CHAPTER ONE
"Sooner or later. you will surely choose to marry someone,' Brijesh Singh pointed out, his emphasis of that last word relutant. 'Why not Saloni Singh?'
Nahar made no response. One one level, he could not believe that this peculiar conversation was actually taking place. Once he would have laughed in his brother's face at the very idea of an arranged marriage since his brother was always against arranged marriage" its new generation Papa...let us decide who we want to spend our lives with" Brijesh always said that. To prove that he had married a gem of a person, his beautiful SIL Tara. But, for almost two years, Nahar had been living in a hell of grief from which he only escaped when he burried himself in work. In a desperate attempt to obliterate the yawning emptiness inside him, he had flung himself into a series of wild affairs but no miracle had followed. Indeed, if anything, these shallow entanglements had left him with a sour taste in his mouth.
'It is an honour that Narpat Singh should have approached our family with the offer of his daughter.' Brijesh continued with quiet persistence, watching his volatile brother with hopeful measuring eyes for his reaction. 'He has a very hard regard for your business acumen and his health has been troubling him.He needs a son-in-law whom he can trust.'
Nahar was grimly amused by that clever speech, which suggested that a marriage arranged between families rather than young people concerned as as common an event as it had once been in India --- for it was anything but. "Saloni is a well brought-up and decent young women,' Brijesh continued with determination, convinced that only such a marriage would have the power to remove his brother from the partying, headline grabbing lifestyle that was currently breaking his adoring mother's heart. 'I see no reason why---given time---you shouldn't find happiness with her.'
No reason? Btterness hardned Nahar's lean, powerful face, his brilliant eyes darkening. He could no longer imagine being happy with any women. But Chandni, the women he loved beyond any other, was gone. But then the issue of his late fiancee was not a subject his brother would care to tackle, for the elder man was no hypocrite.
Nahar's conservative family had hated Chandni and had refused to accept her as a bride for him. Her wild-child reputation and chequered past had offended their sensibilities. When he had put an engagement ring on her finger, his brother had been outraged and his Bhabho had wept, and for months afterwords Nahar had cut his family out of his life. Only in the wake of Chandni's death had the divisions begun to heel and, even then, only because he had initially been in such a haze of despair that he had been incapable of rousing himself to the effort of rejecting his family.
Yet since then every business deal he had touched had turned to solid gold. He was now infinitely richer than his brother had ever been for, while Brijesh had inherited his shipping fortune and merely conserved it, Nahar had gone into venture capital and software development, taking risks that his more cautious brother would never have taken. It was ironic that only his massive monetary gains in recent months could have put him in a position where the millionaire tycoon, Narpat Singh, would consider him as a potential son-in-law.
'I have never even met Mr. Narpat's daughter.' Nahar said drily. 'You have,' Brijesh said. 'According to Mr. Narpat, you met Saloni when you spent the night in his holiday home.' In his turn, Nahar frowned, but even more darkly. A couple of months back, his car had run into difficulty on rough roads. Luckily the only house nearby was of Mr Narpat Singh and Nahar was welcomed there lavishly. But, plunder his memory as Nahar did, he could not recall the young women that night. Apart from the housekeeper who had shown him to his suite he hadn't met anyone due to the late hour.
'Let me refresh your memory.' Brijesh breathed in some discomfiture, evidently having hoped that his brother would recall the young women without the prompting of the photograph he now set down on the table. Nahar focused on the photo with surprise and instant recognition. He muttered a sudden curse and reached for the picture. Having been taken in profile, it was not a very good shot, but he remembered that submissive bent head, that dark hair pulled back in severe style and those fragile facial features without makeup.
'I thought she was the housekeeper!' Nahar confessed with a sound of frank disbelief. 'She behaved like a maid, not like the daughter of the house. That timid thing was Saloni Singh?'
Will be continued
Love Simz
Edited by simran20 - 18 years ago
Ufff Yeh Love Hai Mushkil
