It was only after midnight that Khushi finally got a hold on herself and her emotions. She was walking down the corridor of the hotel to the room which was booked to keep all the dresses of the show.
Now was her only chance to get this work done. The show was two days away and her confidence had slowly fallen to come to a point that she was not sure of anything anymore.
She had lost trust in everything. There was no way that things would be fine anymore, she knew that.
Reaching in front of the room door, she slowly took out the card. Looking around to check if anyone had seen her and finding herself alone, she inserted the card and the door was unlocked.
Checking one last time, if she had been caught, she hurriedly went inside and closed the door, missing the eyes of a person who had been hiding and looking at her.
Arnav was sitting near the window and looking out, waiting for Aman to call and give him the information about the mystery man when he heard his phone ring and immediately picked it up.
"Yes La?"
"ASR, I just saw Khushi entering the room with all the dresses. How did she even get the keys to the room?" asked a concerned yet angry Lavanya.
When she had seen khushi entering the room, La had gotten a fair idea of what Khushi was up to. But she wasn't going to let her succeed in her plan.
"ASR, why did you give her the card for the room?"
"I never gave her the card. Infact I still have the card..." he said, putting his hand in his coat pocket and realized the card was not there.
Hurriedly getting up, he checked all his pockets to find them empty only to realize what had happened.
Ofcourse, it had to be her work.
"La, I had met Khushi this evening and when I was going to leave she had asked me to hug her and..." his voice trailed off.
"Tell me you're lying." She said, realization striking her.
Khushi had always been the person to play pranks and today she knew what her silly pranks had come down to.
"I... I'll be right there." And the call was cut with Arnav running out of his room towards the other room.
He reached there in no time and saw Lavanya still standing there with the phone near her ear. She was shocked. Her Khushi had never been this way. What had suddenly happened to her.
Arnav shook her back to earth.
"La, where are you lost?" he asked, concerned.
"ASR, she...she's not our Khushi. Our Khushi would never do something like this." She replied with tears glistening in her eyes.
"I know La. She isn't our Khushi. Our Khushi is stronger than this. Don't worry, we will get our answers today."
He had just moved a step towards the room when La held him back and said,
"No. Don't. We can't be so sure that there isn't anyone around here. I'm sure there must be someone keeping an eye on Khushi. If we go in the room, they will see us. Lets just wait here and see if we can find any clue."
He knew she was right. They couldn't be so irresponsible. Khushi had done everything to make sure nothing happened to him and with one wrong move, he could destroy it all.
They stood outside for 10 minutes, looking around to find any clue when they saw a slim figure walking towards them. Hurriedly hiding behind a pillar, they saw the person walking towards the room and were not surprised to see who it was.
Haven't they been suspecting her for a very long time? They saw her walk into the same room as Khushi and silently followed her to peep in and see what was happening.
They tried hard, yet couldn't hear their talks but they saw that the lady looked extremely angry when suddenly she raised her hand and had slapped Khushi.
Arnav was going to barge into the room to give the lady a taste of her own medicine when La held his hand and stopped him. He looked towards her in shock and saw her recording everything on her phone.
La looked at him and nodded asking him not to go in. he curled his hands in a fist, wanting to break something but held himself back.
They looked inside the room once again and saw the lady coming out of the room and they immediately hid themselves. Once she had gone, they saw Khushi coming out of the room, her one hand on her right cheek while tears cascaded down.
They saw her slowly walk away and into her room.
Arnav turned towards La angrily while she looked at him with a straight face. He was really angry on her for not letting him go inside.
"Why did you stop me? That girl, she needed to know what the consequences of her work were." He bit out.
"ASR, why are you getting so worked up? Please calm down. We would not have been able to do anything right now. Lets wait for Aman to come up with all the details about the man and once we have all the proofs we will make sure they are behind bars. Just one more day. Please." She tried to make him understand.
"Fine. One last day, after that I am going to personally make sure that they are never seen again."
And he was gone. He needed to be alone right now. His anger was reaching to its edge and he wanted to blast out on someone.
*****
The next morning the whole hotel was buzzing with people. Everyone was hurriedly doing all the last minute work while Arnav was sitting in his temporary cabin and going through some paper work that Khushi had got.
He was trying very hard to concentrate on the file instead of the red mark on Khushi's cheek which she had unsuccessfully tried to hide.
He heard the cabin door opening and saw Aman standing with a file in his hand and a serious look on his face. He immediately understood what the file was. Signaling Aman to come in, he stretched out his hand and took the file.
"Thanks Aman. You can go now. Check on all the models please." Aman nodded and left.
He handed the files back to Khushi and said.
"You look tired. Take the rest of the day off, Sugar." He said in a soft tone.
"That's okay. There's loads of pending work which I need to finish." She replied in a voice void of any emotion.
"I will finish up the work, Sugar. You will have loads to do tomorrow. Take a break please." He tried once again, when Khushi looked at him in anger.
"I am not someone special, sir. Please don't treat me different from all the other employees. Now if you'd excuse me, I have some work to be finished." And she walked out of the place.
Arnav looked at her retreating back wondering what had suddenly happened to her. She might be stressed out about everything happening and so he left her to be alone. There was no point of talking to her right now.
He looked at the file in his hand and opened it. Turning through the pages he got to know everything that had been happening.
He asked Lavanya and NK to come to his cabin so they could read the file. While they were engrossed in the file, arnav's anger was reaching a new level altogether.
He had a glass of water in his hand on whose his hold was getting tighter by the second.
While everyone was working outside the cabin, they heard a sudden noise of some glass breaking. Looking towards the cabin, they saw Arnav's hand bleeding with broken glass pieces scattered on the floor.
Khushi's eyes got widened in fear as she threw the file from her hand and ran towards the direction of the noise.
Holding his hand with horror stricken eyes she started blabbering in a hyper manner.
"What the hell is this? What were you thinking? Cant you take care of yourself? What if something happened to you? I would have died if..." she never got to complete because there was a hand covering her mouth.
"Don't. You. Dare. Even. Say. That." He bit out.
His voice was cold but his eyes were soft with love at her concern for him. Khushi looked at him for a few seconds before she remembered about his hand.
Quickly asking La to get her the first aid kit, she cleaned his cut and bandaged it while Arnav gazed at her with love.
The rest of the audience was stunned to silence. They all had a vague idea that something was going on between their boss and his PA but now that they had finally witnessed it, they were shocked to see the amount of love and concern that dripped from their mouth and eyes.
Khushi was looking into his eyes which were trying to assure her that he was okay and there was nothing that could harm him while Khushi silently took in the warmth radiating from his being.
They were in their own world when they heard someone clearing their throat and turned around to see Shanaya throwing arrows at Khushi.
Arnav felt Khushi stiffen by his side. Before he could say anything, Khushi walked out of the cabin leaving a smiling Shanaya who was looking at him.
"Do you want something, Shanaya?" he asked, as his anger returned.
"No. I was just checking if your hand is okay." She asked, advancing towards him to check his palm.
"Its okay, Shanaya. You may leave. We all have work to do." He replied, stopping her on her tracks as she huffed and left the cabin.
As soon as she left, Arnav noticed the crowd that had assembled outside his cabin whom he glared at as they scurried their way back to work.
Turning towards Lavanya and NK, he saw them looking equally angry about the file.
"So, I guess we know what we have to do?" he said.
"Yes we do. Lets get started." Came NK's curt reply as he and La walked out.
Arnav looked at the name in the file with an evil smile on his face.
"You will never know what hit you Shanaya Thakkar and Abhinav Sharma."
Current Affairs
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