SwaRon FF : Undead love ch:3(b) uptd pg 8 - Page 2

She stopped abruptly, closing her mind, wiping it clean like an unwanted tape. She tried not to think of Aston ever, because it was forbidden territory to her now. She had promised herself she would never go back, although her conscience would not allow her to lose all contact with Rish who had been deeply wounded by her decision to leave. And the awful truth was it had been impossible to tell him why she had to go.

Slowly and reluctantly she opened the envelope and extracted the notepaper inside. 'Darling Sharon.' Tanni wrote. 'Guess what? I'm going to be married! I'm actually going to amaze everyone and do the right thing for once. Its Vishesh of course, and Father is over the moon. The wedding is next month, and I want you to be my bridesmaid"maid of honour"what the hell! Please, please say you will, darling.The arrangements are driving me up the wall already. Please come home, Sharon. I need you. Surely you can have some time off. I'll expect to hear from you. Love, Tanni.' The crunch came at the end, obviously scribbled as an afterthought. 'Swayam, of course, is going to give me away.'

Sharon sat very still, staring down at the sheet of paper, reducing the sheet to a crumpled ball. She said aloud, 'No,' and then raising her voice slightly, 'God, no!' She was shivering suddenly. Running her tongue round dry lips, she made herself think of Tanni. Of Tanni going to be married to the young man Rish had always hoped would be her husband. Tanni's decision might notamaze everyone as she had jokingly predicted, but Sharon found it hard to accept, just the same. It had been two years since she'd seen Taani, and she supposed her stepsister could have matured considerably in that time. But remembering the young, wild Tanni she had always known, it seemed almost incredible.

Sharon moved her shoulders wearily. Well, love sometimes made strange connections. Unwillingly, she smoothed out the letter and re-read it, trying to ignore the postscript. She closed her eyes. Since she was ten years old and had first gone to live at Aston, she had protected Tanni. That first night, still bewildered by the speed with which everything had happened, and struggling with the unfamiliarity of a strange bed in a strange room, she had been

startled when her door opened. Taani had said , 'Mrs Smith says I'm too old for a nightlight, but I'm frightened of the dark. May I get in with you? Please, Sharon, please!' Sharon had spent an uncomfortable night. The bed wasn't big enough for two and Tanni wriggled. Next day Rish had roared with laughter, totally dismissing the housekeeper's disapproval, and ordered Tanni's bed to be moved into Sharon's room.'Told you, didn't I?' He turned to Sharon's mother, his face beaming. 'Told you they'd be sisters.'

Nandini Shekhawat had nodded, her eyes faintly troubled. Because she knew that having to share a room for the first time was only one of many adjustments Sharon would have to make in her new life. She had been a widow for five years. She and Sharon had gone through a rough and horrific time in the past. And then Rishi Shekhawat had entered in their lives and filled it with happiness . During the marriage apart from Sharon, she and her husband were the only guests from Nandini's side. But there were a number of people at the register office who knew Rishi Shekhawat , and obviously liked him, and they all went on afterwards to the champagne reception he had arranged at the London hotel where he had a suite.

Someone was waiting for them there, a tall dark young man who rose slowly from one of the sofas and stood waiting, his hands resting lightly on his hips.Rishi had said on a sharp note of pleasure, 'Swayam, you managed to get here after all!' He turned to Nandini. 'Come and meet your new son. He's been in America on a postgraduate course or you'd have met him before.'Swayam Shekhawat had said lightly, 'It all goes to show I should never turn my back for a minute.'

He had stepped forward to shake Nandini's hand, and there had been a general laugh, but Sharon, hanging back hesitantly, had known instinctively that this stranger who was her stepbrother wasn't amused. He was smiling, but his smile never reached his eyes. And when Rishi drew Sharon forward, his hand warm and heavy on her shoulder, Swayam's eyes flickered over her with an indifference bordering on hostility. He had turned away almost at once, leaving Sharon thinking, 'I don't like him"and he doesn't like us.'

Swayam was a much leaner version of his burly father. His face was thinner too, its lines arrogant where Rishi's were genial. His eyes weren't blue like his father's either, but a wintry brownish, and his mouth was hard.

She tried to forget about Swayam Shekhawat and enjoy the reception. People spoke kindly to her, and exclaimed admiringly about her .The reception seemed to go on for ever, and Sharon was tired of the new faces and voices going on endlessly above her head. After a while she wandered into the adjoining bedroom. There was a sofa there too, drawn across the window, and she curled up on it, surrounded by the distant noise of traffic and the murmur of talk and laughter in the next room. She didn't know what woke her, but she opened her eyes, blinking drowsily to realize she was no longer alone in the room. Somewhere near at hand a man's voice was saying, 'Bit of a surprise to all of us, actually. He didn't tell you?''Not a word, until it was too damned late for me to do anything about it.' It was Swayam Shekhawat's voice, molten with fury. 'My God, it's sheer madness! He takes a holiday and comes back with some gold-digging devil and her brat. God knows no one expects him to live like a monk, but surely he didn't have to pay for his fun with marriage!'

Lying, hidden by the high back of the sofa, Sharon felt sick. She didn't understand all that was being said, but she could recognize the cold contempt in 'typist and her brat'. She wanted to jump up and run to Swayam Shekhawat , to punch him and kick him, and make him sorry, but even as the thought crossed her mind, caution followed. If she did so then other people would come, and they would ask her why she was behaving like that, and she would have to tell them, and her mother's happy, shining day would be spoiled, some instinct told her.

This was her new family of which Swayam was to be an important part, and he didn't like them. He didn't want them. She buried her face in the cushion and put her hands over her ears. She didn't want to hear any more. She was quiet some time later when Rishi and Nandini came to fetch her, to take her up north to Aston. They were having a delayed honeymoon, because Rishi wanted to show Nandini his home, and wanted Sharon to settle in there too.They looked at her pale cheeks and the wariness in her eyes and decided privately that it was over-excitement and nervousness, and didn't press her for any explanations. It had been a relief to know from chance remarks they had let fall that Swayam wouldn't be joining them at Aston.He was going back to America.

Perhaps he'll stay there, the child Sharon had thought passionately. Perhaps he'll never come back.The woman she had become could smile wryly at such naive-ness, looking back across the years.Of course he had come back, and gradually the situation had begun to ease although Sharon told herself she could never like him or even wholly trust him, and she was slightly on her guard all the time when he was around.

Grudgingly, she had to give Swayam his due. He had never, she was sure, given her mother any distress by even hinting at his true feelings about his father's second marriage. But then he had no reason to do so, she reminded herself. Rishi and Nandini had been very happy"even someone as Swayam would have been forced to admit that. He was always civil, if rather aloof,to Nandini, and he took hardly any notice of Sharon at all. Sisterly devotion had never been Swayam's style. Sharon thought with a curl of her lips. He had girl-friends, of course"a lot of them. Some of them even came to stay at Aston to run into the bundle of Rishi's critical appraisal. But it was clear they were for amusement only.

Locally, he was the golden boy, already managing director of Shekhawat's Co which was expanding rapidly and surely. Rishi was proud of him, calling him a chip off the old block, but Sharon thought there was more to it than that, unless the original block had been granite, because there was something about Swayam that chilled her.That was why, quite apart from the original dislike and distrust, she had never been able to give him the admiration which Tanni lavished on him. He wasn't Sharon's idea of a hero. She saw no warmth in him, no tenderness.

Even when she was sixteen, and Nandini who hadn't been well for some time had died very suddenly in her sleep, there had been no softening in him. He had been away on a business trip,but he came home for the funeral, but even while he had uttered his condolences to her, she had the feeling that his thoughts were elsewhere. She had wanted to scream at him, You're not sorry! You never wanted her here, or me either.' All the old hostility and hurt had welled up inside her,and she had said something in a cold, quiet little voice and turned away.

She had thought then that she couldn't possibly dislike him more than she did at that moment.But she knew better now. She leaned back against the sofa cushions, trembling a little inside as she always did when she let herself think of the events of two years before. Not that she often thought of them but...She wouldn't have been thinking of him now"God knows she never wanted to think of him again"if it hadn't been for Tanni's letter. 'Swayam, of course, is going to give me away.' She would have to write to Tanni, maybe not tomorrow, but some time soon, and make some excuse. Because there was no way she was ever going back to Aston while Swayam was there, and Swayam was always there now. It was a grief to her. She missed Rish, and the big grey house, but she had to keep away because she never wanted to see or speak to Swayam Shekhawat again.

The ring at the doorbell made her start, because she wasn't expecting visitors, although there were any number of people who would know she was back from the West Indies by now and could be dropping in. She grimaced slightly at the thought of her appearance, no make-up and hair tied up, and was strongly tempted not to answer it, but the bell rang again constantly, and there was little point in pretending she wasn't at home when the caller could see the light shining under the door. Pushing the litter of papers and envelopes off her lap, she called, 'All right, I'm coming!' She was smiling a little as she opened the door, because it was more than probably Shivam who had shown signs of becoming besotted with her just before she had flown off on this last assignment, and she liked Shivam even if she was a long way from falling in love herself. She began, 'You've caught me at a bad moment. I'm...'

And then she stopped, the words dying on her lips as she saw exactly who it was, standing on her doorstep, waiting for admittance. 'Hello, Sharon,' said Swayam Shekhawat.