Chapter 20: Fiance

                                    

                                          
He wanted to go back. Desperately wanted to reach back to her, but as he sat at his office desk late in the night, going through emails and company issues that he needed to fix, all he could do was work. Ever since he came, he had been working day and night. Didn't know what he would do in the future, had no idea if he could even be able to go back because the moment he landed back in front of his house, the sense of responsibility that he had forgotten about back in Goa had come rushing back into the back of his head. The moment he saw his father once again, that same, cold, attitude rushed through his mind and took over his senses. The smile he once had when he was with that woman was now covered with large frowns as he scanned through the ton of papers that was kept in front of him. The peace he had felt with her around him was now turned to chaos in his heart and head. He didn't know what he was doing at all. Only was working because of the persuasion tactics that his family had used to try and 'get that girl out of his head'. But well... As he threw the large stack of papers on his desk in frustration and sighed in tiredness, he could think about was the girl his family despised so much. 
But he even understood why they would despise her... 
She was a maid. A runaway. A seducer. And she hit his brother in the balls. Her societal status was extremely beneath his. There were many reasons they would not like her and many reasons he himself shouldn't have feelings for her. But he couldn't do anything about his heart. It was set on her and more than a want, she was a need for him at that point. 
She was like a  fresh breeze of air that soothed his insecurities a little, and get him out of his stuffy, contracted, staid life for once, and now that she was gone, he was left with the lingering feeling of her angelic presence being around him. It made him want not to go back to living the way he used to earlier. It made him want to break all boundaries and start living frivolous life which he could be proud of. 
But well, he had a bigger responsibility than just his family and work now. There was a woman who had her life planned out to be with him. There was a new woman smiling as she held her purse and looked at his stressed out self with compassion. She wasn't greedy and he knew that she was a great person but he knew he couldn't love her, ever. He loved someone already and the emotional blackmailing his family had played on him had already made him loath her, her family, and his own family and the marriage more than ever. 
" Hey... Auntie told me that you were working late,"
" Yeah," and he didn't want to see her face neither could he face her. All her calls, he had dismissed. All her texts, he had ignored. Every time she visited his house, he had purposefully not come. Yes, he ignored her presence even at any of the family gatherings and had just been generally absent from everything regarding the hurried wedding that was taking place within a few weeks. 
" You seem tired. Why don't you take some time off? We can talk... Or eat out or something?" He sighed when he heard her say that. Take time off? He wanted to send her away by telling her that he was busy but she had already countered that option for him. 
" I can't. There's a lot of work," there was work, " Why don't you go out yourself and I'll join later?" but she didn't buy it. The fact that he hadn't looked her in the eyes even once since he first met her... She knew that there was something wrong. An intuition maybe? She knew that there was some gap and recently, she had been talking a lot with his big mouthed mother and sister... 
" No. That's ok... I just wanted to talk actually... About this, some Pari girl," and when she saw his fingers stop signing over a paper midway, she knew that something was up. So, she grabbed onto the chance, confidently strolled towards him, and sat in front of him comfortably 
" Auntie told me that you had something to do with some maid in Goa a few months ago..." he sighed uncomfortably when those words came out of her mouth because she was the last person he wanted to tell that to. Sure, he never saw a future with her but, he didn't want to discuss his love life with her and hurt her. It was his responsibility to not let her feel hurt, right?
" I'm not jumping on any conclusions... But if you have something to talk about. I'm here. I mean, we could even postpone the wedding. You already have so much happening right now... And how about... Let's forget about being engaged and just talk like friends for once. Please. I want to at least know whom I am going to marry..." she was feeling like a hopeless romantic at that moment as she held her hands up and looked him in the eyes. She felt despair in her heart because she knew what his eyes were telling her. He loved the girl that his mother talked so very lowly about. Her immature eyes and heart could guess that so very easily by the very look over his face. 
But what he said was completely opposite to what she knew he was feeling
" She is a maid. I don't why ma made a big thing of me sleeping with a damned maid," he wasn't saying it to make her believe that everything would be fine. He was telling it to himself. He was repeating it in his heart and in his own mind because he knew what was right and wrong. If his heart only listened to him once and believed that she was only a maid and nothing more to him... If only, he could coax himself to believe that lie, life could be easier. Much easier than it was at that moment. 
" Are you..." but his fiance wasn't some dumb young girl either. She wasn't an expert at reading body language but, she knew a few things about love. " Lying to me right now?" 
Silence. As he looked into her distraught eyes, all he could do was keep his lying mouth shut and his guilty conscience behind the bars for enough time for her to understand. He loved a woman. He already loved a maid. 
" See. Aditi..." and the best argument he could come up with was, " I know the difference between right and wrong. Trust me. I never make the wrong decision... I'm just a little behind in the work area because of the long break in the middle. But you don't have anything to worry about,"
" And I better not have!" she could see through his lie so very clearly and his lie was what made her feel indignant towards him, " If you know the difference between right and wrong that well. I better not hear about this maid ever again! In my entire life! I will remind you. I only came here to talk properly but since you know everything," she was hurrying as she picked up her purse, " I better have the best life ever and you better never think about that maid. Ever again!"