Yeh..yeh..kya kar rahe he aap?” Khushi asked, her pulse throbbing, her eyes on the closed door.

“We need privacy to discuss our future,” Crafty Singh Raizada murmured with  a smirk, knowing that his smugness would banish the clouds of anxiety from her face and fill her with ire.

As expected, fear vanished from Khushi’s visage and indignation took its place.

“Privacy? What for?” she fumed. “Are you scared? Don’t you want your family to hear my opinion of you, you...you Saale-saheb?”

Arnav smiled. “Your opinion of me and my opinion of you should remain between us, don’t you think?” he asked, his voice alluring, seductive as though she had invited him to whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

Khushi seethed. This man had the hide of a buffalo, a rhinoceros, a hippo!

Thick-skinned Singh Raizada smirked at her.

That was the last straw on this camel’s back.

Khushi threw the rose at him. “What is this? I am asking you, what is this?”

The red rose hit him on his heart. Aashiq Singh Raizada caught the flower before it could slide down his body and fall at his feet. He loked at the innocent, fragrant, crimson flower in his hard fingers and slowly lifted it to his nostrils to breathe in its scent.

 His eyes lifted to her wild ones.

Arnav slowly walked up to her, the rose held in his hand.

Khushi swallowed at the steady look in his eyes as he approached her to stand very close to her.

Khushi took a step back.

He moved a step closer to her. He lifted the rose to her face and ran it down her cheek, the soft petals skimming the silky plumpness of her cheek.

 Her eyes fluttered shut.

 Her breathing deepened. Her face flushed, her body emanating heat. Her heart beat loudly within the confines of her chest and her limbs quivered.

“A rose,” he breathed his reply against her face. “It smells sweet but you smell sweeter.” His lips replaced the rose on her cheek, his hardness supplanting its softness.

Khushi gasped aloud. She jumped back and stared at him with stormy eyes.

“Leave me alone,” she gulped, her chest heaving. Why did this man give her pappis left, right and centre?

“I can’t,” Jaadugar Singh Raizada whispered as he moved closer to her.

Khushi took a couple of steps back and tried to glower at him. “How dare you fill our yard with flowers? Our neighbours...the whole of Laxmi Nagar...” Khushi struggled to voice her helpless fury. “Do you know what Kamla Chachi asked Buaji?”

Arnav asked softly, “What did she ask?”

“She wanted to know when and from where we had bought the flowers. She wanted to ask Chunnu’s father to buy her a few. She wanted to know if the shop delivers or if she would have to carry the pots home!” Khushi ranted.

“You should have given her my phone number, Khushi. I could have answered all her questions. By the way, why should Chunnu’s father buy her plants?” Arnav frowned.

Her eyes widened. “Who else will do it for her but her husband?” Khushi asked in surprise.

 “Chunnu is her son?” Arnav asked.

“Aur nahi to kya?” Khushi asked. “Is Chunnu our milkman?”

Arnav swallowed his mirth. “So Kamla Chachi wants her husband to do what I did for you,” Shrewd Singh Raizada remarked. "She realised it as the romantic gesture it is?"

Khushi stamped her foot in helpless outrage.

“What are you trying to do to us?” Khushi asked, her eyes wide with confusion and resentment. “Are you trying to drive me out of Laxmi Nagar?”

“Yes,” he murmured.

Her eyes widened in indignation.

“And in to my arms and my house,” he admitted calmly.

Khushi was lost for words.

“I could have sent my family to Buaji with a proposal. She likes me. She would have accepted it,” Arnav explained coolly. “But I didn’t. I want you to come to me of your own will.”

“Never,” Khushi stammered.

“Oh really?” Arnav inclined his head in polite query.

“I will never accept you, never marry you,” she repeated to remind herself that she had to stay away from Khatarnaak Singh Raizada.

“Acha?” he asked, his brow cocked.  “As you wish. But you can’t stop me from wooing you, giving you gifts.”

“I don’t want your gifts,” Khushi bit out. She dug in her bag and pulled out the box with his mother’s necklace. She dumped her bag on the bed, opened the box, snatched the necklace and discarded the box on the bed. She then held out the precious work of art in gold to him.

“Take it,” she ordered.

“No,” he replied, his voice low but firm.

“I don’t want it,” she was almost at the end of her tether.

“It is yours,” he said softly.

Khushi drew in a deep breath. “It is not mine. It is your mother’s. Please take it,” she pleaded.

“Mama left it for you,” Resolute Singh Raizada said.

“She did not. She did not know me!” Khushi shouted. “I have never met her. She left it for your wife. Give it to your bride whenever you marry. Don’t give it to me,” Khushi yelled. “You are cheapening its value, degrading it by gifting it to the girl whom you thought to be your sister’s sautan.”

His face paled and became set in stone.

He stepped towards her.

She moved back, the back of her knees hitting the edge of the bed. She tottered. He caught hold of her arm to steady her and then his hands moved to her shoulders. He applied gentle pressure on her shoulders and made her sit on his bed.

As Khushi stared with wide, stunned eyes, he sank to his knees before her.

“Yeh..yeh..kya..kya..aap yeh kya kar rahe...?” her question remained incomplete as he gently passed his arms around her waist and leaned against her, his head on her bosom.

Khushi jumped in alarm, falling back, breaking her fall by placing her palms flat on the mattress behind her.

He nuzzled closer, laying his ear against her heart.

Khushi trembled.

“I will never forgive myself for the nonsense I said, Khushi, never. Not even if you forgive me,” he whispered against her chest.

He wanted forgiveness? She was willing to give him a big basket full of forgiveness, a room of it as long as he let her go! Her heart would burst out of her rib cage any moment now and he alone would be responsible for her death! Khushi looked around frantically. Where was a crowbar when she needed one? She didn’t see any other means by which she could oust him.

“Khushi,” he murmured, his breath ruffling the cloth of her suit.

Khushi stiffened.

His arms tightened around her. She tried to squirm but to no avail.

“I overreacted. Di too went to pieces when she thought that Jiju was cheating on her. We...we are both programmed to become hysterical and lose it in such situations,” he whispered, his face buried against her softness.

Khushi paused in her physical struggles for a moment. ‘Programmed to overreact?’ she wondered. “What is he, a Saas Bahu serial actress?’

“Our mother thought that our father...our father was having an affair with some girl. She shot herself with his gun,” he spoke softly, his weary head resting against her soft bosom.

Khushi inhaled sharply.

“He killed himself two hours after she committed suicide,” he confessed.

Khushi’s mouth fell open.

“Di was 18. I was 14,” he sighed. “It was her wedding day.”

“Shyamji?” Khushi asked in wonder, her hand slowly rising to touch his hair.

“No, some weakling who ran away as tragedies befell us,” Arnav said softly against her heart, his eyes shut as he relived those nightmarish days.

Khushi drew in a deep breath, trying to stop the tears from falling from her eyes.

“As soon as their funeral pyres died down and the crowd left, Chacha threw us out of the house,” he murmured.

“What!” Khushi exxclaimed, her sound a high-pitched cry of shock.

Arnav smiled wryly against her, his eyes still shut.

“We went to live with Nani, Mama and Mami and Akash,” he informed her. “I studied hard, started the business with funds from Nani, Mama and Mami, worked all hours of the day and night...” He paused.

Khushi swallowed hard.

“When Di told me about your phone calls to Jiju,” he began.

“Both of you remembered the past,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he sighed. “It is no excuse, Khushi, for all the crap I said to you.”

Khushi looked down at the frown lines on Irresistible Singh Raizada's stern face, the tiny lines near his eyes, the stubble, the cleft in his chin, the shape of his hard lips...This was dangerous.

“Hamein chalna chahiya,” Khushi said quietly, her sound a mere breath.

His eyes opened. She looked in to their bright brilliance.

“Forgive me, Khushi?” he asked.

Khushi swallowed. There was no anger left in her heart or mind against him for the accusations he had made. How could she hate a man whom fate had defeated in the worst possible way, many times? Taken away everything of value from him?

But she had to stop him from buying her pots of flowers and giving her his Amma’s necklaces, dissuade him from looting jalebi shops and sari showrooms for her. Otherwise all her neighbours would camp outside Buaji’s house to find out what Khushi was up to!

“I will if you promise not to give me gifts anymore,” she muttered. “I can’t make up any more lies. My imagination is fertile, but not so fertile. We will have to leave the house and run away if this goes on.”

Arnav smiled.

“I am not joking,” Khushi said crossly, looking down at the face resting against her heart.

“I won’t send you any more gifts to Buaji’s house,” he qualified his promise.

Well, something was definitely better than nothing, Khushi thought. She nodded.

“Do you forgive me, Khushi?” he asked to confirm his salvation.

“Yes,” she said.

“Will you marry me?” Arnav asked.

Khushi jumped. “What?” she asked, her eyes wide. Her hands pushed him away.

He moved back. She jumped up and stood with her back to him, her fingers locked, her face worried.

   (Bhooma, thanx a million for this edit.)

“Kya hua, Khushi?” he asked, coming to stand behind her, the warmth of his chest against the curvy lines of her back.