LOl, thanks for the great comments guys, I was really laughing at aishwarya's about hoping that Raj's parents die! Well we'll have that bit in the next update, for now a little bit of romance.

Chapter 19:

"I can't believe that you actually love me," Raj remarked with a silly grin on his face when they sat down to lunch. He had taken her to a nice caf overlooking a lake, the spot where he had originally intended to confess his feelings.

"Well why not?" Naina asks with a smile, taking his hand in hers. "You are quite lovable after all. What I can't believe is that I didn't love you sooner. I'm pretty stupid when it comes to this type of thing."

Raj laughed, "Well if you'd had more practice with falling in love and having to recognise it, then I would need to feel jealous, so I'm glad you don't."

Naina made a face at him, "I'm not really sure that I can imagine you as the jealous type." She told Raj, "But I'm warning you that I can get very jealous, so you'd better not even talk to other girls from now on." She grinned at him just to let him know she was joking.

Not content to be holding only one hand, Raj picked up her other one too. They were just gazing at each other when the waiter arrived with their food, clearing his throat.

Embarrassed, Raj dropped her hands.

"Raj, we're not doing anything wrong." Naina told him, "Holding hands in public isn't a crime."

"I know that it's not," Raj told her, "I'm just not really used to all this. First I had to hold your hands while pretending to be in love, then I had to pretend that I didn't want to hold your hands, and now that I can actually do it properly, I've got no idea how I should be doing it."

Naina giggled at this, "We really are a strange couple, aren't we?" she asked him. "We haven't had a normal romance at all, half of the time we were pretending to be in love with each other and half of the time we were pretending not to be."

She picked at her sandwich, more interested in gazing at Raj than in actually eating.

"So after all of that pretending, when did you decide that you actually loved me?" he asked, curious to know how recently it had been.

"After I told my mother that I did," Naina admitted, "I kept thinking about it, about why I'd used that reason to escape from the marriage with Huda. And the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it was true, and how stupid I'd been not to realise it before then."

Raj laughs, "It's not your fault," he tells her, "It took me awhile to realise it too, before then I was in serious denial about it. I realised after you left after Republic Day."

"And then you had to deal with Navin Bhaiyya," Naina giggled, "I'm so sorry about that, I never thought he'd act that way when this was all his plan."

"Well Navin has been having some serious mood swings lately," Raj told her, "He's been so happy on just knowing that we want to get married that I have no idea how he'll react when we actually get married." He suddenly became serious, "Or how he'll react if we can't…"

Naina's face fell, she had been avoiding thinking about it. "Do you really think that your parents are going to say no?" She asked Raj, "And if they do, then what do we do next?"

"We make a new plan." Raj said determinedly, "And then we just keep on trying. Don't worry Naina, after all this effort to realise that we love each other, I'm not going to give up on this marriage easily."

"Oh Raj," Naina said, and honestly she would've gotten up from the table and kissed him right then if they hadn't been in the middle of a caf. Instead she had to settle for gazing at him dreamily across the table and reaching out for his hand again.

"Well let's finish our food and then I'll show you around Ambala properly," Raj told her, "We've still got two hours before your parents arrive, right?"

Raj wished that they had been due to arrive much later, but he supposed that as modern as they were, they weren't going to encourage her to stay with the boy she wanted to marry alone for too long.

They finally finish their lunch and climb onto the motorbike again, this time Naina doesn't resist, after winding her arms around his waist she leans her head on his shoulder.

Raj thinks that he could definitely get used to this, that if this is what life with Naina is like then he can't wait to get married and spend the rest of his life with her.

He drives her around town stopping at various points before taking her to one of the best viewpoints overlooking Ambala and they both perch on the bike, as Raj points out various landmarks including KMA.

"Do I really have to go back again tomorrow afternoon?" Naina asks rhetorically, not really needing an answer to her question. "In the time that we've known each other, we've spent so little time together, I think that most of our romance has actually been done on the phone."

Raj laughs. "I think you're right," he told her, "But once we manage to get married we'll be able to spend all our time together. We'll find you an MBA program near where I'm posted, and you'll have more than enough to do while I'm on duty."

"So I won't have to live with your family, then?" Naina asked, "I was worried that I might have to stay with them while you were posted elsewhere."

"Naina, I would never inflict that type of punishment on you," Raj tells her seriously, "When I have a hard enough time living with my family, I don't know how I could ever ask you to do it."

"Good," Naina says with a smile, "Then at least I know we'll be together. Wouldn't it be perfect if you and Navin were posted in the same place? Then we could all be together."

Raj agreed, at least after their marriage Navin was likely to calm down and have a few less mood swings.

Naina leaned her head on his shoulder and placed her arms around his waist and Raj couldn't control the surge of love he felt in his heart. Leaning down he tilted up her head and then kissed her softly on the lips before pulling back again.

Naina looked stunned, "What was that?" she asked.

"I think that most people call it a kiss." Raj told her, hoping that he hadn't just made a mistake and gone too fast.

"Well can we do it again?" Naina asked, "I don't think the last one was long enough for me to get a proper understanding of the experience."

Grinning, Raj leaned down and kissed her again, cupping her face in his hands. It took them much longer to separate this time, and when they did, Naina had exactly the same grin on her face as he did.

"Well thank god we did that before our parents sat down to talk about our marriage," she said, "Or this really would've been a very strange relationship."

"You know why I love you so much?" Raj asked her, "Because you can make fun of even the most serious situations."

"It is definitely a talent." Naina agrees, "It's not easy you know, I have to constantly work on it."

Raj looked at his watch, "Well I think I'd better get you to the hotel." He told her, "Your parents will definitely have arrived by now, and if we get back too late, I might lose their approval and they'll go back to that Bhais-walla."

Naina laughed, "Not a chance, Navin has been calling them every day to tell them what a great guy you are, they're now convinced that they're getting the most perfect son-in-law in the world."

"Still, I'd better get you back." Raj told her reluctantly, "We'll see each other tomorrow morning, and then our future is going to be decided."

"Are you nervous?" Naina asked him.

"Very," Raj admitted, "Because I think I already know what the answer is going to be."

"But we won't give up," Naina said determinedly, "Your parents are going to have to realise that they don't have a choice. If they try to get another bride for you then that poor girl will never know what hit her. Nobody messes with Naina Singh Ahluwalia's intended husband."

Raj decided that he definitely liked the way he had progressed from 'pretend boyfriend' to boyfriend, to intended husband. It had a nice ring to it.

"Oh, I suppose I'd better give this back to you." Naina says, slipping his ring off her finger reluctantly, "If your parents notice me wearing it then they might be annoyed."

Raj realises that she has a point and slips it back onto one of his fingers. "I'll give it back to you as soon as they're gone," he promises, "No matter what happens."

He dropped Naina back to the hotel and after checking which room her parents were in, walked her upstairs. They knocked and waited until the door was opened by Naina's smiling mother.

"Raj Beta, it's so lovely to see you again, especially under such happy circumstances." She told him, and Raj bent down to touch her feet as she blessed him. She let him inside and Raj went to greet Naina's father, touching his feet as well before Mr Ahluwalia hugged him.

"We really are very happy," Mr Ahluwalia told him, "We couldn't have hoped for a better future son-in-law."

"Thank you very much, Sir." Raj told him, "I'm sorry we didn't tell you earlier, but we thought that it would be better to wait."

"That's quite alright," Mrs Ahluwalia tells him, "We know now, and we can get everything worked out with your parents."
Raj looked quite uncomfortable about this. The thing that he was dreading the most was their parents meeting tomorrow. He was terrified that his parents would end up saying or doing something rude that would offend Naina's parents, then they would never accept him.

"I'd better get back to the academy now," he told them, "I'll see you again in the morning."

"Bye," Naina told him softly, looking as if she wished he never had to leave.

"Bye," Raj replies, not wanting to say more than that in front of her parents, and casting one last longing glance at her, he leaves the room, closing the door behind him.


**

After leaving the hotel, Raj returns back to the academy and enters the mess where he sits down at a table with Navin, Tanu, Abhimanyu, Nandini and Alekh. Yudi is nowhere in sight, Raj just hopes that his date with Shalini is going well so that he never has to rely on Navin or Tanu for any advice again.

"So how's Naina?" Navin asked, "Did you have a nice date with my sister?"

"Yes," Raj replied, and can't help grinning.

"For your sake, that had better meant that you didn't do anything more than hold her hand." Navin mock threatens him, "Don't even think about doing more than that until after you're married."

"You're such a hypocrite," Abhimanyu tells him, "From now on if I see you and Tanu doing anything more than holding hands then I'll be telling you to stop."

"Well that's different," Navin defended himself, "And if you had a sister then you would know why."

"Anyway," Raj interrupted the conversation, deciding it would be best to change the subject. "We still haven't come up with a plan for tomorrow, can you think of something Navin?"

"Why are you relying on me to think of something?" Navin asked.

"Well it's not as if you've got no experience with planning or scheming," Raj said, rolling his eyes.

"Why would you think that I had more experience than any of these other guys?" Navin asked, starting to get nervous.

Raj decided that now was definitely not the right time to let Navin and Tanu know that they'd known about 'Operation Marriage' all along.

"Well actually I've already banned both Alekh and Yudi from making suggestions," he informed Navin, "So I thought that I'd try you next."

"Well I don't see how they could not love Naina," Navin said, switching to proud brother mode, "They'll give in as soon as they see her."

Raj just hoped that Navin's optimism turned out to be right, but somehow he thought that things just weren't going to be that easy.

"Well if everything else fails, I suppose there's always Alekh's and Yudi's plans." Raj said glumly, knowing exactly how they were likely to turn out.

"And what were they?" Navin asked, "Exactly why did you ban them from making any more suggestions?"

"Trust me," Raj tells Navin sincerely, "You really don't want to know."

He just hoped that it wouldn't come to that.

Because he wasn't sure which of them was worse, should he tell them first that Naina was pregnant, or try taking poison first?

Or take poison, leave a note saying that Naina was pregnant, and run away?

He really had to come up with a new plan.