His eyes turned an impenetrable shade of anger combined with passion. It was the same look that had mesmerised her two years ago...
She turned around from the wardrobe to find him staring intently at her, only a few inches or so between them.
Her heart picked up in double time, and her mind cursed her for such a sinful reaction.
"Looking for something?" he whispered, his deep baritone threatening to unhinge her after she had to endure the effect it had on her for the past two days since his arrival.
Geet could only shake her head, feeling the cold of her jhumkas kiss her cheeks slightly. She peered through her eyelashes at his never wavering gaze on her, and used his momentary distraction to slip to her left and swiftly brush past him as she bunched up her sari and ran out of his bedroom.
She was like a tidal wave, he thought as he gripped the cupboard she had been rifling through a few minutes ago. A tempting tidal wave whose beauty and tenacity to never stop moving invited you in, lured you to the unknown depths of the ocean.
Maan shook his head, trying to relieve himself of such thoughts. A few more days, he consoled himself as he slowly made his way out of the room. A few days left until the end of Anvesha's wedding and then he could fly back to Canada, away from the goddess that had infiltrated his thoughts and the sizzling attraction between them which was dangerously close to being set alight.
He stepped closer, and she could have sworn that he knew she was recalling the memories.
"I don't regret kissing you," he stated calmly.
The fury blazed in her eyes once more. "And you don't regret the damage it caused to my life."
"You wanted me to kiss you as much as I wanted to kiss you. Just as much as you wanted me to-"
She held her hand up, her eyes squeezed shut, not daring herself to wander back to such events.
"It was meant to happen," he tried again, not willing to let her shut herself away anymore. Not now, not when she was stood in front of him, not when it was just the two of them after so long. Not when all he wanted was to heal her pain.
Geet's lips trembled as she dared herself to look him in the eye and face his statement. She knew he was right; when she had seen him for the first time, there was an inexplicable pull that she felt towards him.
But then along with that pull came the all consuming guilt, the guilt that she had felt back then and the guilt she felt now. Even though she was no longer one half of her husband, he still lived inside of her somewhere.
Maan saw the torment in her expression and he understood. Just as he had understood then, whenever he stole a glance at her or sinfully stole a few moments away with her. The first kiss, the several kisses that had followed and finally the kiss a few months ago which had changed everything.
Amidst her feelings for him, lay the feelings she felt for Dev. Dev, her first love, husband, companion, everything. It had tore him apart acknowledging their relationship for the past two years, living with the fact that she was his sister in law by rights, and therefore a forbidden fruit - it still tore him apart here, standing before her, to know that a part of Dev would always live within her.
He would live within Geet as guilt. Guilt for what she ruined by her attraction towards him, the passion that she couldn't extinguish, the love that she couldn't deny.
"I can't ever forget him, Maan," Geet said, exhaling sharply, letting the salty sea air sting her throat. "I stopped loving him in a romantic way, but I will always love him for being a part of me, for understanding me better than I have ever possibly understood myself."
"You feel guilty. You have felt the guilt from the first moment you let another man other than your husband make your heart beat, up until here and now."
"I will always feel guilty. Guilt is a pain which never ceases to exist," she sniffled, staring out at the crashing waves, letting their movement carry her words away. "It intensifies, then it fades away. An action or a memory triggers it off again and then it is forgotten. But never does guilt rot away. It eats you up inside until you can bear it no more, and you let it consume you whole."
He stepped forward, unsure of whether it was the chill of the night which caused his body to shiver or the raw agony that existed in her words.
"Do you love me, Geet?" and she looked up, her mind registering the question that he had asked for the first time and possibly the last.
"Yes," she answered without hesistation. "But the love I feel for you cannot overpower the turmoil within me that will always rage on. I do not blame Dev for marrying me, or you for appearing into our lives and letting me fall in love with you. I blame myself for being a weak creature, for ruining simultaneous lives at once."
Maan reached out for her hand but she moved her own away, shaking her head. "This is nothing new in today's world, countless cases of infidelity and falling for the wrong person have passed my ears and eyes. But perhaps I underestimated myself, for thinking I was a rock who can survive turbulent waves when in reality I am a leaf, one breeze of a soft caressing wind and I fall."
His bare feet sunk into the sand as his heart willed himself to soothe her, but his mind instructed him to respect her wishes. If he wanted her as ardently as he proclaimed to himself day and night, he wouldn't pursue her with the lust as he had in the past - but rather, he would allow his love, for once in his life, to let her heal, until she was ready and willing to fall into his arms forever - as he had been pining for since the first time he'd laid eyes on here.
But then her 'Goodbye, Maan' and the piercing pain in her eyes left his pulse racing with an anxious fear, and he was so taken aback by her sudden reaction that all he could do was watch her figure walk away from him, over the sandy plains of the beach and out of his sight.
He let the crashing waves engulf his thoughts as he closed his eyes and realised that she had bestowed her final goodbye. He would never see her again.
CID
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Ghum Hai Kisikey Pyaar Meiin
909