He Loves Me Not - Part 32

 
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Chapter 32

“Team Dinner?” Shashi queries his daughter seeing her dressed up for the sudden party.

Khushi has lied to him about the team dinner because that was the only way she could actually go out and dine with Arnav Singh Raizada. If she hadn’t agreed, Arnav would have made a scene at her workplace and it would then be difficult to handle the situation. So, she considered it better to accept his dinner invitation for now. The rest can be figured out later.

She picks her purse and wallet from the closet.

“It was suddenly decided, Dad. None of us knew it” she tries hard to make a convincing face.
Shashi smiles.
“Fine.. Go enjoy your dinner with team. What time will you be back?”
“In two hours. Before 11:00 for sure”
“Okay” he hugs her and then pats her back. “You look nice in such frocks. I remember you wearing such when you were 18. They look good on you”



Khushi fiddles with her phone. That’s right. She used to wear such frocks before as it suited her tiny body but what on earth made her wear a similar dress tonight? But she has no time to change.

“Taking your car?” Shashi interrupts her trance.
“No. My colleague is coming to pick me”

A message beeps on her phone which startles her. She checks the message which is from Arnav mentioning the car number which has come to pick her downstairs.
“She is already down. I have to go”

She hugs her father and then makes her way out. Shashi is unable to read his daughter clearly. There is something she is hiding for sure. He looks down from the window as Khushi gets down the Building and takes the backseat of a posh car. Khushi’s colleague has such a lavish car? He doesn’t want to spy on his daughter but he is worried of her safety and doesn’t want Khushi to land up in new troubles. She has just survived a heart break after all.

****************

This is no restaurant or hotel but a villa. The car stops at the porch and a tall man opens the door for her to get down.

“Welcome to AK Villa, Miss Gupta” the man greets her.

AK Villa? What’s AK? First AK software Tech and now AK Villa? Why has Arnav chosen this specific name for his new Company and this Villa? Is this where he stays now?

Arnav Singh Raizada strides out to the porch in a shiny grey suit to receive her. His pulse skips watching her in a black knee length sleeveless dress. She looks younger and reminds him of a similar attire she had wore on his 22nd birthday. The night it all changed..

“I will take her from here, Sam. Thanks” he says to the man who greeted her a minute ago.
“Whose house is this?” Khushi asks him the moment he grips her elbow and leads her into the Villa. She cannot wait to know about the recent changes in his life.
“Nice frock” he ignores her question.
“Don’t ignore my question. What is with this AK Software Tech? What happened to your role in AR?”
He exhaled roughly.

“We will talk about us. Nothing else tonight” he answers. Before she could oppose, he opens another large door which leads them to the living room of the Villa. It’s a lavish house with all antique pieces around. It would cost a fortune for anyone to buy a place like this. As far as she knew, Arnav was never a man who would spend on lavishness. He liked simple living. Then how did he change so much?

She gets aware of their sudden closeness and stiffens.
“I was called for dinner, not to see your new house”
“The dinner is supposed to be here… in this new house” he mentions with ease.

She flinches. She is going to have dinner with him privately?
“Here?” she snaps. “No. can we go out?”
“Would you just give up and walk with me?” he shouts back.
She sighs, her gaze sympathetic. Once, she had wished he gave her this level of importance. She craved for his time, his attention, his touch and now when all of this is happening, she fears to submit into it.

The dinner table is filled with surplus of food and Champagne. He pulls a chair for her and once she is seated, he takes the one opposite to her.

“Champagne?” he pours some without her approval.
“Arnav…” she mumbles. “Please don’t complicate things for me”
“I am sorting it, not complicating” he hands her the glass.
“I had to lie to my father for coming here” she shouts. “he doesn’t want me to see you again”
“Tell him that’s not going to happen” he gulps his drink.
“Don’t get overconfident because I accepted your dinner invitation. You threatened me to come here otherwise I had no such plans”
“Why? Only because your father has restricted you from meeting me or having a relationship with me?”

Khushi clenches her jaw. He seems to cool about it but she knows it affects him when she disagrees to do as he wants.

“Think from your heart… beyond your family” he mutters pouring vodka for himself instead of the regular Champagne. “This is what you advised me a while ago. And now you.. are repeating the same mistake which I did all these years. I forced to be deaf to my heart’s pleads. You are doing the same now”

How easily he has turned the tables. He is not fully wrong. But she has her reasons and answers prepared.

“I have given him enough pain in the past few months. I have no rights to hurt him more”
“Then don’t hurt him” he gulps the next shot of vodka. “Don’t do anything that can get you in a negative image in his eyes. Leave it to me. I will handle it all”

She is confused by his proposition. What will he do?

“I will talk to him, convince him that we are inseparable” he adds.
“Says who?” she mocks.
“That fist size heart of yours” he points his finger towards her heart. She goes speechless for a minute.
“You are reading wrong signals. I have no intention to continue my old fantasies. I am happy with my new job, new friends and colleagues and..”
“Akash” he interrupts.. “Akash Sharma.. I heard he is a good soccer player”
Khushi frowns at his sudden mention of Akash.
“Salad?” he serves her in the plate. “You love olives, don’t you?”

Khushi’s heart clenches as he says that. She thought he has forgot everything related to her. But that seems wrong. Her love for olives is still lingering in his mind. She notices him pouring some more vodka for himself. If he continues to drink so much, he will be intoxicated and drowsy soon.

“Why are you drinking so much? It’s not good”
Arnav stops his action and sighs sarcastically.
“Nothing is good in my life anymore. What worse can alcohol make?”

Khushi feels that bitterness in his voice.
“Arnav please” she takes away the glass of vodka from him. “Lets just focus on the dinner”

He grins seeing her affection and worry and decides to obey her. She is all he have now.. She is all!!

*******************

After a quiet dinner, Arnav takes her back to the Couch.

“I should leave” she insists.
“Stay” he makes her sit on the couch and passes her the cookies. It’s her favorite cookies again. Whenever Arnav’s father used to travel abroad, he would get these cookies home. Once Arnav had given it to Khushi and she loved it so much that she requested him for one more. He had packed the whole tin for her and promised to get more if Ayush Singh Raizada travelled abroad again. They had such a beautiful bond before but he broke her heart and now she is breaking his.

She denies taking the cookies.
“I wont eat this unless you tell me what is happening in your life? I am tired thinking of the possibilities”
“Then stop thinking” he shrugs.
“I cant” she sighs. “I am afraid what worse it might be which changed you so much”

He recollects something, probably the same reason why he changed and what bitterness spread between him and Ayush Singh Raizada but soon diverts his mind.

“What is your father’s schedule these days?” he changes the topic.
“Why? Why does it interest you?”
“Because I am going to meet him soon enough”

His reply instills an unknown fear within her. Meet her father? For what? When she notices him again, she finds his mood is shifting, his eyes are straining to be awake.. He feels intoxicated by the excess vodka he consumed, yet he pours some more in a glass and gulps it down. Khushi hates to see him like this and now the curiosity to know his past peeks up again.
 “Am I responsible for the rift between you and your father?” she asks him straightaway.

Arnav grips the glass in his palm with a force that can break the glass if he continues.
“No” he answers in a harsh tone. “You have nothing to do with that”
“Then what happened? Why are you behaving so odd? Why did you form a new company? What about AR?”
“Khushi…” he tries to interrupt her but she doesn’t allow him to do so.
“I know you don’t want to talk about anything but us tonight. But please, please tell me whats going on Arnav? Why are you so hot tempered these days?”
“I am hot” he picks up the funny phrase amidst all that serious questions she asked him. He laughs at himself for saying that.. “You told me this.. didn’t you? That night.. That.. you find me very hot..”

Khushi bites her lower lip without his notice to suppress the changing expressions on her face. He is talking about his birthday night.. As a teenager, she always found him smoking hot. And that night which they spent together, she even confessed it to him. His face was worth watching that moment. He had blushed profusely and failed to hide it from her. She had thought he approves her teases and she went on and on and on… Praising his looks, his eyes, his gaze, his body.. It got an adverse reaction on him… on her… on both of them. They came close… very close to each other that night..

“You know… whenever I recalled that night earlier.. I .. I felt like busting myself for giving you hopes” he confesses “but.. now I have no remorse Khushi. Because even after hiding my own emotions, I couldn’t defeat the growing feelings I had for you. These feelings …” he pauses.. “they are like leaches…its glued to my soul and it aches.. I kept suffering all the time… ignoring you… ignoring the attraction between us, but now… now I am glad that I have chose my side.”

He sits beside her.. making her tremble. Only talking about that night.. his feelings for her, can have so much of impact on her still, then what would happen next?

“This is my side, Khushi… With you… beside you… I chose you” he holds her hand and brings it close to his heart. Khushi is drowned in his confession. She has waited for this from years and finally. .. finally she can hear it out from him. His other arm reaches her face and palms her cheek lovingly. Khushi fights the tornado of emotions in her body, to keep herself unaffected by his ministrations. His thumb rubs gently over her face, then grazing her lips. She shuts her eyes as he parts her lips by his thumb. She will explode if this continues. She has to stop. This has to stop.

“I can’t do this” she picks her purse and decides to leave. All of this is wrong. right from her submission to his demands on having Dinner together till spending the past 3 hours with him. She didn’t want to do any of it. Yet.. she is here.. in his house, at late night 11:00pm. Why? Why is he doing this to her? Why does she become so submissive to feel his pain, to soothe him? Why does her hormones not let her live in peace? Why cannot her feelings for him just wipe off completely? Why? Why does she fall weak every time he even looks at her? Earlier was still different, he had drawn boundaries himself between them but now.. he is erasing them off so quickly that she is unable to have a grip on anything.

Arnav grips her wrist, making her unable to move from the couch.

“Don’t leave me Khushi” his pained voice stabs her heart but it also frustrates her. It was one such night when he had said the same to her, in the same intoxicated state… the night on his 22nd birthday and she like a silly teen girl had obeyed to his plead and stayed back with him only to be hurt by him the next morning. She was so ignorant that time but not now. Though she knows he will never hurt her again, never push her away from his life again but he is very late this time. She has promised her father not to dwell back in her past or entertain Arnav and she will live up to that.


To be Continued.


NEXT PART



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Note: This wasn’t supposed to be the end of this part. But I couldn’t draft more today. Will post another part of it tomorrow.

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