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Chapter 6: No One and Nothing
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Geet sprang up once more, beginning to pace agitatedly in front of his desk. "Do you know how much Rahul suffered?" She shook her head at the pain that little boy had lived through. She turned to stare at the father. "How long was this Sameera Rahul's nanny?" she demanded, wanting to know.
Maan opened his mouth to protest at her presumptuous behavior, but stopped before saying anything. He could see the anger and passion in her eyes. He could also see the worry in those . . . beautiful eyes. He abruptly shook his head, bringing his mind back to focus on the matter at hand. 'All of that emotion is for your son,' he told himself. He clenched his hands, conceding defeat. 'Maybe, through her, you can find your way back to your son.'
"She started working for our family six months ago," he replied quietly.
"Did you do any kind of background check on her?" Geet asked, gazing at him questioningly. She shook her head impatiently. "What kind of question is that? Of course you did. Who would just turn over their kid to a stranger, right? That never leads to good things. I'm just telling you, Maan sir, you have to complain to the agency that did the background check. They do some shoddy work."
"There was no background check," Maan admitted through gritted teeth, looking away from the incredulous surprise in her eyes. He sighed, "I knew her, Miss Handa. From my college days."
"Just because you knew her!" she screeched at him. "You trusted her with your son because you were acquaintances in college?!" The incredulity in her tone angered him for a moment, before he realized . . .
"It was my mistake," he admitted, having come to realize how much of a mistake it really had been. What more could he say that would justify his blithe ignorance of the damage that Sameera had done to his son, as well?
Geet was momentarily silenced by his quick admission. She saw the guilt in his eyes. She could see his shame at being so completely taken in by a woman. She narrowed her eyes as an unpalatable thought intruded. This Sameera seemed to be a woman that he seemed to have trusted too much for . . . some reason. She impatiently shrugged that thought away, not wanting to think about it. "At least, it's good that she left on her own before she could damage Rahul any further," she asserted. "Whatever it was that made her leave was a blessing for you."
Maan sat back, stunned by her words. He had never thought that Sameera's leaving had been a blessing. At least, not until now.
Geet came back and sat down, realizing that railing at him and pointing out his utter stupidity wouldn't really solve things. And there really weren't that many people that could get away with calling Maan Singh Khurana stupid. "That woman came into your house and pretty much told Rahul that you weren't his father from the get go."
His fingers clenched around the file in his hand, as he battled with the fiery anger growing inside of him.
"She effectively took you away from your son. She broke his heart!" Geet got up once more, and circled the desk, coming to stand in front of him. All of her good intentions to calmly talk about this fell away under the repulsion she felt in relating the damage Sameera had done. "She told him that if he didn't 'behave', his real father would come and get him."
Maan's jaw tightened, as he leaned back in his chair to stare up at the angered woman in front of him. There was nothing he could do but listen.
Geet leaned over him, staring intently into his eyes. "She counseled Rahul not to talk to you. She told him to hide from you and cry if you came too close. Your son lost his father, and, for what?"
Mann gazed at her face, so close to his. He could feel her breath on his lips every time she spoke. Her eyes sparkled with her anger, and her cheeks were becomingly flushed. His eyes widened, when she suddenly reached out. His eyes widened even more when he felt her clutch at his collar, twisting it in her fury.
"What did she want? What kind of woman could torture a child like that? What could she want?" Geet repeated, wanting to know . . . to try to understand.
There was a moment of silence, as Maan thought about how he could answer that inflammatory question.
"It doesn't mater," Geet suddenly said. "Nothing justifies this," Geet muttered, twisting his collar once more. "The biggest thing of all," Geet muttered, "Do you know what the worst thing was?"
Maan shook his head mutely, letting her vent her fury. It was a fury that she felt on behalf of his helpless son. If she felt the need to vent at him, all the better, because he was the reason all of this had happened.
"When Rahul broke his arm eight weeks ago, do you know what he did? How could you know? You weren't here. But he hid it for hours, thinking he had done something wrong," Geet said brokenly, tears welling up in her eyes. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to continue because she knew that there could no longer be any secrets between father and son. "The truth only came out when Dadi Ma found out. She was the one who immediately called the doctor and then took him to the hospital. That boy tortured himself for weeks with the thought that his real father would now come to get him. And you didn't know anything about it," she finished sadly.
Geet breathed hard, having forced out the heartbreaking truth. Her hands continued to twist in Maan's collar absentmindedly, as she stared entreatingly into his eyes.
'You need to fix this,' her eyes seemed to be saying to him.
Maan's hands slowly reached up and gently pulled her hands away from his badly mangled collar. Pulling them down, he held them in his, all the while gazing at her.
Geet stared into his eyes, not noticing the hold he now had on her hands. It was only as he gently squeezed them, did she come to her senses. Pulling back, she hurriedly moved to the other side of the desk. She breathed a silent sigh of relief at the distance between them, and desperately tried to regulate her breathing and her furiously beating heart. Putting up a hand, she flapped it at her face, trying to cool her flushed cheeks. She stared down at her hands, realizing that she had just been holding Maan Singh Khurana's collar! What the hell had she been thinking? She took a deep breath. That didn't matter right now. What was important was how he was going to fix this.
Geet turned back to face the man behind the desk, who was silently fixing his collar. She glared at him, her lips forming a grim frown as she thought back to how Rahul had sobbed in her arms last night. It was as if a dam had broken, and he was finally allowing himself to express the worry and fear he had held onto for so long. Her heart hurt when she thought about how long that little boy had kept such a big secret.
"I . . . let my son down," Maan admitted hoarsely, forcing himself to look into her eyes once more. "I should have protected him. I should have made sure that Sameera didn't have ulterior motives when I hired her. There are a lot of things I should have done, and didn't do," Maan said.
Geet could see how much it cost him to say all of this.
Gazing at the woman that his son had trusted enough to open up and reveal his secrets to, Maan said, "You've gotten closer to my son in this one month than I have been for a long, long time. He trusts you," he said in an exhausted tone. "Please."
Geet's eyes widened at the word. Maan Singh Khurana never said please! Especially not to a lowly employee like her.
"Please, help me to find a way to reach my son."
Geet froze at the entreaty in his eyes. In all of this time, she had never seen Maan Singh Khurana so vulnerable and open. This man was the owner of all he purveyed and was always in control of his emotions, of his environment, and of every person in his vicinity. He needed no one and nothing.
But he was asking her for help.
She smiled tremulously at him, nodding her head. What else could she do?
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'Just telling Rahul I love him won't be enough, will it?'
"I know how we can prove your daddy loves you," Geet whispered to Rahul, gazing into his worried eyes.
"How?" he asked eagerly, forgetting his crankiness over the aborted nap.
Geet was happy to see Rahul's animated face. He had been too quiet on the trip home. When Geet had finally left Maan's office, she had found Rahul sitting quietly at Adi Jeeja Ji's desk. The traces of tears on his cheeks had only strengthened her resolve to assist Maan in getting his son back.
'Seven months ago my shouting at Rahul would never have made him cry,' he said in a frustrated voice. 'He knows about my moods. He would have talked back to me. I would've laughed, and that would have been the end of it. I forget that everything has changed, and react in the same way.' He shook his head. 'Words can't be enough. I have to show him that nothing has changed.'
Geet gently pulled Rahul off of the bed, and took him to Maan's bedroom door. "In there." She pointed to the door. "Remember what I told you about pictures and wallets?"
Rahul nodded.
"You can look in your daddy's wallet."
"But daddy never leaves his wallet lying around," Rahul protested.
"It is in there," Geet said, "Look." She opened the door and pointed at the object of interest lying on the nightstand.
"But where's daddy?" Rahul asked.
"Not here. I saw him go to the library," Geet replied quickly, smiling at the fearful boy. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Doesn't your daddy allow you to go in his room?"
"It's not that," Rahul finally muttered. "Do think it will be alright, Geet didi?"
"What?"
"If I go into his room, even if I'm not really his son," he asked. "What if daddy gets mad?"
"Your daddy won't get mad," Geet said. "I promise."
Rahul looked at her for a moment, frowning slightly. But the lure of the wallet was too much. Glancing at her one final time, he turned and tiptoed across the room. Reaching the nightstand, he gingerly picked up the wallet and opened it.
A big smile appeared on his face, growing by the second. He squealed with joy and began to jump around.
"Rahul? What is it?" Geet asked, knowing that he had found the picture she had seen of him in that wallet.
"It's me!" he said, almost shouting in his joy. He turned the wallet around. "This is a picture of me and Dadi Ma on my birthday," he said, pointing to himself in the picture to make sure that Geet didn't miss him. He giggled, turning the photo around to stare at it once more. He looked up and froze, his eyes going wide.
Geet smiled at the silence, knowing that he had finally seen what else was in the room.
"You won't have to think up a way to tell him how much you love him," she whispered softly, staring at the walls. "Just show him your room and all these pictures. No one with the ability to see could doubt how much you love that boy and your Dadi Ma, Maan."
"It was the only way I could be close to him when he was doing his best to stay away from me," he replied simply.
"Just speak from your heart."
There was a picture of Rahul on the nightstand. Rahul's eyes flew across the bed. And another picture of him on the other nightstand. There was a big picture of him and Dadi Ma behind the bed. He turned around. There were multiple pictures on the other three walls. His face smiled back at him from every corner of the room.
His mouth dropped open, as he clutched the wallet to his thin chest. She had lied. Sam had lied. She had told him that his daddy didn't love him, but that was a lie. His face on every surface of his daddy's room told him otherwise. Geet didi had said that daddy loved him, and the pictures proved that she was saying the truth. Maybe, when she said that it didn't matter if daddy wasn't his real daddy, maybe that had been the truth, too.
"Didi, look at all of these pictures," he said, turning with a happy smile at the approaching footsteps. His eyes widened when he realized his father was standing there instead of Geet didi. He stepped back quickly, the wallet falling from his hands.
Maan sat down on the floor, patting the floor beside him. Rahul hesitantly came over and sat down beside him. Putting an arm around his son's small shoulders, Maan hugged him close. Closing his eyes for a moment against the painful rush of emotions, he opened them to gaze into the wide eyes of his son.
"When you were born," he began, his voice hoarse with emotion, "A nurse put you in my arms and you grabbed my finger, just like you're doing now."
Rahul looked down, and realized that he had gone back to the habit of holding onto his father's smallest finger.
"From that moment, until now," Maan continued, "I have loved you as if you were my own son. I have never thought of you as anyone else's," he admitted. "From the moment that you were put into my arms, I took it as if I was blessed with my own little angel. That picture over there," he said, pointing to the photo on the nightstand on the other side of the bed, "That picture was taken when you were two days old."
Rahul nodded, contemplating the smushed face he used to have. He leaned his head against Maan's chest, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"You are my son for all purposes that count. Your first steps," he said, pointing to a picture, "your first words," he continued, pointing to another picture, "your first birthday," pointing to a third picture, "they are all important to me because I am your dad. They are important to me because I loved you, and I love you now, Rahul."
He leaned down to drop a kiss on Rahul's suddenly down bent head.
"When your mom gave you to me and went to heaven, I claimed you as my own," Maan stated.
Rahul quickly glanced up at that, hope growing in his eyes.
"There is no one else who can claim you, because I made sure of that," Maan continued, skipping over the fact that he had found out which man had fathered his child and paid him to sign over all of his parental rights. "There is no one else who has a right to take you away. I don't know what that Sameera told you," he said softly, "but I made damn sure that you were only my son. No one will show up and take you away just because you're a little naughty or even a lot naughty. But I would suggest you not be too naughty, Miss Handa wouldn't like it." Rahul giggled softly at that.
Maan pulled Rahul onto his lap, and grabbed him in a bear hug. Rahul just collapsed against him, boneless in relief. Maan slowly closed his eyes, silently thanking whatever deity had sent them Geet Handa.
"Rahul, just remember that no one and nothing can ever take you away from me," he whispered into his son's ear.
"Promise?"
"Promise," came back the husky reply.
Geet stood in the doorway, her eyes tearing. Rahul's arms were wrapped tightly around his father, as if he would never let go. And Maan had a small smile playing on his lips, his eyes closed, as he held his son close to him.
'Maan?' She lightly smacked her head. 'Just because we worked together today, doesn't mean that you get to start calling him Maan,' she scolded herself. 'If he catches you doing that, he will fire you immediately. I think you've been presumptuous enough. You were shouting at him this afternoon, manhandling him right after that, and have already called him Maan to his face! Control yourself. He's Maan Sir,' she reminded herself.
But looking at that gently smiling man, it was hard to revert to what they had been before. She was seeing a whole new side to this hard and difficult man. Before now, she had been attracted. She could admit it. But it had been a superficial attraction, based on a mere physical pull. She might have stuttered and blushed when he was around, but it was an attraction that she could easily discount, and an attraction that would have gradually faded away due to sheer proximity.
She heard him chuckle softly, as he got up and begin to spin his son around. Rahul giggled helplessly, holding on for dear life. Geet smiled helplessly. She had never thought, from what she knew of him, that Maan Singh Khurana could have the ability to love so deeply and so tenderly. And he did. He was so obvious in his love for his son that it made her heart melt.
He stopped, ending with his face to the door. His eyes gradually opened and his gaze locked with hers. She saw all that love he felt for his son, only now it was directed at her and washing over her in waves.
She felt her heart skip a beat. A trembling hand crept up to her heart, and a sudden frown appeared on her face, replacing the smile. Worry clouded her beautiful features.
The love disappeared, and he smiled slowly. He nodded his thanks before leaning down to kiss his son's head once more.
Feeling her heart begin to beat steadily once more, Geet relaxed, only to realize with dawning horror that there was something different happening.
It couldn't be that it was now beating for . . . Maan Singh Khurana. She exhaled softly.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Maan.
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Chapter 7: In My Bed
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Edited by darkice7_12PM - 13 years ago
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