Arhi FF: The Tempting Play. Chapter 2 on Pg. 16 - Page 18

Khushi stares at the front door for a few times but turns around again for the fifth time. She has been doing this for the past twenty minutes. She would step forward to ring the bell and step back to not to. In her mindset, she was going was insane. She didn't even know why she was here in the first place. She didn't even know why or how the thought of coming here even came to her mind. One hour ago, she was at her parent's house having wonderful discussion over almonds and now here she was standing in front of the Devil's house. Technically, she wasn't in front of the house. She was on the eighty-ninth floor in the Upper East Side. She played with her fingers before she turns around to stare at the door again. Khushi curses to herself as she steps back but jumps as she hears a chuckle behind her.

She turns around to stare at the stranger but quickly clutches her black dress as she stares at the familiar stranger leaning against the wall with a glint of amusement in his violet eyes. Khushi quickly steps to the right as if to allow him to open the door to which she spent twenty minutes fussing over to open and close. She stares into his violet eyes as he steps away from the wall and slowly walks toward her. She gulps loudly as she looks away while tightly holding her dress, hoping she was an actress so she could hide her feelings. However, she wasn't. She shivered as he stepped beside and typed the password to open the door. She shivered as his cold long fingers wrapped smoothly around her wrist as he pulled her into his apartment.

Just as quickly he pulled her in, just that quickly he let go. Although, Khushi knew he was studying her, she took her time to look around his flat. She took a deep breath as she looked around; everything looked like something out of a magazine. The walls were in the shades of white and cream with distrait wood floors. The living room was filled with little antique furniture-French chairs, a black-and-cream sofa. As she stared around the place, she knew this place was for him. It was him.

Khushi jumped again as she heard him clear his deep throat. She slowly turned around and fumbled backwards again as she took him in and his darkened gaze. Though she hated him, she had to admit to herself that he was the devilish man she was saw. Just like before, she still couldn't believe this sex creature was her husband. She clutched her dress again as she took in his wrinkled gray sport shirt with navy slacks. She slowly looked up and blushes as he raised one of his eyebrows. Khushi tucked one strand of her hair as she whispered, "Hi."

Just as she whispered, she wanted to punch herself. This was the man whom she hated. Who married her only for a business deal. Who never loved her. Then why was she hear?

"You put up quite a show out there in the hallway? The doorman downstairs told me the whole staff were watching a girl in a black dress stand in front of my door and walking back and forth." He said as he tilted his head. "Maybe it was just me who thought you were trying to run away from me."

Khushi looked up at his as his eyes questioned for answers.

"What are you doing here Khushi? How did you know I live here?" He said as his tiger eyes stared into hers as he stepped forward. As she watched him coming toward her, she saw him glace over her, cataloguing her wavy straight hair with diamond studs glistening hiding some of the tucked hair and her flared black satin dress with a tie around the waistline.

Though he didn't ask, she knew he was wondering what the occasion was to why she was dressed so formal. "I went to Papa's house and later we went to lunch." Khushi spoke quietly. While wondering what she was doing. She only came back to sign the contracts and pretend everything was alright between them. She had sworn off to never be close to him, then why was she always thinking about him. Or worse, why did she even come here in the first place.

As she took another step back, she ended up falling into one of the French chairs. As she looked up, she found her husband trying hard to not laugh out loud.

"So after you had lunch, you thought of seeing your beloved husband. Happy to know that I'm loved." Arnav says as he points to his heart and pretends to wipe his fake unseen tears.

"I didn't come to see you!" Khushi shouts as she jumps from the chair. Arnav raises one his eyebrows. "I mean-I-uh-I just came to tell you that I'm leaving. I signed the contract, met my parents, and that's it. I just came to tell you that please stop having people to follow me. I can take care of myself, I don't need out-of-nowhere packages you delivered on my front door." She shouts at his and walks away before she reads his eyes again. The golden spark she saw in the eyes few seconds ago was now faded away. She wanted to know if he was disappointed that she was leaving because he wanted her to stay or was he disappointed that she was leaving he didn't want to destroy his marital image.

She picked up her cream clutch and walked toward the door, just few centimeters away from the door, Arnav grabbed her wrist and spun her around and pinned her to the wall. He didn't need to use his hands to keep her in place; his murderous eyes did it all. He stared straight into her eyes, making her unable to look away.

"Don't you dare to leave. You hear that? Don't you dare to leave." He said quietly in his thick British accent that she always rarely heard. She saw how his jaw was tightened as he looked away from her and stepped back.

"But-"Khushi halted as he glared at her. She extended her hand and softly stroked his hand. "But I have to. I have a wedding to plan. It's in three months."

They both look at his hand as she gently kept stroking it. She watched as he took his hand and held it while he now stroked it now. "Are you going to come back after the wedding?" He asked as he slowly looked up at her. She watched his eyes. Those pleading eyes.

As she stared into his eyes, she stepped back. This was wrong. Extremely wrong. She hated him. And now she hated herself. Though both didn't do it, she knew what was about to happen. And then after there would we be regret. He would find a way to blackmail her and admit the feelings she had for them. The feelings she tried to keep deep in her heart.

She stepped back and staring into his confused eyes. She hated those confused eyes; it was made him look like a little boy who wasn't any attention. As intensely she stared into those, just that intensely she made ran out before her heart told her the truth again. The truth-that she was falling in love with him again.

She hated those violet eyes.

Arnav watched from his balcony. Though he was on the freaking eighty-ninth floor in this stupid apartment, he could still easily see her briskly walking on the sidewalk. He wanted to smack himself. Why was he bothered about her going? It's not like he wanted to be with her in the first place.

The Gupta's only had one daughter and he was stuck with her. If it wasn't for that damn deal his father made with his father-in-law few years ago, he probably could save have himself from marrying. He hated marriages and children, while his supposed wife valued both those things. He didn't understand why people even bothered to waste their time by doing stupid rituals and sign a document. Why the hell couldn't people just live together without even doing a damn thing. And then after stupid marriages, you get pressured to have kids. He hated the sight of seeing a kid. Especially Arifa, his brother-in-law's five-year-old. She always broke his phones. He was already on his fifth phone this year. He finally decided to start purchasing cheap phone instead of expensive ones. No matter how much he tried to avoid giving Arifa his phone, that little witch always found a way to dig into her pockets. He even told Rohan, his brother-in-law, in an indirect way about how she needs to be seen before she comes a serial phone snatcher.

As Arnav thought of the evil little witch, he took a deep breath to control himself. He was lucky that scientist haven't found a way to read minds because if they did, then they would discover that Arnav Singh Raizada was scared from kids. He could control anybody from the ages of fourteen and above but the youngsters were his ultimate dread.

As he took another deep breath, he shifted his thoughts to his running away wife. He was topped with overload of contracts that needed to be overlooked and needed to analyze some charts, and on the other side he was busy to busy tracking his wife. He snorts at the thought. Who stalked their own wife, for peek's sake? Even though he loved working, he was really hoping to find just two hours of sleep or possibly just a ten minute nap during the hold day. Even though he was twenty-nine, he wondered everyday if he was going to have a heart attack now or then. Hell, the last time he was at the Doctor's for a physical check-up, his secretary came storming in with fifty calls asking demanding for him after he shut his phone off five minutes ago. Just as Arnav was staring out the window and summary his life, his cell rang.

"Raizada."

"ASR, this is Travis. What do you think of the oil -" Cherchill Travis spoke as Arnav stepped back from the window and dealt with Travis's urgent call.

As he ended his call, he kneeled down to sit on the balcony floor. Even though he never showed any facial expressions, he felt very lonely. He closed his eyes. He slowly smiled to himself as he saw chocolate eyes twinkling with laughter. He remembered those eyes; he remembered when those eyes had twinkled with laughter. It was last year when they went sailing in Ilha Grande, Brazil. It was just the two of them, they snuck out seven in the morning while the rest were sleeping and went sailing. He remembered her laughing as he was telling her a story about how he was banned from a public library in his hometown-Buckinghamshire, for just accidentally leaking in one their seats, even though he was only four. He remembered how she laughed out loud and said he should go back to the library. He remembered how he had smiled after a long time even though she really didn't anything flattering. He remembered how she was wearing a white tank and khaki shorts, during that time her hair was really short.

Arnav suddenly opens his eyes and groans out loud as he gets up and heads inside his eyes. Why the hell was even thinking about her? He didn't even care for her. Hell, he hated the sight of her. He always hated nave people. Especially woman. They always act so nave, like they don't know what the hell is going around, but mostly their the most clever of all. Just like his mom. (in this story...everything is different. This is a modern story. As you can see there is a past to Arnav's life but I will reveal when it is time to be revealed.)