Ishqbaaz FF: Consequences. Chapter 15 on Page 39 (02/08/17) - Page 20

~~[CHAPTER ELEVEN- B E A S T & B A B Y]~~

Among the Oberoi Brothers it had always been Shivaay the Businessman, Omkara the Artist and Rudra?

Rudra the Other One.

He was the playboy and he was the joker and he was the ball of unending joyful energy which acted to balance out the darkness that at times threatened to overwhelm several members of his family. He was taken for granted and never taken seriously and usually, usually he didn't mind. He knew his own value so what did it matter if nobody else did?

But today he was having difficulty remembering that. Today the trademarked Oberoi Darkness usually kept firmly locked and sealed somewhere deep inside him was demanding to come out and roar.

The problem was, the only outlet it currently had was Soumya. And the part of him which retained control, the Rudra Singh Oberoi who was okay with being the third brother told the beast that it was not to unfurl its claws in order to lash out and damage her.

He had been brooding since they got back to the hotel, refusing to answer her questions with anything but grunts and then lying on the bed with his back to her as she ordered from room service and ate. She ordered something for him, and it was definitely what he would have ordered himself if he had answered her the multiple times she asked him what he wanted... but his mood was so foul that he simply ignored both it and the protests from his ravenous stomach.

He could feel the anger and the annoyance bubbling beneath the surface and he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists and closed his eyes to try to will the beast, as he had dubbed it when it first reared its head in his childhood, back down into submission.

But it refused to heel.

He wasn't sure exactly what snapped the last fine threads of the leash.

Maybe Soumya scraped her knife across the plate just a little too loud? Perhaps her fork clattered just a little too much as she dropped it on the table.

His body moved almost before he knew what he was doing, had Soumya gasping and pressed against the arm of the sofa she had been sitting on before her brain could register what was going on. Both their bodies were held at awkward positions, legs and arms half on and half off the narrow sofa. He read the blind panic in her eyes as her hands came up and gripped his wrists. Was she really scared of him? The thought made the beast within him snarl with fury, Rudra not sure whether it was angrier at her or at him. She wriggled beneath him.

He let go of her. Got up. Let her sit up and catch her breath as she adjusted the off-the-shoulder shirt which had slipped dangerously low as she had squirmed against him in her attempt to get free. She stood up and walked towards him until she was so close he could smell the fresh, clean scent of her skin, that something else beneath it which was uniquely Soumya and which he had spent a large part of the previous night inhaling deep into his memory. She tilted her head back and glared at him, an accusatory finger coming up and pointing right between his eyes. "What you just did was unacceptable Rudra."

He looked away, chastised. "I know."

"A mumbled acknowledgement is not what I want to hear, Rudra."

"I'm sorry."

"Look at me as you say it."

He met her eyes, still blazing with anger. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that, I shouldn't have scared you I just..." He looked away again as the expression in her eyes softened, became concerned. The beast inside needed her affection as strongly as it despised itself for needing it.

Her hand on his cheek. Her arm around his waist. Her body pressed against his. He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her waist. "I'm sorry Soumya." It came from both parts of him this time. The beast hung its head, ashamed for scaring her but still thrumming with a torrent of emotion which needed release.

He'd had enough. Placing his arms under Soumya's thighs, he lifted her up so that her legs instinctively wrapped around his hips and her arms wound round the back of his neck. Her eyes widened as they looked into his. "Rudra, put me down! I'm too heavy for you to-" he kissed her then, not wanting to hear any more. He didn't think about consequences and he couldn't bear to have Soumya lay all the potential ones out before him. She surrendered to the heat of the kiss for only a moment before pulling back and looking at him again, worry etched into every line of her face. "Rudra, will this make you feel better?"

No, he thought, it probably wouldn't.

He hitched her up higher, held her tighter, kissed her deeper.

Again she pulled back. "Is this really what you want to do?"

The beast answered for him, dropping her down on the bed trapping her by kneeling with his knees either side of her hips, pulling his t-shirt off as he did so. He saw her vision glaze over as it stroked over his body, her hands quickly following its lead.

He groaned, yanking down her t-shirt and exposing the soft, pale skin of her torso. Lowering his mouth and placing kisses down her neck, on the swells of her breasts which were not covered by the forest green lace bra with embroidered golden flowers. And that was when he saw the tiny bit of plastic stuck in one of the straps which meant she had bought it recently. Probably today.

Something about that made him stop, the beast within frozen as though by a sudden and fierce yank on its leash.

"Rudra?" Soumya struggled until she finally managed to sit up. "What's wrong?"

"I-"

He shook his head, unable to articulate exactly what had happened. He had been about to use Soumya. There was no other way to put it. He had been about to use her and sex with her as the metaphorical lonely cliff from which he could scream until his lungs ached in order to relieve his tension. He had been about to do something completely and utterly selfish to a woman who had gone out and bought a bra completely inadequate for purpose... simply because he would see it. For a woman who was willing to let him do this if he truly thought it was what he wanted to do. If this was what would truly make him feel better.

They could not be friends with benefits and Rudra had been stupid to even suggest it. He knew that now, should've known it then. Soumya was more. Soumya meant more.

The beast was the part of Rudra which hid in the darkest corners of his spirit and his soul and he needed Soumya to see it. He needed her to extend her warmth and her open love to it as she had extended it to Rudra her best friend. In Soumya's eyes, he didn't want to be the last choice and he didn't want to be just 'the other Oberoi'.

He wanted to be Rudra.

The real Rudra.

And he wanted her to love him anyway.

"We need to talk."

"""""""""""""""""

She gripped the teacup the way she had been taught. Index finger through the handle, thumb resting on the top of the handle while her middle finger steadied the handle by resting just underneath. She knew that it was hilariously poor etiquette to stick the little finger out, and sneered silently at anyone who did. No, Tia Singh Oberoi's ring and little fingers curved in towards her wrist as she took small, slow sips. No slurping allowed from the Queen of High Society.

To be honest, Tia couldn't give two fractions of a shit about any of it. She just did it because it was habit, instinct almost. And because it was expected.

As it was expected of her to be sitting here beside her husband's bedside as he recovered from the fever which had rendered him unconscious for the past few days.

Tia was not a vindictive person. She truly believed that the misery that had befallen her following her marriage to Shivaay was the universe punishing her for her deceitful behaviour, for her hurting Daksh repeatedly as she tried to juggle her relationship with and feelings for him with her engagement to Shivaay, and most of all for the terrible way she had treated Anika when the other woman had presented herself as a genuine threat to Tia's own marriage of convenience.

It had made her feel bad, but she had bargained with the universe that she shouldn't be punished for it because as far as Anika knew, she was trying to steal a man away from Tia and so Tia was just punishing Anika before the universe had to. But obviously the universe knew that for the total bullshit it had been.

Tia's mother, the 'honourable' Mrs Kapoor had forced Tia to marry into the Oberoi family, whatever the cost. The Khurana family, as prestigious and wealthy as they were, were not Oberois. And so Daksh was not enough. "Tia, you will either marry Shivaay or you will cease to be my daughter. If you insist upon maintaining this dalliance with the Khurana boy, I hear the Oberois aren't too bothered by the occasional discreet affair..."

The very idea had sickened her at first, but so too had the thought of losing Daksh. So she had juggled both and Daksh had agreed to play along. For a time.

After the wedding, things had changed. Tia's priorities had had to change and she found less and less time for Daksh and she knew it was upsetting him, until finally, about two months after she became Mrs Tia Singh Oberoi, Daksh had told her he couldn't do it any longer. He couldn't bear not only not being her first priority, but simply having no priority in her life.

It wasn't true, and if Tia could have found a way to spend more time with him without having the rest of her world come crumbling down, she would have... but circumstances had made such a thing impossible.

And so two years had passed with Tia flitting from faceless man to nameless man as the love of her life moved abroad to get away from the temptation of her and her husband remained trapped in the memories of another woman.

Nobody was happy, nobody. Nobody, that is, except for Mrs Kapoor. She got to tell all the other women how her daughter was married to the eldest son of the Oberoi family. The heir to the fortune. The best of the brothers. It was disgusting. It disgusted Tia, but what could she do?

And then one day, she suddenly realised... there was a hell of a lot that she could do.

The first thing she had done was cut Mrs Kapoor out of her life. "You are no longer permitted access to my bank accounts, you are no longer welcome at the Oberoi Mansion, and you are no longer to use my name for anything. Forget that you had a daughter named Tia and never show your face in front of me again."

Tia felt that the universe would forgive her for cutting her mother out of her life, after all, the woman was the root of all the negativity and toxicity in her life. If she didn't cut it out, then Tia knew she would doubtless become infected by her rot again.

Then, Tia called a lawyer. It had taken a month, but he successfully completed all of the tasks she assigned. She was sitting holding a pile of them right now. Waiting for Shivaay to wake up.

As Shivaay gave the first groan, Tia stilled and then put down her teacup- careful not to rattle it or the saucer, darling, that isn't how it's done.

She watched as her husband's eyes flickered open, and she carried on watching as the tears began to roll silently down his eyes, backwards into his hair and onto the pillow. "Anika." The whisper raw and the final push Tia needed to undo her role in this theatre of tragic mistakes. She stood up and straightened her dress and then walked over to the bed in which she had spent so many loveless nights. Shivaay turned his head, ever so slightly, to look at her. But he did not see her.

She wondered, for a second, if he ever had.

It didn't matter.

She picked up the thick manila envelope from the bedside table and dropped it with a soft thud onto the bed beside Shivaay. "Goodbye Shivaay baby. I'm sorry and I hope the universe brings you the happiness you deserve. The happiness we both deserve." She added the last line quietly as she left the bedroom, closing the doors with a click behind her.

"Shivaay is awake." She informed the family, and both Jhanvi and Pinky sprang up from their half-eaten dinners to rush to Shivaay's side.

It was there that as Pinky hugged her son tightly to her chest, Jhanvi opened the envelope and pulled out the sheaf of papers and quickly scanned through them, her heart racing as she looked from the papers, to Shivaay, back to the papers.

'I need a f**king drink.' Was the primary thought in her mind, but Jhanvi had been sober since Tej left and was determined to stay so until he returned. When she had almost caved upon waking up that morning, she reminded herself that if she stopped drinking until he came back, then the alcohol would be more effective if and when she drank it in the aftermath of the fallout from his return.

Jhanvi picked up and read the post-it Tia had attached to the top sheet.

I've signed where needed. I'm okay with Pre-Nup division of assets. You keep yours and I'll keep mine. I'll send for my things. Be free, Shivaay Baby. Be happy.

Love, Tia.

Jhanvi looked at the woman who was her sister and the man who may as well have been her son and wondered how she should tell them. 'I seriously need a drink.'

""""""""""

She was sitting on the bench and staring out across the lake.

It was, he thought, quite cliche. But it seemed to make her feel better. Anika had sat there for the past few hours and took breaks to stare out at the water between making seemingly endless phone calls as she went through a list of appointments she had to rearrange or reassign over the next few weeks.

Tej watched his daughter in law from nearby, impressed by her efficiency and intellect. He knew it was no simply task to shuffle so many tasks and people and clients in such a short amount of time, and he was oddly proud of her for being able to do so.

He watched as she sighed and finally closed her diary and put her phone back in her bag. She was watching two of the ducks chasing each other around the lake when Tej finally sat down on the bench beside her. "Good afternoon, Anika."

He smiled politely as Anika turned to face him, mouth quite literally hanging open in shock.

Chapter Twelve- Father & Daughter